Operation Megalithic Lift - The Stones and the Stars: Building Scotland's Newest Megalith - page 193

report from me that he had requested. Then he picked it up, and his
eyes bulged. “My God! Naval explosives experts - helicopters…”
“You told me to be self-motivated and get on with it,” I
pointed out.
“Oh, I did - I'm very pleased - I just hadn't quite expected
this…” But he quickly rallied and focused on the MoD opposi-
tion to the helicopter plan. Within a week he had mobilized the
support of multiple local councilors and members of Parliament,
and although the MoD put obstacles in our path all the way to the
event, suddenly the helicopter lift was on. We had to show that the
job could not be done by a commercial company, but that wasn't
hard. Apart from the cost of hiring a Sea King helicopter (£3,500
per hour), none could be spared from North Sea operations.
The Navy threw themselves into 'Operation Megalithic Lift'
with a will; in fact, they gave us only 14 days to prepare for it.
The commanding officer of HMS Gannet, Lieutenant-Commander
Fraser Hutchinson, came to visit the project on March 2, and since
the 819 Squadron had major defense commitments in the spring,
and must always have a helicopter on standby for rescue opera-
tions, the megalith operation had to be carried out before the end
of the month.
Setting up the meeting, Ken Naylor told me, “If you have
any homework still to do for this, I want it on my desk tomorrow
morning!” He didn't know what he was asking. Our successful ses-
sion with the survey team had only just taken place, and I still had
to transfer the results to fresh prints of the working photographs,
let alone do the graphical calculations. Fortunately, by pure chance
Tony Crerar from Wales (Chap. 4 ) was visiting me in Irvine at the
time. He stayed up with me through the night, keeping me plied
with cups of coffee and helpful suggestions, and I finished just in
time to catch the 8.30 train and have the results on Ken's desk for
10 a.m. as specified. He had the grace to say, “I didn't realize how
much work there was in this,” to which I replied, “In that case,
with your permission, I'm taking the rest of the day off and going
to bed!” I used to pull 'all-nighters' regularly when I was a student,
and from time to time as a writer, but at age 34, married, and in
the middle of the working week, it was a different proposition.
We had known for some time that the normal lift capacity
of the Sea King, fully fueled, was 3 metric tons, 6,000 lb. (Much