Originally Posted by
Wunwing
The Ansett B767 is an interesting story which I was purely an observer as our Association struggled. So after reading the various opinions on this I went to the history books, specifically the Purple Stripe produced by the AAFEA when they were winding up the Association .
According to that book, and as has been stated earlier, the B767 was originally produced in 3 versions including "hard wired three crew,new technology 2 crew and a 3 crew version that would allow conversion at a later date. It also says that the aircraft used for certification were 3 crew aircraft and the first 30 aircraft were built as 3 crew. All 30 were then converted to 2 crew but he Ansett aircraft were then converted to the 3 crew soft wiring to allow change at a later date.
Wunwing
I have to respectfully disagree with some of the details quoted - the number of 767s with the three crew configuration was much less - 7 or 8 - when it was decided to convert everything to two crew. The number one aircraft (VA001) flew and went through the initial flight test program and cert with the 3 crew configuration -
all the rest were reconfigured to two crew before they flew. VA001 was eventually also converted to the two crew configuration. Boeing kept VA001 and it was used as a flying test bed for various other changes - including the initial PW4000 flight tests - before being leased to the USAF and converted to the "Airborne Optical Adjunct" or AOA. The AOA had a big hump on the top of the fuselage which contained a cryogenically cooled infrared red sensor intended to track inbound ballistic missiles as part of the "Star Wars" missile defense system.