As I have wrote before, the C130s were not the only supply airplanes which broke the british isolation around MLV.
The Argentine Navy had continued its supply flights to Pto Argentino using Electras.
The father of my best friend was Electra’s Flight Engeneer in those flights.
He has 9 landings in MLV, 2 of those at night.
We are very good friends, but he didn’t like to talk about it.
Anyway, I was chating with him today, and I asked about how they landed in the Pto Argentino landing stripe.
He told me that the flights were at very low altitude, the navigation was using its own INS.
They only climbed for a quick radar scan looking for goblins / “DUENDES”.
The radar at the islands were not capable of taking them until they were very close.
The landing stripe was marked at night using trash cans burning fuel.
So it is amazing the UK’s guys couldn’t see those operations.
After the war, my friend left the Navy and worked for a freighter company using also an Electra.
After a couple of year of South American flights, the company wet lease the airplane to an UK company.
My friend was flying there for almost one year, and he was talking with british people who were in the other side and they said that they took those flights as MEDEVAC that’s why they didn’t shot down the Electras.
The painting scheme of the Electras was airliners type.
Cheers from Taipei.
Ariel
Many thanks for that information. One point though; after a period of time the British ships (mainly Type 42) would wait in the dark of night to ambush the inbound/outbound flights from PS airport. These flights were virtually impossible to detect let alone identify.
My ship, HMS Cardiff, went on many such missions and we would attempt to shoot down ANY aircraft that we saw trying land or take off from PS airport.
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