Pulse1 in post #4969 wrote <<Your attempts to convince us that Tapper played no part in flight planning has now been shown up to be totally false by tucumseh who was able to quote other parts of the same records, and you have not challenged his quotes from the Bo
>>
I believe that Cazatou has quite rightly drawn our attention to just how the planning came together – it is crucially important to address this aspect.
It seems clear that the basic bus trip was planned by Lts Trapp and Kingston and that this “rough” planning was handed (the word used by Lt Trapp) to Flt Lt Tapper: it is important to note that this degree of planning covered fuel requirements which resulted in a noteable limitation to the options available to Flt Lt Tapper – regardless of any icing considerations, there would not be sufficient fuel for anything other than a VFR flight as there were not enough alternates (diversion options) available for a mid level instrument flight.
One would have to wonder how much more planning was required for just a bus trip but Flt Lt Tapper was observed to be doing more on more detailed charts later; MALM Forbes did his preparation on his maps too. If we add to this planning effort the crew planning for the sortie that had been done – Flt Lt Tapper had told Sqn Ldr Stangroom that his crew had “completed extensive pre-planning” - one would be forgiven for thinking that perhaps there was more to this flight than a simple ferry flight/bus trip.
We can expand on the planning aspect in the light of their having to stick to VFR: what if the conditions on the Mull had deteriorated just a little more and the shoreline could not be made out as they approached it? - it would have to have been considered in planning. Now Daleks point (post#4994, p250) is relevent <<It is just that I have never seen any evidence to support a planned approach to the Mull. As I have said "in my opinion", and that of my Puma and Tornado friends, the failure to insert a Waypoint between Belfast and the Mull suggests no planned accurate or precise approach.
>> - there are two parts to this:
Firstly, if it was intended to accurately arrive at the area of the LZ from Aldergrove, one simply had to follow the 027 radial from Aldergrove all the way to waypoint A – it lies right on it, no need for an intermediate waypoint, STANS would have fed the HoSI and the course could have been followed accurately (and this track had been followed accurately);
Secondly, if this was a VFR ferry flight just passing by the Mull, given the conditions and the possibility that the shoreline may not be clearly seen, prudent planning would surely have had that there be a waypoint(s) to keep them clear of the Mull with sufficient margin in view of the perceived (in)accuracy of the STANS on a water crossing. This is not “instrument” flying – it is using a navaid to keep clear of an area of bad local conditions fixed on a landmass from which it would be difficult to judge one's distance off, while actually remaining in clear conditions over the sea.
Waypoint A clearly does not do this being right on the land;
Waypoint B is not a natural next waypoint after A to fit the scenario of a ferry route in these conditions – with reference to the annotated charts (I posted some time ago), you would have had to select waypoint B and turned towards it several miles before the position where they actually did in order to clear the high ground (higher than where they crashed) – if indeed just flying by the Mull was their intention, they should have had a waypoint just off the next headland to aim for, otherwise, in the event of their not having clear sight of the shoreline, they would have had to do some hurried chartwork (in a Chin at 150 kts!) or do a dog leg back to some arbitrary safe distance – after all that planning effort mentioned above, why would they not have had the very basics done (ie the extra waypoint(s)) for the simple ferry flight?
I conclude that there was an intention to closely approach the area of the LZ.
Some bright spark will probably say that, even if passing by/landing at that LZ was the objective, what would they have done thereafter? Well, as the LZ was low compared with the hill and the orographic cloud was only about 800 ft, they would have had to turn back out to sea and so the logical thing for them to do (whether leaving the site after a touch and go or waving off) would have been for them to have had set waypoint B (which they did) and just head out generally NW until the bearing to B was at a predetermined figure.
Pulse1 – perhaps you should appologise to Cazatou? - the gist of his views on planning was correct as there was a handover of the basic planning – and, in addressing this, hopefully we can see that there was a lot more to the planning aspect – so Cazatou was being constructive. In contrast, BOAC is, well, words fail me …