Originally Posted by
JanetFlight
Dear Rog747...
Many thanks for the kind words and attention with me.
It was a delight reading those quotes from your aviation colleagues, basically, "Our" aviation colleagues.
It's very curious and peculiar, and with such value, that no one at Funchal remembers that, however i fully believe your friends quotes and also your two interesting pics...tks for that.
As i told you before regarding Faro history im almost sure about 80% of the history things...regarding Funchal let's say around 60%...lol
But now you really made me dig deeper and deeper towards my FNC friends and colleagues...
for sure someone must have some 1-11 pics there back in the 70s, early 80's for sure if that was the case.
I remember here at Faro back in the day, the 1-11s from different operators at summer hot days, waiting for the sunset to fall down the external temperature and could "reach the sky" even on a 2500 mts rwy.
To be honest i never heard about the 1-11 on such a small runway as Funchal.
But here in Faro on hot days the Dan Airs, the BIAs, the Cymrus and even the old Bcals, and not to even mention Lakers...wow....they run, and run, and run, and run...till the very last inch of tar, and then....up to the sky....but slow!...and we were happy, because those were the days <3
Dear JF,
Sadly despite searches and many requests it appears that
no Funchal BAC 1-11 photos exist on the Web,
but for sure, some holiday makers would have taken plenty of
snaps whilst boarding the plane at the FNC airport!
The BAC 1-11 500 used to go into LBA Leeds Bradford with British Midland back from 1970 onwards as mentioned in the Post by
FUMR above,
LBA was the same short runway length as FNC.
The 1-11's would normally always use
Water Injection (De-Min water) to assist in extra power for take-offs in High Temps such as departures off very short runways and even at Faro Corfu, and at PXO.
Anecdotes from Laker Airways Crews who flew to Funchal are below:
We think Laker began holiday flights Gatwick to Madeira from around 1972 onwards -
1/
Yes,
Laker Airways did fly into Funchal.
This was before the runway was extended and it was always a challenge as the wind from each end of the runway was always 180 deg opposite and the wind in the middle of the runway was always calm. As I remember it we used to position visually over a white building at 800 feet in a right turn onto the final approach. The limits for operating into FNC were quite high and only flight checked captains could do those trips.
2/
I flew on the jump seat as a Laker "Flying Spanner" to carry out the turnarounds to Funchal in April 1973. The Captain used to issue us with a Ticket for the trip to make things legal I suppose. Capt. Tom Smallman was my Captain to Funchal and Peter Dolosso was F/O. The landing at Funchal those days was more like landing on an aircraft carrier. I think we stopped at Lisbon for fuel on one, perhaps both of the sectors.
3/
A
Laker Airways Hostess recalls,
''Yes they did. It was one of my first flights in 1974!''
A
Dan Air skipper recalls -
I flew from Gatwick to Funchal on 24/06/80. The aircraft was G-BEKA (a BAC 1-11 520 series)
We had a full load of 119 passengers to take out of there and in those days the runway was only 1600 metres long.
When I calculated the performance, we could only take 3000 kgs of fuel out of there.
Needless to say, that meant a quick hop across to Porto Santo where we fully refuelled for Gatwick.
Had to uplift demineralised water to do a wet takeoff from Porto Santo and even then we used every inch of the runway!
I recorded in my logbook that we clocked up 12 hours 25 minutes on duty that day so had to file a discretionary report.
Happy days!
And another -
Ah, the old water injection system!
I remember one day in July 1989 the two of us at Faro pumping in 300 litres of the stuff in 30+ degrees with a hand pump.
The electric pump hadn’t been loaded on board and the only one available from Dan Air was this hand pump.
The flight deck didn’t smell too well on the way home!
Another reply -
''I remember doing the same at Funchal.
Sweating buckets by the end of it.
As if that wasn’t enough, halfway down the runway the demineralised water pump on the number one engine packed up so it went down to dry power.
This was before they extended the runway on stilts at Funchal so as you can imagine we used every bloody inch of it!
Had to tech stop in Faro on the way home and go through the whole process again using the hand pump.
I think I threw that uniform shirt away when I got home.
And we call them the ‘good old days?’'
I guess 737-800 and A321 Flight Crews ''these days'' have things a tad more easy now when down route lol.
BTW-
I also need to see if
Airways International Cymru 1-11’s (and also
Monarch) ever flew into Funchal too
but I think not.
Best R.
Laker Flying Spanner duty travel tickets in 1973.