The development of Automatic Landing

[REasson]

Automatic landing or Autoland is taken for granted now. It has been suggested to me that an account of the pioneering work on its development, at the Blind Landing Experimental Unit (BLEU) of the Royal Aircraft Establishment (RAE), might be of interest to those with a taste for ancient history. I was at BLEU from 1955 to1958. This thread is a shortened version of a contribution I made to Wikipedia on Autoland, Sections 2.4 and 2.5 (with references). Apart from that, I hope that other contributions to this thread will help to fill in some of the gaps.

The BLEU was formed at RAF Woodbridge and RAF Martlesham Heath during 1945 and 1946. ,The terms of reference were that the unit “will operate as a satellite of the RAE and will be responsible for the development on blind approach and landing of RAF, Naval and Civil aircraft”.

The subject of blind landing had been pursued with enthusiasm from much earlier. For example, in 1916 flight tests were made by the Royal Naval Air Service of an Aircraft Height Indicator, consisting of a weight attached to a length of cord, hanging from the aircraft. When the weight hit the ground the tension in the cord was relieved, triggering a switch to light a red lamp in the cockpit, so that the pilot knew it was time to start a flare out. The basis for BLEU’s work was however the development of autopilots at RAE during the 1930s. The Mark 4 was the wartime “George”.

Before the formation of BLEU, an automatic landing was made at the Telecommunications Flying Unit (TFU) of the TRE at RAF Defford in a Boeing 247D aircraft, DZ203, early in 1945, using the American SCS 51 radio guidance system. Although accounts of that event vary in detail, it is said to have been in complete darkness, with no landing lights and all other lights obscured by the wartime blackout. There was no flare-out - the low approach speed and shallow glide angle meant that the aircraft could be allowed to fly straight onto the ground.

SCS 51 was the basis for ILS, adopted by ICAO in 1948. Trials were made at Defford of an alternative system developed there. That was radar-based, which in effect gave range and height data to add to autopilot heading, so enabling automatic landing.

Research during the first few years at BLEU led to the conclusion that the most promising approach to blind landing would be a fully automatic system, and to the definition of the requirements for such a system. ILS was used as guidance during the approach phase, but at that time was not sufficiently accurate to complete the landing. That led to the development at BLEU of an improved FM radio altimeter for height guidance, capable of resolving height differences to 2 feet at low altitude, and a magnetic leader cable system for azimuth guidance. In collaboration with Smiths Industries Ltd., BLEU also developed coupling units to derive the commands to the autopilot from the guidance signals, and auto-throttle.

Components of the system were developed separately on several types of aircraft, including the Lancaster, Viking, Devon and Albemarle. A demonstration of the techniques used was given to military and government representatives in May 1949. Partially automatic landings had been made before then, but the generally accepted date for the first demonstration of the entire system including auto throttle, in a Devon, is 3rd July 1950. Over the next 20 years, BLEU in conjunction with UK industry and the UK airworthiness authority, continued the work needed to convert the concept of those experimental demonstrations into safe, accurate blind landings by large transport aircraft. The system in use now is, I understand, basically the same as that used experimentally in 1950.

During the early 1950s, as a preliminary to the further development of the full system, automatic approach trials were carried out on Valetta, Meteor and Canberra aircraft. The Canberra, VN799 (the prototype Canberra) was acquired in 1953 but was a write-off following a crash landing in August that year due to a double engine failure, possibly caused by a fuel leak, fortunately without serious injury to the crew.

At that time, Autoland had lower priority because efforts were concentrated on other projects including rapid landing of aircraft for RAF Fighter Command, visual aids for pilots, runway approach lighting and an approach aid using DME with Barbro. That changed when Operational Requirement 947 (OR947) for automatic landing on the V-force bomber fleet was issued in 1954. At that time the V-bomber force was the UK’s main contribution to the strategic nuclear power of the west and all-weather operation was essential. There was also renewed interest in automatic landing for civil aviation. As the next step in the development, the flare-out and coupling units from the Devon were linked to a Smiths Type D autopilot and installed in Varsity WF417, a much larger aircraft, capable of carrying 38 people rather than 10 in the Devon. The first fully automatic approach and landing was made by WF417 on 11 November 1954 under calm and misty conditions. A similar system was installed in Canberra WE189 to provide the first application of Autoland to jet aircraft. Automatic approaches and landings were recorded by WE189 early in 1956 but the development was interrupted in April when the facilities at Woodbridge, which had the only suitable leader cable installation, ceased to be available to BLEU. Development of auto-flare and automatic kicking-off drift was continued at RAF Wittering, but in September that year WE189, on an approach to its base at Martlesham Heath, crashed due to engine failure . The pilot, Flt. Lt. Les Coe, and the BLEU scientist in charge of the project, Mr. Joe Birkle, were killed.

Early in 1957 BLEU moved from Martlesham Heath to a newly equipped airfield at Thurleigh, the base for RAE Bedford. The development was continued in a third Canberra, WJ992, based on the results obtained with WE189. Experimental flights in WJ992 began late in 1957. I did most of the experimental flying, variously with four RAF pilots: Sqn. Ldr. John Greenland and Flt. Lts. Alf Camp, Alan Bountiff and “Pinkie” Stark. Automatic landing with auto-throttle was achieved by March 1958. Initially there were some problems with landing nose wheel first but by June things had improved - a note from my logbook reads “not bad - about 0.7 g nicely on main wheels - kicking off drift OK“. Then a week later: “Throttles off at 50ft. Very pleasing results” and on 20 August “hands and feet off” (that was with Alan Bountiff). By October 1958, when a further demonstration was given by BLEU, over 2,000 fully automatic landings had been made, mainly in the Canberra and Varsity aircraft. The demonstration by WJ992 can still be seen in this 1958 Pathé News clip (the airborne sequences are in a Varsity):

FOG WON'T STOP FUTURE FLYING - British Pathe (http://www.britishpathe.com/record.php?id=35517)

The V-bomber project to install and develop Autoland on Vulcan XA899, originally classified as Secret, ran in parallel with the Canberra and Varsity work. The first automatic landings in the Vulcan were made between December 1959 and April 1960. Trials were carried out later that year and the system was accepted for military service in 1961 - the first application of the Autoland system.

The Vulcan used leader cable but that was recognised as being impractical for general use. It was also known that it could be dispensed with if improvements could be made to ILS. Some improvement resulted from a narrow beam localizer aerial system developed by BLEU during the early 1950s and by 1958 automatic landings had been made using only ILS localiser for azimuth guidance. By the early 1960s radically new aerial designs for the ILS transmitters developed by Standard Telephones & Cables (ST&C) improved ILS to an extent that leader cable became obsolete.

For many years there had been discussions between the UK Ministry of Aviation and the US Federal Aviation Agency (FAA) on guidance aids for landing in poor visibility. The Americans favoured a “pilot in the loop” technique, with improved aids for the pilot, over the fully automatic system preferred in the UK. In 1961, to gain experience with “the BLEU automatic landing system” the FAA sent a Douglas DC-7 to RAE Bedford for the system to be installed and tested. After that and further tests on return to Atlantic City, the FAA were convinced and thereafter strongly supported a fully automatic solution to the all-weather problem, later to be adopted internationally.

Up to that stage the system had been realised only as “single-lane” or single channel, without any redundancy to protect against equipment failure. During the late 1950s and early 1960s increased cooperation between BLEU, the UK Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) and companies in the aviation industry with BEA and BOAC led to the definition of safety requirements in terms of a specification for maximum tolerable failure rates. In 1961, the UK Air Registration Board (ARB) of the CAA issued a working document BCAR 367 “Airworthiness Requirements for Autoflare and Automatic Landing” which formed the basis for the definitions for weather visibility categories adopted by ICAO in 1965. In 1959, contracts were placed by BEA and BOAC to develop automatic landing, based on Autoland, for the Trident and the VC10. The Trident used a triplex system with no common elements, so that a failure in one of the three channels could be detected and that channel eliminated. “Nuisance disconnects” were an early problem with that system, eventually solved by the industry, using torque switches with a controlled degree of lost motion. The introduction of Autoland for Category 3 operation in BEA’s Trident fleet required a huge effort by BEA, Hawker Siddeley Aviation, Smiths Industries and BLEU. A triplex system was also developed by Smiths and BLEU for the RAF’s Belfast freighter.

The VC10 used an Elliott duplicated monitored system. Later, the Concorde system was basically an improved version of the VC10 one, benefiting from advances in electronic circuit technology during the late 1960s. By 1980, the Trident had carried out more than 50,000 in-service automatic landings. The VC10 accrued 3,500 automatic landings before use of the system was curtailed in 1974 for economic reasons. By 1980, Concorde had performed nearly 1,500 automatic landings in passenger service. 10 years on from the 1958 demonstration, here is Pathé again with the VC10 - giving a much better impression of the system at work:

http://www.britishpathe.com/record.php?id=45284 (http://www.britishpathe.com/record.php?id=45284)

An earlier clip, from 1965 in Varsity 665, briefly shows the autopilot itself:

http://www.britishpathe.com/record.php?id=1865 (http://www.britishpathe.com/record.php?id=1865)

BLEU (renamed the Operational Systems Division of RAE in 1974) continued to play a leading role in the development of aircraft guidance systems, using a variety of aircraft including DH Comet, BAC 1-11 and HS 748 (to replace the Varsities, which had been the main “work horses“ for BLEU experiments for more than a decade) and VC-10 until the closure of RAE Bedford in 1994.

The development of the system for the Caravelle during the 1960s is another story, unknown to me, and I hope there will be contributions on it.

[RedhillPhil]

Where do the B.E.A. Tridents feature in all of this interesting stuff?

[HEATHROW DIRECTOR]

Thanks very much, RE, most interesting.

[REasson]

Considerably. The Trident and the VC10 were the first airliners to be fitted with Autoland in collaboration with BLEU. The Trident was the first one to do an automatic landing, in 1965, and was certified to use it for CAT II conditions in 1968, a few months earlier than the certification of the Caravelle for CAT III. The Trident was certified for CAT IIIA and B in 1972 and 1975.

There is a full account about the Trident (up to 1970) in:

K. J. Wilkinson (1970) Automatic Landing in BEA’s Trident Operations - a Review of Effort and achievement, The Aeronautical Journal, March 1970, Vol. 74, Number 711, pp. 187 - 196

but I don't know if that is available in cyberspace.

Roy Easson

[John Farley]

The BEA Tridents were the first aircraft to be cleared for auto land with pax. BLEU not surprisingly were responsible for arguing the case for such an approval as well as the detailed tecnical analysis that allowed the ARB (and ICAO) to agree to it.

[bingofuel]

I think I am correct in saying that when the Shorts Belfast was undergoing autoland development trials they actually had to build a scatter into the system as it was 'allegedly' so accurate it was landing at exactly the same point each time and cracking the runway.

[JW411]

Absolutely correct; Belfast XR364 did more than 800 autolands at Bedford. The system (Smiths SEP5 Triplex Autoland System) was very similar to that fitted to the Trident.

[TheChitterneFlyer]

I forget the name of the manufacturer of the BA TriStar Autoland system. Suffice to say that it was regarded as PFM!

I recall, many years ago, the thirty-or-so approaches we made into Bedford to (re)evaluate the RAF TriStar Autoland System. Quite why we had to attempt to reinvent the wheel I'll never understand. However, not unlike the Belfast, the scatter was minimal and that there were concerns about the pavement strength of Brize Norton and whether or not it was financially viable to allow Autoland to be routinely used.

In the end I believe that it was a "certification" issue that resulted in the RAF TriStar's not to be cleared for Autoland use.

Before any of the expected comments appear with regard to the damaged aircraft that did attempt an Autoland at Brize... that particular attempt was made by a pilot who hadn't been trained in the use of Autoland and that he attempted Glideslope Capture within the region of 500 ft or so... destined to failure! And a very expensive fix!

TCF

[pulse1]

I well remember the BLEU Varsity flogging the circuit around Bedford in the mid 60's. I think I have posted on this before but, in 65, I took on a chemist to work permanent nightshift in Bedford. Before he started and got the local flavour of the neighbourhood, he bought a house in the country to give him peace and quiet for sleep during the daytime. Too late, he found that he was on the centre line of the Thurleigh runway and suffered perpetual noise from the Varsity. When the weather was bad, there was no respite because they flew even more.

[WHBM]

To me the greatest disappointment is that the prime driver for BEA being in the forefront of this technology was to improve the reliability of their trunk domestic services operating into Heathrow during poor weather conditions, hence why so much BEA money and management time was input.

Roll on to nowadays and Heathrow is now so squeezed for throughput at all hours that with the slight reduction in runway capacity required for such low visibility operations, those very same (now BA) domestic services are always the first to get delayed or binned completely whenever conditions fall to those which inspired this development in the first place.

[avionic type]

From the days (around 1962) when we first got the Trident as when it had the basic auto/pilot of 2 pitch and 1 roll or was it 1 pitch and 2 roll (it was a long time ago) I as an electrical /instrument fitter on the Trident 1s in the central area and saw its development to the Cat 3 standard and until its demise, it was an expensive piece of kit everything in triplex except for the Air data computers the gyros were costed at £3000 each and you could by a small house for that at that time and the aircraft had to have fully separate generator electrical supplies but when it was working and it became reliable it did save alot of diversions to Stanstead ,Gatwick and airfields further north with the ground engineering having to go and retrieve them when there was fog at London, and passengers when they landed in fog at London were left wondering how they were getting home as the fog was making drivng hazardous and most traffic was at a stand still.We were very proud of it .

[Gulfstreamaviator]

A very intresting concept, an induction cable similar to the guided vehicles in big factories.

Is there any more history in relation to this system.

Any remains on site.....

glf

[LAS1997]

There is a Trident three (G-AWZI) nose section on display at the Farnborough Air Sciences Trust (FAST) Museum at Farnborough airport along with a small exhibition on auto-land and the RAE's involvement. Well worth a visit the musuem is FREE to enter and open weekends 1000-1600; most weekends the Trident is opened and powered up for viewing. The instrument, ceiling and floor lights are all operable along with some of her systems such as the stick shaker, engine fire bell and stall warning horn. She is complete and as would have been in service with BEA / BA.

[REasson]

As for history, I believe it was based on a system developed during WW1 for guiding ships. And remains - again I think it was installed at about 12 RAF stations, but I expect even if the cables were not recovered they've long since all been stolen. But for Autoland it really was a cul de sac.

[WHBM]

The development of the system for the Caravelle during the 1960s is another story, unknown to me, and I hope there will be contributions on it.
There is some detail of the French Caravelle autoland here in an old Flight magazine

automatic landing | flight systems | marconi mechanical | 1963 | 0036 | Flight Archive (http://www.flightglobal.com/pdfarchive/view/1963/1963%20-%200036.html)

There's probably a bit more to be found digging around other issues.

If I recall correctly the driver of the Caravelle development was the same as the BEA desire, to improve the performance of trunk domestc services in foggy conditions (which seemed much more prevalent in the 1960s than nowadays). The main air route afflicted was Air Inter's Paris to Lyon, which apparently suffered extensively at both ends in the winter, and compared to nowadays had a very large air service, as the TGV rail line which has now taken most of the traffic between these points was something far in the future.

[safetypee]

Adding to the excellent first post; in 1974 BLEU became Flight Systems 2 (FS2), part of Operational Systems Division, FS1 was the old Aero Flight. The two amalgamated into Flight Systems Squadron circ 1976/77.

The All Weather Operations research continued with the Economic Category 3 Programme (1975-1980) using the BAC1-11 and HS748.
The BAC1-11 retained ‘2 out of 3’ channels of the Smiths SEP5 ‘Trident’ autopilot and the autothrottle, but the FD was a single cue FD108. The research concentrated on human capabilities of manual landing in low visibility if a simpler (cheaper) flight guidance system failed. This work also considered the problems of low altitude manual go-arounds.
The HS748 retained the Smiths Series 6 autopilot/autothrottle and split cue FD which enabled auto and manual Cat 2. A new simplex monitored autoland module was developed for the Economic Cat 3 work, although many fog landings were completed manually from a DH of 50ft.
Both aircraft could be equipped with an airborne fog simulation – a pitch/roll stabilised ‘fog blind’ and translucent screens. Late in the programme a Monohud was evaluated, again available for both aircraft.

A lot of parallel research was flown in support of the lighting division, where approach and runway lighting, PAPI, and runway markings were developed. That team also worked on the structure of fog, and the measurement and reporting of RVR.

In the late 70’s money was drying up so other research programmes were sought. Both the BAC1-11 and HS748 were used for the UK MLS trials, with the HS748 demonstrating the system in Berne and Tehran; this work also continued previous research into steep and two stage approaches with associated noise measurement.

There was some parallel AWO work with helicopters, primarily for naval operations; this was extended into the Harrier trials for seaborne operations.

The BAC1-11 had a versatile autopilot facility – a programmable addition to the existing flight guidance system. This work looked at new control laws and methods of control – alpha autothrottle, direct lift control, and the basis of fly by wire systems with artificially reduced longitudinal static stability. An early design of FMS was fitted and RNAV studied; the flight deck was converted to EFIS in 1979/80.
The HS 748 conducted some low level electro–optic trials for a military operation using an existing ‘fog’ LLTV.

I sense that the ‘BLEU’ fog / autoland work petered out in the 80s.

[Jhieminga]

I've got a page on my website about the VC10 autoland system which includes the same Pathe clip. See here: Autoland on the VC10 (http://www.vc10.net/Technical/Autoland.html)

It also includes a link to a story of an ex-Avionics engineer who explains why the system's use was discontinued on the VC10.

[REasson]

According to Michael D. Dobson ed., (2001), Wings over Thurleigh, ISBN 0-9541594-0-3 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/0954159403) Chapter 8, Leader cable was installed at RAF airfields Scampton, Wittering, Finningley, Gaydon, Cottesmore, Wyton, Waddington, Conningsby, Benson & Honington. On the Vulcan, some time ago I found this in a post by Paddy Grogan:
"Some years following my retirement from the RAF I visited Greenham for an airshow and was permitted to go into the cockpit of a 50Sqdn Vulcan. When I began to touch the auto land switches etc My Flt Lt Pilot guide astounded me by saying " We dont know what they are for" They had never been used by him or anyone else on the squadron."

It seems that when submarines took over the strategic defence role, automatic landing ceased to be a requirement for the V-bombers. I suppose it is Secret as to whether the RAF uses automatic landing now.

[REasson]

Thanks for that clue. Searching Google on the same subject revealed this, which has more detail (also on the Belfast)

1967 | 0371 | Flight Archive (http://www.flightglobal.com/pdfarchive/view/1967/1967%20-%200371.html)

[Spooky 2]

I believe the L1011 used a Lear Seigler autopilot and autoland system.

[Albert Driver]

The Trident and the VC10 were the first airliners to be fitted with Autoland

The VC10 autoland really didn't begin to compare with the Trident system.

The Trident had a triplex autopilot system perfectly suited to a failsafe autoland operation.

The VC10 had dual autopilot which was never going to deliver autoland reliably on a fleet where handling practice was in far too short supply for line pilots to practice using the system, on routes that only very rarely required its use.

I'm tempted to state the dual autoland on the earlier 747s was even more suspect than the VC10 system, as November Oscar demonstrated at Heathrow.

But that might start an argument.........

[WHBM]

I'm tempted to state the dual autoland on the earlier 747s was even more suspect than the VC10 system,
I certainly remember a real smasher of a non-greaser on an early 747 (Wardair at Prestwick, coming up from Manchester) which the crew apologised for and said an autoland they were doing had just not flared it properly. When we continued the flight to Toronto, they said before touchdown there that they were going to do this one themselves !

[Tagron]

But at least the 747 achieved Cat 3 certification, which the VC10 did not.

Only the Super VC10s were autoland equipped, not the Standard VC10.

BOAC management tried to pressurise crews into using the VC10 autoland in order to prove the system for eventual Cat2/3 approval, but met with resistance. As Albert Driver says, the line crews rated the need for handling practice higher but also I believe they mistrusted the autoland because of its unreliability.

As I recall a failed autoland or coupled ILS was one of the factors in the BOAC VC10 low fuel diversion to the military field at Bedford. Massachusetts, not Bedfordshire.

[Jhieminga]

As I recall a failed autoland or coupled ILS was one of the factors in the BOAC VC10 low fuel diversion to the military field at Bedford. Massachusetts, not Bedfordshire.
Do you have any more info on that incident? I haven't heard of it yet and am interested for my website.

From this same site, here's a bit from an ex-Avionics Engineer about the demise of the VC10 Autoland (his full story is here: http://www.vc10.net/Memories/radio_development.html):
A Cat 3 autoland system was designed by BAC for the VC10. This was a duplicate fully monitored system of Byzantine complexity. Remember this was before the digital age, it was all magnetic amplifiers and analogue computing. Effectively this meant that each function was done four times, and all had to work for the system to meet Cat 3 standards which of course they rarely did. The Radio systems bore most of the blame at the monthly project meetings and as I was the sole wireless man at the meetings surrounded by twenty instrument and autopilot experts from BOAC and BAC I didn’t stand much of a chance. It was decided that the Radio Altimeters needed improving, not surprising really as they were made by STC to a design that must have been obsolete 20 years previously. The quote from STC for a modification package was horrendously expensive so I got lumbered to do it. I replaced all the coax cable with a special low loss version with a silver plated foil screen that was almost impossible to work with. We must have scrapped more cable than we used. We matched all the mixer diodes by individual selection and redesigned the monitor system completely. After about a year’s hard work the Radio Altimeters were working perfectly but the autoland system still did not perform. BAC then came up with a proposal for a package of modifications to all the other black boxes at a cost that made STC’s proposal seem small fry. By this time I felt a little more confident as I had proved the point with the Radio Altimeters and as I had some spare time I sat down at my desk and calculated the probability that all of the boxes would remain working for the four weeks required on average to certify an aircraft to Cat3 standard after a defect. As I recall this worked out that on average a maximum of one aircraft in the fleet would be certified for half the time. I could not believe this result, so I rechecked the maths, re-read the books but could not get a better result. We had already spent millions on the system and were planning on spending several more. I could not believe that my sums were correct, but I wrote it up anyway and went thus armed to the next project meeting where the big mod package was planned to be agreed.
I dropped the bombshell at the start of the meeting by asking the BAC experts what their planned system reliability was. I got a few blank stares, they seemed to have experts there on everything except reliability, but it was agreed that they would show my workings to their specialists at Weybridge and find the errors. Much to my surprise, the mod program decision was deferred. The next meeting they announced that my numbers were wrong, I had omitted to take into account the system wiring reliability so the situation was actually slightly worse than I predicted. VC10 Autoland was promptly scrapped and work started on another mod program to save weight by removing all the surplus equipment. I never got any thanks for saving the corporation all those millions, possibly because I asked the Project Manager who had signed the contract; which had no guaranty that it would work or compensation if it didn’t. 'Me' he replied and walked away.

[Dan Winterland]

I remember the Smiths autopilot controller in the Victor Mk2 had a LOC engage switch which could also be rotated to the L Cable setting. We knew that it was for an early autoland system, but no-one on the fleet had ever used it. Not that the leader cables were in existance then.



I recall an "I learned about flying from that" story in Air Clues from the 80s submitted by a Canberra pilot who was diverting from a midlands airfield after the weather got bad. On the way to the alternate, he was passed to Bedford Approach on the way to his diversion destination. He heard a callsign in the radar circuit staing that he was going to do an ILS to roll (touch and go). Obviously, the weather at Bedford was better than our hero though, so he changed his destination and asked for vectors to the ILS. The other aircrat rolled in front of him, so he was suprised that he didn't see the lights at 200'. He was fed in again and had to go round a second time despite the other aircraft doing another roller. Now he was desparate. He had to land off the next approach or jump out. So he flew past minimums and got the lights in the flare. He taxied in with difficulty, shut down on fumes just as the other aircraft taxied past. It was a Varsity with the words "Blind Landing Experimental Unit" written on the side!

[JW411]

REasson:

I flew the Argosy for 10 years from 1962 until the end of 1971. We certainly had a leader cable aerial fitted just underneath the radome for the CCWR (the nipple on the tit).

None of us ever knew why the hell it was there.

To my knowledge, Benson was never equipped with a leader cable. If it was, then it ended up in Passey's scrapyard very quickly.

On the other hand, I seem to remember that when I went on the Belfast at the beginning of 1972 at Brize Norton, a lot of money had been wasted on sinking useless leader cables into the farmers fields on finals to runway 26.

[REasson]

The Caravelle used the Lear Seigler system, according to the 1967 reference above. I don't know about the L1011. Unlike the Trident and VC10 systems, the Caravelle system was single-lane, with the pilot as backup, which might explain (because of the reduced complexity) why it achieved certification earlier. The descent guidance on the Caravelle system differed in an interesting way from the British system, again as explained in the 1967 article.

[Tagron]

VC10 low fuel diversion to Bedford, Mass.

There was an account of this incident in the BOAC flight safety publication, c.1970. If anyone by chance has any copies of old BOAC material in their attic, or if the BA historical collection has a copy, you would be able to read the original report. Unlikely of course so I will describe it from memory, with the usual caveat about the accuracy of recall over a period of forty years. If there is anyone reading this with a more accurate recall or was closer to the event, then please feel free to correct me.

The scheduled destination of the flight was New York, but bad weather at JFK meant there were lengthy landing delays. After a period of holding the decision was made to divert to Boston. The BOS weather was also deteriorating but this was not reflected in the ATIS broadcast, so the crew were unaware of the developing situation.. The first attempt was a non-precision approach (VOR/DME I would guess) and resulted in a go around.

They then attempted an automatic ILS using the autoland system. Whether it was intended to complete a full autoland I do not know, but in any event there was a system failure which resulted in a second go around.

Then a manual ILS was flown but the weather had deteriorated to the point where nothing was seen, resulting in another go around.

The fuel situation had now become critical and at this point ATC offered the military airfield at Bedford. This was only 12nms (approx) from BOS and was VMC, so the flight was able to land without difficulty. Usable fuel remaining, about 15 minutes.

Long after the event I was in conversation with a cabin crew member who had been on that flight, who claimed that the captain had considered ditching close to the coast. I suspect this was not a formal briefing to the cabin crew, more likely an unguarded remark after the event. It was not mentioned in the safety review report so I am inclined to doubt its significance. But it does serve to highlight how marginal the operation had become as a result of a combination of unforeseen circumstances

[KeMac]

REasson - please check your PMs
Thanks
KeMac

[nazca_steve]

Hello Reasson,

I am a bit of a Johnny come lately to this thread, but came across it when searching for posts concerning the Canberra prototype, VN799. I have been researching the life and ultimate fate of this machine, and compiling it all in a short web site:

Remembering VN799: A Tribute to the English Electric Canberra Prototype A.1 (http://www.nazcastudios.com/VN799/)

As you will see, I gathered the accident report from the crash which indeed confirms the fuel leak being the (initial) cause of the accident. However, the final conclusion was pilot error, in that it was felt the pilot should have noticed the leak in the No.2 tank earlier, the gauge not being found faulty, and switched to the No.3 tank instead after exhausting No.1. He did indeed switch to No.3 after the flame out, but then, altitude was too low to successfully relight the engines, leading to the crash.

What I am curious about is the state of their injuries. You wrote that the crew were not seriously hurt, but I would like to confirm the source of this. The 'CAS' column of the card shows 'I(s)' to which I am hoping PPRuners can clarify what this means. 'Injuries slight' or 'severe'? Depending on where you read about the crash, you will hear they died, or were just injured. Despite further digging I have not turned up anything more concrete.

Good thread on BLEU though, very interesting indeed.

ATB,

Steve

[Discorde]

An apocryphal story which might be based on a true incident:

In the early days of Trident autoland ops there was a requirement for all three flight deck crew members to carry a certificate in their licences authorising autoland ops to various limits (ILS Cat 1, 2, 3A, 3B).

So, this particular day, a T-bird is heading for LHR, where the weather is consistently below Cat 1 RVR. The crew discover that not only is the autopilot placarded for Cat 3 ops but all three of the pilots have Cat 3 certificates. Joy! They brief themselves for autoland and carefully rehearse procedures and call-outs.

On handover to London they are told 'maintain 350, join the hold at Lydd, delay not determined.' Assuming the stacks are full of aircraft waiting for the RVR to achieve Cat 1, the Trident crew play their trump card:

'We're Cat 3 qualified, we're requesting clearance to make an approach for an autoland.'

'Roger Bealine, but the RVR is now 700 metres and you're number 27 in the landing sequence.'

[JAVELINBOY]

Interesting info on this in Military Forum
http://www.pprune.org/6967034-post2246.html

[old,not bold]

Lockheed brought a PSA Tristar to the Gulf to demonstrate it in the hope that GF would buy it. It had a video camera in the flight deck roof, looking forward between the pilots through the screen. You could see the top of the coaming. This then played on all the IFE screens.

The demo pilots' party trick was to capture the approach and then put their hands on the coaming until the aircraft was on the ground and needed to be turned off the runway.
At Doha, a new hangar had caused a kink in the localiser, which all the line pilots who went there knew about, as did most others in the business. So we watched with interest to see how the system would cope.

As we passed the kink, the aircraft started to yaw wildly, with a rolling motion, and this began to amplify quickly.

The 4 hands disappeared from the coaming so fast that they were a blur, and the aircraft quickly came under control and landed.

Shortly after the aircraft came into GF service, I hitched a jump seat ride from Abu Dhabi to London for some urgent reason. John Ross was flying it. As the undercarriage came up, he said "Watch this" and engaged the auto pilot (I suspect that's not the right term, but you know what I mean). Then he said "we won't touch the controls again until we turn off the runway at London. The computer will fly the route we've given it, and will land the aircraft when we get there". And it did. At that time (1974/5?) it was pure magic, at least it was to me.

[AARON O'DICKYDIDO]

;)

Ref; Blind Landing Experimental Unit (BLEU) of the Royal Aircraft Establishment.

I have just been browsing through my fathers RAF record of service

and I notice that on return from France in July 1940 he was posted

to BAT & DU (Blind Approach Training and Development Unit).

Does anyone know if this was a forerunner of the BLEU?

Aaron.

[Kieron Kirk]

From Ray Sturtivant's "Flying Training and Support Units"/Air Britain.

The answer is no.

BAT and DU formed at Boscombe Down 18th September 1939 flying Ansons.

Disbanded 6th June 1940, reformed at Boscombe Down 13th June 1940.

Redesignated "Wireless Intelligence Development Unit" 30th October 1940 flying Ansons from Wyton, to determine the characteristics of German target location beams.

Redesignated 109 Squadron 10th December 1940.

BLEU formed at Woodbridge 16th July 1945.

Ciarain.

[AARON O'DICKYDIDO]

;)

Thanks for that.

Aaron.

[Padhist]

REasson
Having noted your special knowledge in this subject and having just found this forum, I am risking boring you once again with my swan song at RAE Bedford.


The night London Airport was mine

I was coming to the end of my 3 year tour with the Blind Landing Experimental Unit (BLEU) at RAE Bedford, where I had been posted to carry out the automatic landing trials on the Vulcan. These trials had been initiated after it was realised that in the event of a nuclear attack upon the British Isles, there would be a need to disperse the Vulcan (V.Force) to designated airfields around the country. Since this would have to be carried out regardless of the prevailing weather conditions there was clearly a requirement for an ‘All weather landing system ‘. Automatic landing was the obvious choice.
The main test aircraft at BLEU were Varsity’s. These sturdy twin engine aircraft were used in all manner of tests apart from Automatic Landing. They were pleasant to fly and could carry an immense amount of test equipment and ‘Boffins ‘. In addition to the Varsity, Auto Land was installed very successfully in, Vulcan, Comet 4, Canberra and the American Airliner the DC 7. When flying the latter we always had the aircraft’s American captain on board and oddly enough we had to obtain a Private Pilots Licence, validated for that aircraft.
We flew in all weather conditions as a matter of course, and indeed, sought out airfields we knew were closed due to bad weather to assess the available approach lighting facilities. Occasionally Mr Calvert the grand master of Visual Aid Studies flew with us and it was he who declared. The Varsity was the perfect vehicle in which to carry out these tests in relative safety. Many of these airfields were American and I often wondered what their aircrews thought when they heard a solitary aircraft doing circuits and bumps in thick fog when they could hardly see to drive their cars.
The validity of these tests is self evident. There can be few pilots who enjoy the prospect of a long instrument approach, the transition from instruments to visual, through an uncertain cloud base and variable ground conditions such as, rain, snow, mist or fog. The inputs imposed upon a pilot at the latter stages of an instrument approach are enormous. I recall a senior line pilot saying during a lecture on this subject.....”At 100Ft when you have yet to see the runway, following an instrument descent, you reach the threshold of PAIN.” He was so right.
All our automatic landing tests were carried out using a single channel system. That is to say one of each piece of equipment, Autopilot, Radio Altimeter, ILS (Instrument Landing System) receiver.etc.The proposed civilian versions (Trident) would have three of everything as a safety, belt and braces measure. The whole process, apart from some switch pulling, was automatically controlled....Height and heading....ILS and glide path acquisition ...And one of my favourite items ‘Automatic throttle control...‘ Dial your speed’...What more could one ask for. It meant that the pilot could literally sit ‘ Hands off ‘with confidence until the point of touchdown. In the event of any crosswind, the drift angle was automatically kicked off just before this point. Naturally in fog one does not anticipate strong wind.
We had a long standing contingency plan that if London Airport was ever closed because of fog we would go in and carry out circuits and landings to demonstrate the system. On the 4th December 1962 my colleague ‘Pinky Stark’ went there to do just that but unfortunately his aircraft lacked a vital piece of test equipment which was to have given him directional guidance after the automatic pilot had been disengaged on landing. He was thus restricted to do touch and go landings. Had the fog been less dense and he could have seen at least two centre line lights he would of course have carried out full stop landings.

On the 5th December 1962. Having flown the Comet in the morning I was told to be ready to take a Varsity to London Airport that night to complete the demonstrations. On this occasion I would have the aircraft equipped with the new ‘Runway Guidance Indicator’. This was in ‘Breadboard state ‘. Not yet built into the instrument panel. It consisted of a tube passing over my right shoulder, projecting a Sperry Zero Reader ILS signal onto a ‘Head Up Display’, on a glass prism, mounted on the instrument panel coaming. This piece of equipment was essential in the exceptional conditions which prevailed. The actual ( RVR ) Runway Visual Range on this night was 45 Feet. To put that into perspective, runway centre line lights are spaced at 100Feet, thus only one centre line light could be seen at any one time. Another interesting observation would be...That an observer standing at the edge of the runway, would be unable to see a fully lit Vulcan, stationary on the centre line! I had never before experienced fog as dense as this. The London Airport runway is 300ft wide and the Vulcan a 110ft wingspan.
We took off from Bedford at dusk and carried out two circuits and full stop landings to test the new ‘Runway Guidance’ equipment. It was working efficiently so we left Bedford and was soon circuiting London Airport. The conditions were most unusual; above 300 feet the sky was clear but in the London basin lay this dense ‘ Pea soup’. There were no signs of lights beneath.... London was at a standstill... No buses, no trains... We were to learn that none of the VIP’s scheduled to join us for the demonstration could get to the airport.
However, we were there and plunging into the ‘soup’ on ‘Auto’s using the standard ILS, for azimuth and glide path indication... Soon after we entered the fog we heard the clatter of ice being thrown off the prop’s onto the fuselage....De-icers on...We were already ‘locked’ on the glide path and quite soon the Inner marker beeped, there was no sign of approach lights although we knew they were on....Touch-down still no lights, but we were on the centre line as I could feel from the centre line light pods touching our nose wheel.....Throttles and Auto-land were switched off and I kept straight manually using our new toy...runway guidance.....very gingerly on the brakes lest they cause a swing and so to a full stop. Now, not being able to see any lights at all, how was I going to turn around and return to the take off point? LAP Airfield Radar came to our aid and was able to navigate us through 180 degrees and direct us back to the take off position for a further circuit.
We were supposed to gather up a number of VIP’s at this point but as I have said the fog was such that they were unable to get to LAP. We did however manage to pick up Captain Poole the BEA training pilot. He was brought out in a van navigated by the splendid Ground Radar...I’m sure they could see a Ferret cross the runway.
We carried out four circuits and landings and returned to Bedford....I have often wondered what the authorities would have said had they known that my Instrument Rating had expired some days before!!!!!

Flt.Lt.C. Grogan AFC

[wrecker]

I remember going to BLEU Bedford in the late 60s or early 70s for a project on a cardboard bomber which used a monocular to simulate calvert and other lighting systems in low vis conditions. I never heard a result of the trials. does any one have any knowledge?

[REasson]

Steve
Apologies for not responding earlier but I haven't looked at this thread for months!
As you say at your website, the crew members of VN799 on its final flight were Flt. Lt. Harry Maule and Mr. Mike Burgan. I worked with both of them during the period 1955 -1958. They were certainly very much alive, although I don't think either of them ever mentioned VN799 to me. One source of information is an internal BLEU memo, FS 77 - BLEU - THE FIRST DECADE written in 1977 by Tom Prescott, who was head of the guidance section at BLEU at the relevant time (1953). Tom said “The aircraft was a complete write-off but the two occupants, the pilot and a member of the civilian staff, escaped with nothing more than a few cuts and bruises” although from another source I believe Harry spent a night at a local hospital. Harry was posted away from the Unit some years later but Mike worked at BLEU for many years after I left. The Operations Record Books for the RAF Unit at RAE Bedford show that he carried out automatic landing trials in the Vulcan amongst other work during the early 1960s. The memo FS 77 incidentally includes a photo of the wreckage of VN799.

[nazca_steve]

Cheers for this update, Roy, I am responding via PM now.

Steve

[10W]

I recall an "I learned about flying from that" story in Air Clues from the 80s submitted by a Canberra pilot who was diverting from a midlands airfield after the weather got bad. On the way to the alternate, he was passed to Bedford Approach on the way to his diversion destination. He heard a callsign in the radar circuit staing that he was going to do an ILS to roll (touch and go). Obviously, the weather at Bedford was better than our hero though, so he changed his destination and asked for vectors to the ILS. The other aircrat rolled in front of him, so he was suprised that he didn't see the lights at 200'. He was fed in again and had to go round a second time despite the other aircraft doing another roller. Now he was desparate. He had to land off the next approach or jump out. So he flew past minimums and got the lights in the flare. He taxied in with difficulty, shut down on fumes just as the other aircraft taxied past. It was a Varsity with the words "Blind Landing Experimental Unit" written on the side!

The story, or a very similar one, appears in Neil William's book, 'Airborne'. IIRC he was in a Hastings (but you could be right about it being a Canberra) and the tale was pretty much as you tell. One of the other things that convinced him the weather was OK, was that the Varsity crew told the Tower to let Ops know the weather was suitable for training and they would stop at some point for a crew change. :ok:

[REasson]

Flt. Lt. Grogan
My apologies for not responding earlier to your addition to this thread but I saw it only recently. It is fascinating - not boring at all.
BLEU had carried out some fog flying in the early 1950s, mostly in the DH Devon. You and Pinky Stark were obviously doing it for real, in something rather larger. I certainly did not do any landings in fog during the development in Canberra WJ992, nor in fact in the Varsity.
Talking of WJ992, that venerable aircraft is no more except in virtual form as a bolt-on to the MS Flight Simulator, available as a download at http://www.flyingstations.com/canberra-pack-tugs-trainers.html (http://www.flyingstations.com/canberra-pack-tugs-trainers.html). So I can “fly” in it again after 54 years!

[Thunderbird167]

WJ992 is not quite gone

CANBERRA - T.4 - WJ992 (http://www.bywat.co.uk/wj992.html)

[REasson]

Thunderbird167

That is an interesting collection of photos. The latest one I have found, said to be at Hurn, was from 2007. A few months ago I sought local information on the current situation and was advised as follows by someone from the Bournemouth Aviation Museum: "The Museum has a cockpit/nose section of Canberra PR7 WT532 which we recovered from the Hurn Fire Dump and refurbished some 6 or 7 years ago. There is no formal scrapyard on the airport and during the past 20 years that I have been associated with the airfield I have not seen WJ 992. A number of various Mks of Canberras have arrived and departed." So there's something of a mystery!