Hi
ExAscoteer2,
Thanks for decoding that stuff!
This thread has produced so many anecdotes worthy of discussion, but the following one has to be top of the list...
Originally Posted by
70plus
[...] I was the one who flew the Sultan of Oman's Royal Flight VC10 A4O-AB into the Brooklands Museum in July 1987.
The runway gets shorter every time I'm asked to tell the tale about how long the Brooklands runway actually was! Give or take a bit for my memory lapse after some 33 years, it was between 3,300 ft and 3,500 ft.
[...] At Brooklands we were ultra light with minimal fuel, having only flown from Heathrow via Lasham and Farnborough that day and had just a couple of pax on board, so we were virtually empty.
We had the lines painted the week before and the aim was to Spot-Land our touch down between the two. In the event the rear bogies straddled the first line and, using full reverse thrust with relatively light braking, we actually had to put power on again reach the turn off taxiway in a dignified way at the far end of the runway.
[...] Peformance-A landing requirements for planning a landing assume that only idle reverse thrust is used but full braking is applied. It also assumes that all the flaps speedbrakes and are working normally. However we did actually use full reverse thrust and relatively light footbraking to avoid the brakes getting hot and the tyres then going bang half an hour after shutting down which would have been embarrassing on a day when we were in the 'limelight'. [...]
On a personal note: probably in common with many other pilots, the first time I saw A4O-AB on the ground at Brooklands was from the air, One hazy evening, over a year after your remarkable landing, our new A320 fleet having recently migrated bases from Gatwick to Heathrow, we were being vectored off Biggin R/H downwind for an easterly landing at LHR. Suddenly, the unmistakable shape of a grounded VC10 came into view, passing under the nose. For me, the VC10 was five jet-types earlier. I'd heard that someone had parked a Ten back at the factory, but it wasn't until after seeing it that I learned it was the former G-ASIX, originally BUA's second VC10 after its sister ship, G-ASIW. I'd last flown it FNA/ROB/FNA/LGW, a night flight in the late September of 1974 with Capt Mike Powell just before it was sold to the Sultan.
3500 ft seems really short for a landing, so I've looked at the Type 1103 Ops Manual graph for "Landing distance required - Alternate aerodrome". Correct me if I'm wrong, but I speculate that the VIP config would make for a considerably lower Basic Operating Weight than the 69 tonnes I remember from our mixed F/Y passenger config with all those heavy seats. With just 3 flight crew, 2 passengers and no catering, I'm guessing the Dry Operating Weight might have been - say - 65 tonnes or so? Fuel-wise on landing, I imagine you'd have wanted enough fuel for a G/A and second approach, plus a diversion to Farnborough or Heathrow and about 30 mins holding? That would be about 5 tonnes, so the landing weight might have been the lowest figure on the graph - 70,000 kg. Using still air at a tad above sea-level and zero slope, that gives a landing distance required of 4850 ft.
However, the graph probably assumes a height of 50 ft over the threshold. Had you crossed it at 20 ft on a 3-degree slope, you'd have saved about 600 ft, reducing the figure to 4250 ft. A 10 kt headwind component would reduce it by 400 ft to 3850 ft, but I doubt you would have had that advantage. The dry runway distances don't allow for the reverse thrust you used (on engines 1 and 4), but how much difference does that make on a short runway? 3500 ft sounds challenging, Captain!