All British Tridents gone by 1986

[MARK9263]

Could anybody shed more light on the withdrawal of the Trident fleet, partucularly the T.3's as, by todays standards, they had a very short life span and were all withdrawn by the end of 1985.
Was it to do with impending noise restrictions, or were there other factors ? :(:(



Regards
Mark

[avionic type]

Economics [3 outdated engines] noise and the introduction of the B737-200 and the B757 far more fuel efficent . but it was a sad time for those of us who worked on them when they were in service when the last one went .

[Groundloop]

Chapter 2/Stage 2 noise regulations came in to force on 1st January 1986.

The Trident did not meet these new regulations and BA's last Trident operations were on 31st December 1985. They finished with simultaneous approaches to 27L and 27R at Heathrow - one was service flight and one was a charter. Certain people on both flights could then spend hours arguing that THEY were on the last Trident service!

[MARK9263]

Thanks for the replies.
Seems to me things didnt need to be SO 'rigid'.
Why couldnt the Trident be exempt from these noise regulations ? If only short term, exemptions had happened before as I'm thinking of BAC 1-11s well into the 1990's.
Would it have been so expensive to replace the engines on a reduced number of Tridents, in the light of the short life some of these aircraft had?

[Jhieminga]

Would it have been so expensive to replace the engines on a reduced number of Tridents, in the light of the short life some of these aircraft had?
Re-engining programs are massive undertakings and only economically viable if there are large numbers of airframes to be converted. The only 1st/2nd generation airliners that have been succesfully re-engined are the 707/KC-135 and the DC-8. It has been proposed for many others but I'm having trouble pointing to another succesfull program.

Also I think that the BAC 1-11 was able to conform to stage II regs. It was the stage III regulations that finally drove the 1-11 out of Europe.

[avionic type]

What engine could have been fitted? all the engine manufactures were developing the "big fan engines "ie RB211 etc and the Trident airframe was too small to accept those it would have sat on its tail and the BAC 111 modified exhaust system reduced the the power of the engine and the Trident was reluctant to take off until it got to a high takeoff speed it wasn't called the "Ground Gripper" for nothing and needed the 4th engine in hot climates to get airborn , though we were very sorry to see it go it went at the right time and I worked it from 1963 to 1986 so it was a big chunk of my life.:{:{:{

[Shaggy Sheep Driver]

They developed an RB211 mount for testing on a VC10. Why wasn't that adapted to re-engine VC10s with 2 RB211s in place of 4 Conways?

I flew on G-AWZO on 31st Dec 1985 from Manchester on a 'Trident farewell' flight. We did a low pass at Liverpool and at Ronaldsway (it was a wet day, so we didn't see much!), then a go-around off 06 at MAN before a rather ropey full stop. That aeroplane that evening flew the last scheduled BA Trident flight as the Heathrow Shuttle. As it took off from Man, the controller's last words to it on handover was "and don't bring it back!"

Boy, were they noisy!

ZO was supposed to be going into preservation at Hatfield, but I saw her about 10 years ago when she was a hulk, having stood unloved at Hatfield since the mid 80s. She was broken up on site shortly afterwards.

[avionic type]

Regarding the RB211 mod on the VC 10 wasn't it an RAF one and after 1 was fitted in place of the 2 on one side, after the tests and after it was demodded it was returned to the RAF with an allegedly twisted fuselage and had to be "Reduced to Spares "? If this is wrong I Apologise. I believe the Spey as fitted to the Trident was to say the least an after thought as the original engine Rolls was going to build for the aircraft was never put into production as the Trident was made smaller at BEAs request and made it a non comercial aircraft to other airlines so wasn't worth it and the Spey was "plucked off the shelf".

[Jhieminga]

Correct on both counts avionic-type.

The VC10 was modified to test the RB211 but with an engine mount that mimicked the Tristar installation. This was visible as the pylon-like bit above the engine. This installation was quite heavy and wouldn't have made the VC10 any more economic than it already was. As you mention, the fuselage turned out to be distorted at the end of the trials so G-AXLR/XR809 never flew again. More info and photos here: Histories - XR809 (http://www.vc10.net/History/Individual/XR809.html)

SSD: As I said before re-engining just isn't profitable for a small set of airframes. Also in those days ETOPS was something very new, a twin engined-VC10 would for a lot of operators have been a very unattractive proposition as it limited its routings. And getting such an airframe into ETOPS regulations then would have meant far more modifications!

As for the Trident, it was originally going to be a larger airframe with RR Medway engines. BEA wanted it scaled down and so they did. In the meantime Boeing had a look at the original specs, built the 727 to match them (approximately, the story is a bit longer of course) and the rest is history.

[Wander00]

Ref Post 6, don't quite understand reference to "fourth engine" - was that just a "wished we had", or am I missing something?

[Jhieminga]

The Trident 3B variant had a RB162 booster engine fitted above the No.2 Spey. This added 15% thrust for 5% more weight and was only used during take-off and climb out when needed. See here: Hawker Siddeley Trident - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawker_Siddeley_Trident#Trident_3B)

[scotbill]

The Trident 3 was fitted with a boost engine (above No 2 - not below - although it was below the intake for No 2) which could be fired up for T/O thereby permitting a higher MTOW.
It produced about 5000 pounds of thrust and had simple switch-operated power settings.

[Groundloop]

Why couldnt the Trident be exempt from these noise regulations ? If only short term, exemptions had happened before as I'm thinking of BAC 1-11s well into the 1990's.

Why should it have been exempted? What is the point of noise limits if they are not applied?

Also I think that the BAC 1-11 was able to conform to stage II regs. It was the stage III regulations that finally drove the 1-11 out of Europe.

The 111 only met Stage 2 regs if it was hush-kitted. The was also a Stage III hush-kit developed for the 111 but the market was not big enough to take it to certification.

There were simply not enought Tridents about to warrant even the development of a Stage II hush-kit.

[MARK9263]

Why should it have been exempted? What is the point of noise limits if they are not applied?

Because it had had a relatively short career


There were simply not enought Tridents about to warrant even the development of a Stage II hush-kit.

Cost prohibitive, or no will to do it ?

[The SSK]

ICAO rules are arrived at by consensus.
If BA had *really* wanted the Trident to fly on after 1985, the rules would have been redesigned, or the timeframe adapted, to fit. The various Chapters have never grounded viable aircraft to any significant degree.

[Wander00]

Thanks for "fourth engine" info - thought I was well-read on aviation topics, but that little snippet I did not know.

[MARK9263]

If BA had *really* wanted the Trident to fly on after 1985, the rules would have been redesigned, or the timeframe adapted, to fit.

I personally think you are bang on the money!

[scotbill]

Fuel cost was also a factor. Each RB211 on the B757 produced more thrust than all 3 Speys and both RB211s together used less fuel than the 3 Speys.
BA got the early 757s at a bargain price as one of the launch customers.

The really fascinating story is that Hawker Siddley produced a draft for a Trident successor in the mid-60s. It had twin engines under the wings and the dimensions were almost identical to the 757 (which started coming off the production lines in 1982). Even more interestingly it had a low horizontal tail as in the production 757 - which was originally planned to have the 727 high tail arrangement.

Did Hawker Siddeley designers end up in Seattle?

[Groundloop]

Those people who claim that if BA had REALLY wanted to keep Tridents flying then they could have got the noise regs changed are living in cloud cuckoo land. There had been years of discussion and argument before Stage II was agreed.

The only solution for BA would have been to develop a hush-kit. It was simply not economically viable - partly because of low market size and also because the Trident was getting expensive to operate anyway. Also if you look at the hush-kit for the Speys on the 111 it would have looked REALLY interesting on the Trident's number 2 engine!

Simply saying they had not been in service long is no argument whatsoever.

[tornadoken]

You must ask why:
JT8D outsold, well, everything else combined;
all the vendor items from various HamStans outsold Jenny & Piles, Mechanisms and the rest;
DC-9, in its multiple iterations, outsold 1-11s (and Sud Caravelle, Dassault Mercure, VFW-614);
727, in its constant Product Development, outsold Tridents, and BEAC extracted operating cost compensation, before being permitted to take 737/200ADV.

Clues: cents per available seat mile; JT8D-15 became cursed in Overhaul shops: >10,000hr. TBO in 1970s. And, a strange concept alien to UK/European (still, today, Russian) aero-industry: Product Support, someone who cares...after 1600hr. Friday, anytime in August.

[scotbill]

The 3 engine concept was a British invention in the De Havilland 121. DH thought there might be technical cooperation with Boeing and invited some of their designers over to examine the idea. They then waited for the return invitation - which never came.
Meantime BEA panicked in the 1958 recession and cut the spec to suit the average BEA sector - result Trident.
And suddenly there was this 727 bearing a remarkable resemblance to the DH121!

Having said that, the Trident was one of the finest bad weather flying machines it has ever been my good fortune to fly - and did most of the CAT III early developement.

[WHBM]

Did Hawker Siddeley designers end up in Seattle?
Quite possibly. I do believe the Trident Autoland team moved on to Lockheed in Burbank, which is why the L1011 Tristar Autoland came out so well.

Regarding re-engining, not worthwhile on the Tridents which, once there were no more being ordered/produced, just dropped down to scrap value, with the engines (for spares) representing much of this. Not worth significant investment.

The Boeing 727 did develop a re-engining programme for the JT8D. It was always a challenge to replace the centre engine, but the final solution was to replace the two outboard engines, only, with more powerful Rolls Royce Tays (as on the F100 etc), and run the centre JT8D at reduced thrust. Dee Howard in the USA did this conversion to the UPS 727 freighter fleet, which are still operating.

[Wander00]

Re#21 - amazing how often the "special relationship" has turned out to be a one-way street-going in a westerly direction!

[A30yoyo]

WHBM... I think there were two re-engine programs for the 727...the Valsan Super27 conversion of the -200 which used P&W JT8D-217 engines in the side pods (basically MD-80 engines-correction per WHBM) with the original engine in the centre duct unchanged (used by FedEx)...and the Dee Howard Tay QF conversion to a fleet of 50 ancient 727-100s of UPS which used 3 Tays with the centre duct being redesigned and enlarged

See this key thread post#23
Three-holer - the Boeing 727 in Europe - Key Publishing Ltd Aviation Forums (http://forum.keypublishing.com/showthread.php?t=109286&highlight=727)

UPS sample photo
Photos: Boeing 727-31C(QF) Aircraft Pictures | Airliners.net (http://www.airliners.net/photo/United-Parcel-Service/Boeing-727-31C(QF)/0706296/L/)

FedEx sample photo
Photos: Boeing 727-2S2F/Adv(RE) Super 27 Aircraft Pictures | Airliners.net (http://www.airliners.net/photo/FedEx---Federal/Boeing-727-2S2F-Adv(RE)-Super/1247301/L/)

[WHBM]

the Valsan Super27 conversion of the -200 which used P&W JT8D-217 engines in the side pods (basically MD-90 engines?)
It was the MD-80 actually which used the JT8D-217, which was a halfway-house from the JT8D to modern technology.

The MD-90 came much later but used the IAE V2500 engine, instead of the CFM56, which of course is installed much more widely.

I accept I gave a mixed-up comment though between the two re-engining projects, and was just working from memory - not at my desk !

[bizdev]

I remember that the Trident fleet also developed a problem of wing rib cracking (Rib 5?). This resulted in large repair plates on the upper and lower wings and a reconfiguration of the flying controls (inner flaps tweaked down and ailerons tweaked up?) to redistribute the lift along the wing.

What this did for fuel economy I do not know but the repair plates were very thick (1/2 inch ish).

bizdev

[sandringham1]

Im'e new here, been a lurker for years but had to join for this discussion.
I was personally involved with the Trident retirement many years ago and saying it was the noise regulations that grounded them is wrong. The rules allowed you to continue to operate them for a period under some sort of concession, but only if they had been part of your fleet when the new regs came into force.
What did for them was some critical components that had a hard scrap life. I seem to remember the critical figure being either 22,000hrs or landings. This was the design life that had been in the original purchase contract between BEA and DH and might have been extended if the world sales of Tridents had been greater and BAe had had the money to continued fatigue testing, which they hadnt.
The most significant component effected was the flap tracks which were titaniun forgings. The main wing flaps ran out on roller bearings along these tracks.
BA ordered some new tracks from BAe and they quoted a lead time of over a year which wasnt a problem. Things were going fine until very close to completion when they were machined incorrectly and were all scrap.
The wait of another 12 months was out of the question so each aircraft was withdrawn when it reached the flap track scrap life limit.

Richard

[MARK9263]

Having started this thread, the comments have been interesting and constructive. Whilst, most of the talk has been about the end of the Trident overall, but the T.1's and T.2's, again by todays standards didnt last too long. What were the reasons for the phase-out of these? Were they just old and/or obselete and/or surplus to the mighty BA requirements, or a way of them taking more Boeings ?

[Jig Peter]

The Trident, I was told at the time, was originally specified by the British European Airway as a 100-seater, a size which also coincided with what US airlines were telling Boeing as that company prepared its second project for the civil market (post-war). A cooperation seemed sensible, specially for Boeing, who could latch on to the "proven" reputation of deH in civil aviation ... And Rolls Royce had a suitable engine, the Medway, in the works.
So far, so good. Then BEA's futurologists got cold feet at the thought of such a big aeroplane and had the spec changed to a 68-seater - which proved to be too small for other potential customers. However, BEA was the only customer deH had, and as RR could downsize the Medway, to become the Spey, decided to stay with the "small" trijet. Boeing meanwhile found that P&W could "do" them a suitably-sized engine and thus get a foothold (at least) in the market. Whence the 727.

Leaving aside the question of "bad faith" on Boeing's part, salt was later rubbed into deH's wounds by the BEA soothsayers changing their minds (again), and asking Maggie's government to let them buy 727s, because the British product was too small - from the Lady with the Handbag, they got short shrift and were told to buy a bigger version of the Hatfield product, whence, eventually, the Trident 3 with its extra, very light weight, engine from one of RR's VTOL programmes. A right British eff-up, typical of the period.

With the Trident and VC-10, Britain's state airlines, insisting on bespoke tailoring, managed to cause severe damage to the UK's aircraft industry - and then had the cheek to whinge that the industry couldn't build them the aircraft they wanted.

(Not intended to be impartial - there were other factors at work, but nevertheless ...):{:{:{

Late correction (4/6) because of absence.
Sorry all for getting the "responsible" PMs wrong. Otherwise the story stands as (another) example of general (and generic) effin' about !!!

[Porky Speedpig]

Not sure the lady had anything to do with it - The Trident 3 entered service in 1970, Mrs Thatcher in 1979.

[Ironside0]

Well before Mrs Thatchers time,and doubt she would have offered any help to the industry if she had..
getting back to the re-engining idea, the Chinese -who by the late 70s early 80s had the most Tridents in service did look at re engining with two Jt8d's they were going to remove the centre engine and reinforce the area vacated,they were granted an export licence and actually bought 2 engines but nothing seems to have come of it,the cost of re-engining just dosnt stack up unless you can do on a large scale and sell on to others to recoup some of your costs.This is what happened to the 1-11,no reason that the conversion couldnt be done and was flown and tested,might even still be one flying around in the U.S. with Tays on and a glass cockpit,but not enough airframes to sell it too unfortunatly..

[A30yoyo]

Yes it was Harold Wilson's Labour Government of about 1968 which insisted the National Short-Haul Airline buy British (a mix of Tridents including the Three and BAC111-500 ,with a subsidy, I believe) instead of the Boeing 727-200/737-200 mix they wanted, (on reflection BOAC were permitted to order the 747 around that time0.
The Thatcher Government oversaw the privatisation of the unified State Airline and allowed them to buy the equipment they chose AFAIK. British Aerospace managed to get Government funding for the 146 airliner from Mrs Thatcher though

[thetimesreader84]

There was an article in "The Aeroplane" last year about the Trident, including interviews with designers etc.

The designers knew they had a decent product, and when they were asked to scale the aircraft down, refused, and were eventually overruled by DH bosses, under pressure from BEA

My question is, could they not have either a) told BEA to stuff it, had a bit of confidence in their a/c and sold it as it was? After all, the 727 (which was very close to the Trident's original spec) sold thousands, and im pretty sure that there were a number of airlines showing interest in the original spec a/c?

or b) scaled the aircraft down in such a way that it could easily been stretched, like (for example) the Airbus A320, or MD-80 series?

As an aside, does anyone have any info about the Trident proposal for the Shackleton replacement contract (that went, ultimately, for the Nimrod)? and does the Panel feel that the Trident would have made a suitable MR aircraft?

TTR

[DHfan]

I guess DH felt they had to go along with BEA to get a launch customer. It's obvious now it was a dumb idea but was it then I wonder.

The problem with the stretch wasn't the airframe, it was the engines. The RR Medway was never built due to the initial downsizing and the Spey hadn't enough grunt. I don't know what the politics would have been about using US engines or if they were even considered.

[scotbill]

One of the folk myths alleges that BEA assumed the Spey would follow RR's usual track record and deliver thrust 10% over spec.
In fact it was bang on spec, thereby giving the Trident its 'groundgripper' image

[tornadoken]

ironside, #31: China/JT8D. The 4xPIA Tridents 1E were transferred to PLAAF 7/70 (1 crashed 13/8/71 with fleeing Lin Piau). 33x2E and 2x3B (sans boost RB162) were delivered, new, from 11/72 to CAAC. In the decade 1975-85 one "moved to PLAAF", so might have been dissected, as might a PIA 1E. First of 10x707-320B (sans Litton INS) was delivered, nominally to CAAC, 8/73 but went straight into Shanghai Aircraft Industrial Co, which was responsible for reversing Tupolev types and making their spares. They failed to make Yun-10 work, or the copy JT3D-7, or the copy Sundstrand CSD. Nevertheless it was SAIC that No.2 Ministry of Machine Building nominated as MDC's partner to assemble MD-82, first flown 1/2/87. JT8D-217 were supplied from Pratt. RR licenced Spey 202 to Xian Red Flag Factory 13/12/75, to be WS-9 for Xian H-7.

The last 3B was delivered 9/75. To become a flood of 737s began 2/83 and Tridents were then grouped on CAAC/Guangzhou and military China United Airlines. I have never had a whiff of JT8D/Trident. I know of other dubious schemes, like pressurising An.12. After US politics, and the Air Finance industry, recognised PRC as a legitimate customer, there would have been no purpose to trying to hang JT8Ds on an out-of-production oddity. If they were to try, solo, they would replicate the 707 failure; if they were to ask (ex-HSAL)BAe. for input, the response would have been a quote for more 146s.

[Ironside0]

First off, my mistake it was CFM 56-2's that they wanted to install NOT Jt 8 d's this was in 1981/82 -The Source of China re engining story is Ian Allans book by Max Kingsley - Jones, Classic Civil Aircraft Vol 5 'Hawker Siddeley Trident',(page 72) published back in 1993 it is still IMHO the best book on the Trident,still available occasionally on Ebay etc
Nothing came of the plan,just as well as China was experiencing the same wing crack problems as BA,with 2 CFm's giving about 12000lbs more thrust than 3 Speys!
Agree it seems a pointless exercise but they must have thought there was life left in the airframes,suppose we will never know..

Regards

Dave