Seeing the tanker explanation and the C-130 pic in the last day or so reminded me of a story I heard in my youth when I was taking flying lessons in Chipmunks at RAF Manston in Kent as part of the air cadets.
Manston is on a large flat plain that is otherwise fairly empty close to the channel coast, but there are some trees around, some of which can be fairly tall, and the chipmunk has a fixed undercarriage.
The story goes that a chipmunk damaged its undercarriage by hitting the top branches of the tree while being brought into land by the instructor.
The accident investigators were given a consistent story by the pilot and all of the people on the base who claimed to see the accident - there was a sudden downdraught as the pilot was on final and there was nothing that he could do. The only report inconsistent with that was the student in the back seat whose report stated that shortly before the accident he heard the pilot mutter "Oh shit, I'm going to make a right balls up of this one".
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