Originally Posted by
gcal
I do remember the BCAL 1-11 doing braking trials at LGW into wind and with only an engineer at the controls. The one pilot had decided to take a seat in the pax cabin.
The aircraft took off and it was only a desperate scramble by the pilot back into the cockpit, which saved the day.
I heard but am not certain of the truth that the a/c ran out of fuel on the landing run.
I was at BCAL the day the 1-11 got airborne by mistake.
My recollections are:- they were cheching the steering after an incident at Jersey. There was a pilot and an engineer at the controls. They taxied all the way to "E" , the western end holding point, and asked to come back along the runway which the tower cleared them to do as long as they got a move on. This they did with a lot of power and at about 100 kts the aircraft rotated by itself and got airborne. There was only a few hundred kilos of fuel onboard and a quick circuit was carried out and the aircraft landed. The rear airstairs and a water drain mast were damaged due scraping the runway either on take off or landing.