British Airways Shuttle dates
3,6 tons per hour... impressive. Clearly a design that predates the oil price hikes in the 1970s.
Just to get a feel for the numbers; Wikipedia states an OEW of 38 tons and a MTOW of 68 tons for the 3B. With 180 passengers, the ZFW must have been at around 56 tons (there is no MZFW mentioned on the Wiki though); with 9 tons takeoff fuel, this will leave an underload of 3 measly tons to a non-performance limited MTOW. And all this for a short hop from MAN to LHR. If these figures are roughly correct, it is not exactly impressive from todays point of view...
Did the wing reinforcement come with a reduced Vmo/Mmo as well?
Just to get a feel for the numbers; Wikipedia states an OEW of 38 tons and a MTOW of 68 tons for the 3B. With 180 passengers, the ZFW must have been at around 56 tons (there is no MZFW mentioned on the Wiki though); with 9 tons takeoff fuel, this will leave an underload of 3 measly tons to a non-performance limited MTOW. And all this for a short hop from MAN to LHR. If these figures are roughly correct, it is not exactly impressive from todays point of view...
Did the wing reinforcement come with a reduced Vmo/Mmo as well?
Thread Starter
Originally Posted by Discorde
As 'Flight' noted in the late '70s, the B737 with two pilots and two engines managed to do what the Trident required three of each to do, while burning two thirds of the fuel.
Last edited by WHBM; 11th May 2016 at 18:02.
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On European routes the T3 carried max 140 passengers (less in the small F Class cabin days) so the ZFW would have been much lower.
On MAN-LHR the maximum was 146 (pushed to just over 150 with jump seats occupied but that's an entirely different thread!) and in those days the majority of the customers were day trippers with no baggage so the traffic load would have been around 12 tonnes. This enabled the dedicated shuttle fleet to have its MTOW reduced to around 62T IIRC to save on en route charges etc.
The schedule times quoted on LHR-IST-LHR are depressing, having just flown that route they are quoted as above 4 hours both ways. Progress eh?
On MAN-LHR the maximum was 146 (pushed to just over 150 with jump seats occupied but that's an entirely different thread!) and in those days the majority of the customers were day trippers with no baggage so the traffic load would have been around 12 tonnes. This enabled the dedicated shuttle fleet to have its MTOW reduced to around 62T IIRC to save on en route charges etc.
The schedule times quoted on LHR-IST-LHR are depressing, having just flown that route they are quoted as above 4 hours both ways. Progress eh?
Good point WHBM. The longer B737 airborne time would partially offset the other economic gains.
On the other hand, the Trident was a more complex machine, which might have added to engineering and maintenance costs.
On the other hand, the Trident was a more complex machine, which might have added to engineering and maintenance costs.
Thread Starter
This enabled the dedicated shuttle fleet to have its MTOW reduced to around 62T IIRC to save on en route charges etc.
The schedule times quoted on LHR-IST-LHR are depressing, having just flown that route they are quoted as above 4 hours both ways. Progress eh?
August 1980 schedule:
LHR +1 IST +3 25 0845 1410 BA 570 TRD FY
LHR +1 IST +3 67 0845 1425 BA 570 737 FY
IST +3 LHR +1 25 1540 1720 BA 571 TRD FY
IST +3 LHR +1 67 1540 1745 BA 571 737 FY
Looks like the 737 didn't like headwinds.
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I flew LHR-IST-LHR on the B737-200/400 many times as a BA pilot (and also on the A320), the cruise speed of M0.72/M0.74 on the B737-200/400 doesn't help compared to a M0.78 for an A320, or M0.8x for a Trident!
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I remember being in jersey in 85 waiting to fly back on caladonian 111 to gatwick when suddenly panic in terminal Ba announced they where sending in a 757 instead of the regular 737 on the daily shuttle word going around a heavy comming in? And us flying back on a single decker still got a free drink ?
In my day, Tridents often filed 500 or more for the cruise rather than =M.
SR freighter.
Flew the Man-Gla rotation a couple of times on the 33F; we often cruised 2-4,000ft below FPL in SR for our own and pax health/comfort. More 02 and less radiation as well as faster when flying barber pole.
On the subject of barber pole met up in Borough Market last time I was in the smoke with a couple of old opos, one of whom had the Aldergrove - Renfrew record...IIRC..around 15 mins..which would have been low level and a lot of in flight reverse ;-)
WRT nightstopping Belfast - BEA was a considered a legitimate target during the troubles as it was a state owned airline; there were a lot of specific bomb warnings and several devices - management weren't kosher with us and it took Balpa to force the company to guarantee our life insurance which wasn't valid as we were flying into what was declared as a "war zone". There is one security file on the flight that diverted into Manchester with a device hidden under the seat cushion; until now it has been kept secret.
Flew the Man-Gla rotation a couple of times on the 33F; we often cruised 2-4,000ft below FPL in SR for our own and pax health/comfort. More 02 and less radiation as well as faster when flying barber pole.
On the subject of barber pole met up in Borough Market last time I was in the smoke with a couple of old opos, one of whom had the Aldergrove - Renfrew record...IIRC..around 15 mins..which would have been low level and a lot of in flight reverse ;-)
WRT nightstopping Belfast - BEA was a considered a legitimate target during the troubles as it was a state owned airline; there were a lot of specific bomb warnings and several devices - management weren't kosher with us and it took Balpa to force the company to guarantee our life insurance which wasn't valid as we were flying into what was declared as a "war zone". There is one security file on the flight that diverted into Manchester with a device hidden under the seat cushion; until now it has been kept secret.
More from the front end
The shuttle complex was an add on to terminal one which was BEA's Terminal; the other passenger terminals were also in the Central Area...three being for BOAC and two for Johnny Foreigner. IMHO the terminal was a bit Jerry built although nothing like some of the LoCo stuff that I have had the pleasure of using. One descended down a long corridor to a pax desk and waiting room and departed through "French Windows" onto the Tarmac and open boarding stairs.
The complex was somewhere around block 16 which allowed departures from 27/28 right.
Atc were always accommodating (and not only to Brits) and occasionally they would allow us to depart from the arrival runway or land on the departure one.
We were limited in "swinging" from one runway to the other during approach inside of the marker although some of my colleagues probably did it I remember a skipper refusing because of "approach stabilisation" ; I was later to do a side step on a much heavy jet below 1,000ft without problems.
It was a time when procedures from ATC and pilots were changing which successfully increased capacity and reduced delays...I have held at Ram-bullet (Rambouillet central France) on my way home and several times for more than an hour in the London area; two hours wasn't unheard of and we had a Trident 1 stall in the Clacton hold around FL 250.
Atc had started continuous descent a couple of years before but they didn't have the "Land After" clearance where one could land with an aircraft occupying the runway.
They had also initiated the "maintain 180 knots to the Marker" procedure.
From our camp we had stopped the rubbish that was taught of needing to be in landing configuration at 3,000 ft but auto land needed landing configuration by 1,700 ft for the gain programming. A few of our guys insisted that we passed the OM at Vfapp, often without saying anything, which could be embarrassing especially if it was one of our boys who had to do a missed approach because of reduced separation. Eventually BA adopted 1,000ft and in SR we had in effect 300ft.
It was my happiest time in BEA and the overall slickest operation.
There is something amongst a sizeable contingent of the flying population that big is beautiful and the bigger the kite the more kudos and dosh one gains..as you can guess it's b@@@@@ks but is still evident as one can see by BA salary scales. The 747 pay differential goes back to Sir Norman Tebbitt and a few others on the Boac Balpa PLC who grounded the aircraft when it was introduced in 1970 for the best part of two years. Although a management pilot told me that BOAC made a fortune "lending" their engines to other airlines as the early engines were very unreliable. If one visited Cranebank in those days one would see the aircraft without engines but hung with large concrete blocks like a Xmas tree so that the wings didn't deform.
The relevant bit is that the "top dogs" went onto the T3 and the Tristar and because of the lack of flying and a guaranteed roster a management or trainer was a rare bird - which suited me fine.
Papa India had changed everything especially what went on at the public inquiry and afterwards and to say that there was a distrust in management was a gross understatement.
The Trident 3 was so unpopular that crews were forcibly drafted. We had stopped having two teenager second officers flying together and the co pilot corps average age had increased due to the delay from graduating from Hamble and coming on line.
So a lot of the bull had gone out of the window and with confident skippers who could actually fly the aircraft and weren't scared of it we had great fun...sometimes too much which necessitated loosing the quick access flight data tape...normally off Eton bridge.
The first story concerns Uncle Les...a great mate RIP.
We checked in in Queens building where we would phone shuttle to see if we could stay there. Upstairs we had a standby room, silver service restaurant - which had a curry day on Thursdays - one would find it hard to find a better one and a TV room.
Downstairs we had all the important bits for pilots including met office, flight crew notice board, flight bags containing our departure and arrival docs and some other stuff we rarely used except in a panic and racks with our Plogs and Navlogs. The former were produced by our document section using Letroset and showed departure area, routing and arrivals. We needed three Plogs and one Navlog for each sector. For shuttle back up with four different destinations that meant 32 sheets of A5? Cartridge paper.
Now Uncle Les was into saving the planet and when the skipper asked if he had the paper work he said no as they might not go anywhere and have to bin it...and what about the trees and the planet...
Apparently it got very heated and in the end the skipper said f@@k the trees, Les I don't care about the f@@king trees, get the F@@king logs.
After a while they got what every shuttle pilot dreamed of and that was drafted to mainline which meant somewhere around triple tax free allowances (supertax was around 97.5%!) and flew to Gotenbourg or Helsinki...iirc correctly the former and Les ducked the glideslope which was common practice with a displaced threshold.
The threshold was displaced due to obstacles...trees...and playing silly bastards Les got very low when the skipper who's bum was no doubt twitching said watch out for the trees Les...and the immortal reply came back "f@@k the trees I don't care about the F@@king trees".
The complex was somewhere around block 16 which allowed departures from 27/28 right.
Atc were always accommodating (and not only to Brits) and occasionally they would allow us to depart from the arrival runway or land on the departure one.
We were limited in "swinging" from one runway to the other during approach inside of the marker although some of my colleagues probably did it I remember a skipper refusing because of "approach stabilisation" ; I was later to do a side step on a much heavy jet below 1,000ft without problems.
It was a time when procedures from ATC and pilots were changing which successfully increased capacity and reduced delays...I have held at Ram-bullet (Rambouillet central France) on my way home and several times for more than an hour in the London area; two hours wasn't unheard of and we had a Trident 1 stall in the Clacton hold around FL 250.
Atc had started continuous descent a couple of years before but they didn't have the "Land After" clearance where one could land with an aircraft occupying the runway.
They had also initiated the "maintain 180 knots to the Marker" procedure.
From our camp we had stopped the rubbish that was taught of needing to be in landing configuration at 3,000 ft but auto land needed landing configuration by 1,700 ft for the gain programming. A few of our guys insisted that we passed the OM at Vfapp, often without saying anything, which could be embarrassing especially if it was one of our boys who had to do a missed approach because of reduced separation. Eventually BA adopted 1,000ft and in SR we had in effect 300ft.
It was my happiest time in BEA and the overall slickest operation.
There is something amongst a sizeable contingent of the flying population that big is beautiful and the bigger the kite the more kudos and dosh one gains..as you can guess it's b@@@@@ks but is still evident as one can see by BA salary scales. The 747 pay differential goes back to Sir Norman Tebbitt and a few others on the Boac Balpa PLC who grounded the aircraft when it was introduced in 1970 for the best part of two years. Although a management pilot told me that BOAC made a fortune "lending" their engines to other airlines as the early engines were very unreliable. If one visited Cranebank in those days one would see the aircraft without engines but hung with large concrete blocks like a Xmas tree so that the wings didn't deform.
The relevant bit is that the "top dogs" went onto the T3 and the Tristar and because of the lack of flying and a guaranteed roster a management or trainer was a rare bird - which suited me fine.
Papa India had changed everything especially what went on at the public inquiry and afterwards and to say that there was a distrust in management was a gross understatement.
The Trident 3 was so unpopular that crews were forcibly drafted. We had stopped having two teenager second officers flying together and the co pilot corps average age had increased due to the delay from graduating from Hamble and coming on line.
So a lot of the bull had gone out of the window and with confident skippers who could actually fly the aircraft and weren't scared of it we had great fun...sometimes too much which necessitated loosing the quick access flight data tape...normally off Eton bridge.
The first story concerns Uncle Les...a great mate RIP.
We checked in in Queens building where we would phone shuttle to see if we could stay there. Upstairs we had a standby room, silver service restaurant - which had a curry day on Thursdays - one would find it hard to find a better one and a TV room.
Downstairs we had all the important bits for pilots including met office, flight crew notice board, flight bags containing our departure and arrival docs and some other stuff we rarely used except in a panic and racks with our Plogs and Navlogs. The former were produced by our document section using Letroset and showed departure area, routing and arrivals. We needed three Plogs and one Navlog for each sector. For shuttle back up with four different destinations that meant 32 sheets of A5? Cartridge paper.
Now Uncle Les was into saving the planet and when the skipper asked if he had the paper work he said no as they might not go anywhere and have to bin it...and what about the trees and the planet...
Apparently it got very heated and in the end the skipper said f@@k the trees, Les I don't care about the f@@king trees, get the F@@king logs.
After a while they got what every shuttle pilot dreamed of and that was drafted to mainline which meant somewhere around triple tax free allowances (supertax was around 97.5%!) and flew to Gotenbourg or Helsinki...iirc correctly the former and Les ducked the glideslope which was common practice with a displaced threshold.
The threshold was displaced due to obstacles...trees...and playing silly bastards Les got very low when the skipper who's bum was no doubt twitching said watch out for the trees Les...and the immortal reply came back "f@@k the trees I don't care about the F@@king trees".
