Ansett and the Fokker Friendship

[Mach E Avelli]

I’m not sure what you mean by fixed card, but the really primitive ones that I was once familiar with were not too hard to deal with. 000 is the aircraft nose, 180 the tail, 090 the starboard wing (right wing to you children of the magenta) and 270 the port (left, kiddies) wing. The needle(s) point to the ground station. Tracking to or from an NDB is easy enough. Set heading to track desired. As the needle creeps away from 000 or 180 lay off drift in small increments until the needle is steady. Check heading against track required against needle deflection to see how the track looks, correct in desired direction. It’s not all that different to using an RMI, except you add a separate gyro compass to the plot.
Getting a bearing from off-track stations takes some basic mental math. The stuff they taught all 13 year olds in geometry classes back then…
Fixed card combined with azimuth ring gyros which had to be frequently reset for precession - as fitted to ex wartime DC 3’s and early post-war light aircraft - was a combination requiring real mental dexterity. But for this old timer it was not half as hard as mastering modern FMS stuff and learning to use a non QWERTY keyboard to type my way around the sky. Like taildraggers, first learned is often best remembered.
In that regard, at one stage I was flying both DC 3 and F 27 for a UK airline, sometimes one type in the morning and the other in the afternoon. Given a nasty crosswind on a slush covered runway at challenging places like Sumburgh or Bergen, the DC 3 was the better handling aircraft. Much to the amusement of some of my colleagues, if given the choice by rostering, I always opted for the DC 3. I never fully trusted the lightly loaded single nose wheel on the F 27, and what seemed to be less rudder authority, to keep things under control with very strong wind on the beam. The DC 3 never gave me a moment’ s concern on takeoff or landing. It only got tricky to taxi in those conditions, but by then the real scary bits were over. Whereas , I recall nearly running off the runway at night at Amsterdam in an F 27 due to crosswind. Next night in similar conditions I thought I was ready for it, but the same thing happened.
I flew every version of the RR Dart powered F 27 from serial number 05 up to almost the last off the production line before they went to the F 50. There were some really weird customer-specified instrument layouts, even to location of TGT versus torque gauges. Standard fit was torque at the top of the panel, but some airlines considered TGT/JPT as more important and had it at the top. Some customers ordered nav switching which was downright dangerous, and should have never been countenanced by the factory. Certain airlines wanted commonality with older types in their fleet, or perhaps their Chief Pilot was ‘on the spectrum’ and thought everyone else would have the same mental processes.
Nosewheel steering on the RHS was a desirable option, both for safety when training new captains, and to develop first officers. Why Ansett - which claimed to have high standards - never went for it, dunno…
Recently, I donated all my old Fokker, Vickers Viscount, Convair and Boeing manuals to the small museum at St Mary’s in Tassie, so anyone passing through with an interest in these ancient beasts, do drop in to browse. They have lots of other old stuff like handling notes for various warbirds.