Approaches were made, quietly, to various oil companies in Europe to see if they could produce the fuel we needed. One after another they said no. Even if they had the deed stock they would need to crack such an exotic brew, the 60000 USG we wanted was either too small or too large an order, and the price would be horrendous.
The fuel was all we need now to make this flight theoretically possible, but time was running out. The aircraft delivery date had now been fixed for the 9th of August. We would soon have to announce our intention and to seek the cooperation of ATC over Europe to expedite the flight and ensure we would be able to get our required route and altitude. Lower than normal altitudes would cause excessive fuel consumption and that could terminate out attempt in the very early stages of the flight. The achieved altitudes in the first two or three hours of the flight would be critical.
Because the flight was one off, we also had to obtain everflight clearances from all the countries over which we would fly, and that can take around 30 days. We needed that fuel. ***** *******, our fuel director felt his telephone bill would keep OTC going for many years.
Behind all this was some doubt about how the aircraft would actually perform. We would not know until we flew it across to London and actually measured its performance. One percent in fuel mileage could make the difference, and that kind of variation from aircraft to aircraft was not unusual.
Finally Shell said they could make the fuel. At last! We could now announce the flight and start real preparations. Shell then said they would move to make the fuel in West Germany because that was where the feed stock was. How would we transport the fuel to London? Tankers we said. Not that easy they said, we dont have them to spare. Another hurdle. Then we found some tankers, not the usual behemoths, small ones, but tankers nonetheless. Nine would be required.
By this stage I was in Seattle preparing for the aircraft acceptance and delivery. Weekly conference calls and other ad hoc calls were keeping the telephone lines warm smoothing out the final details
The pieces were starting to fall into place. An enormous effort by what was now a fairly large team of people, all experts in their own speciality. But how would the aircraft perform? The las unknown. Were our calcualtions correct? We would not know for sure until we flew the aircraft to London from Seattle. That would be the final test.
The aircraft delivery was going to be delayedabout a week because of some late part supplies to Boeing. Reorganise the schedule, use up the pads I had built in and reschedule the departure date from London a couple of days back. Could we ahcieve the necessary crew training in one day instead of three? Yes, it could all be done and the overflight clearances were still valid. We could still achieve a weekday departure from London (necessary because of congestion over europe during weekends caused by the incredible number of charter flights taking tourists to and from holiday resorts in the height of summer) and a weekday arrival into Sydney.
Shell announced another small hitch with that all essential fuel. It had been prepared in two bathces and they would not mix. Soulution, put it all in a rail tanker and shunt it up and down a sliding to shake it up. A gigantic cocktail shaker! It worked. The resultant fuel was analyzed and thei final master stroke - this special brew not only complied with the civil Jet A1 specification, but it also had some very special characteristics. It was as dense as that specification allowed and it had an extraordinary freeze point. I told shell it had to have a freeze point of at least -50*c to stop the fuel freezing in the tanks during a very long flight at the expected cold temperatures. Shell said they had tested it to -70*c and would that do, or did i want them to test it further. Since the coldest OAT temperature that I had ever seen was -69*c and the fuel should not get much colder than -40*c i said that -70*c was probably about enough. They shipped the fuel to London.
The delivery of the aircraft came and went with a few hitches, but nothing serious. We completed our training and set off to London with one of the most experienced and high level crews that QANTAS had ever assembled. With me now for the flight to London and for the non-stop were:-
Ray Heiniger - then - Flight Operations Training Director
Rob Greenop - then - Flight Standards and Safety Director
George Lindeman - then - Manager Flight Simulators
We also had Captain Chet Chester from Boeing as an additional pilot for the long flight. Also on board were Jim Clarke, Manager Performance Engineering and a performance engineer from Boeing and one from RR.
The aircraft performed flawlessly during that flight. Once the performance engineers had processed their observations through a lap-top computer in London, they announced that it was that critical one percent better than we had expected.
The London to Sydney non-stop was now GO!
On the strength of the positive news about the performance, i agreed to allow one mroe passenger on the flight. The total on board would now be 23, comprising 5 pilots, 2 cabin crew and 16 passengers. I was to wonder about adding that extra passenger about half way throught he flight.
On the day of the flight the wind forecast was teh worst that we had seen for some weeks the overall component was only +14kts and we had been seeing upwards of +20. However, the forecast for Sydney was good and we still had adequate reserves of fuel.
The fuelling which had been substatially carried out the day before was completed. Each tank was filled until it overflowed out the wing tip vents with a fire truck standing by to wash away any spilt fuel.
My feeling of relief was substantial when the first engine started normally. Although there was no reason to doubt that they would start this was the first time this fuel had been used.
The cooperations we recieved from ATC and the authorities generally was absolutely superb. It all started with our departure from London when ATC allowed us to be towed out to the runway which saved us about 1/2 tonne of fuel. They also made our slot for departure on the arrival runway so our departure wouldnot be delayed. We recieved all the route and altitude clearances that were needed even across the incredibly busy skies of central europe. ATC in all countries displayed interest in our flight, wished us well with a couple passing official greetings from their government.
All went totally according to Hoyle, until we passed over Muscat. About then we climbed to 37000 ft and the winds, already forecast to be headwinds proved to be much stronger than we had expected. Which just goes to prove that weather forcasting is not yet an exact science. These adverse winds persisted for about 3 hours until we passed Colombo. During this time we could do nothing but watch as our fuel reserve started to diminish
Then over the Cocus Island and now at 41000 ft we were passed a revised forecast for Sydney. It was not the sort of news I wanted to hear at that stage of the flight with our already reduced fuel reserve. The forecast was for INTER TS about the time of our arrival. That meant that we had to have an additional thirty minutes of reserve fuel above our minimum reserve of 30 min. Simply, at that stage, we did not have even 30 minutes of reserve fuel let alone 60.
Fortunately, the winds had already swung around to the tail and started to become stronger than forecast. We began to make up lost time and our fuel situation started to improve.
We flew on knowing that the weather in Adelaide and Melbourne was good incase the weather in Sydney turned really foul but, it would be a real dissapointment not to make our objective. To say nothing of the fact that I had been told not to expect to fly home on the aircraft if we did divert. Our director of Flight Operations had made it known that he considered a bus much more appropriate form of transport if we did not make Sydney.
Overhead Adleaide and now flying at 45000 ft (or nearly 14km high) the winds continued to be more favourable than forecast and we recieved a revised forecast for Sydney which changed the TS to heavy showers. The import of this was that we no longer needed that extra 30 min of reserve fuel. Sydney was now assured!
I was to discover later, that some negotiation had been going on between our Director of FLight Operations and the weather forecasters to see if they would consider removing the mention of TS from that earlier forecast. They agreed to do this, and at about the time this converstaion was finishing there was an enourmous thunderclap at Mascot. This was heard over the phone by the weather man who exclaimed "What the **** was that?" Legend has it that the response was somehting to the effect that no-one at Mascot heard anything, and the weather man must be hearing things.
The rest is history, except to say that our welcome in Sydney exceeded anything I had expected. To see so many people waiting for us as we turned the corner around the hangar onto the QANTAS maintenance area was a very humbling experience.
We arrived in Sydney with 5.6 tonnes (or just over 45 min) of fuel remaining of the 183.5 tonnes we had on borad out of London.
20 hrs 9 min and 5 sec after liftoff at London and almost half a world away, we ahcieved that which we set out to achieve many months before. Two world records and two Australian records were set in the process. It was an enourmous sense of achievement for me and the whole team who had worked on this project....
....That for the most part is all of what he wrote. Hope it was intersting for you all - took bloody long enough to type it out
Twin