Concorde question

[M2dude]

Oshkosh 1994

One very long winded piece of personal nostalgia, I hope you’ll all bear with me:
In 1994 a Concorde (can’t remember the registration) flew out to Oshkosh Wisconsin (OKS) for the bi-annual EAA fly in. The aircraft was scheduled to fly from LHR to YYZ via MAN, where it would pick up 100 charter passengers in Manchester for a five day holiday in Toronto. The aircraft would then fly empty from YYZ to Oshkosh for the five day air show, before returning to YYZ to bring home the passengers to MAN. At Manchester another 100 charter passengers were then carried subsonically back to London. While the aircraft was in Canada and the US, it would be looked after by two American BA engineers who were based at JFK. At least that was the plan, but the best laid plans of mice and men….
The aircraft was catered for the MAN-YYZ sector in London, and flew up to Manchester with just the three flight deck crew but no cabin crew (no passengers, so no need). At Manchester there would be a change of crew, plus a full complement of cabin crew for the on-going sector to Toronto (Plus of course 100 passengers). This is where things started to go rather wrong; when the aircraft landed at Manchester one of the bar trolleys , which had not been correctly secured by the catering twits, broke loose and flew through the open flight deck door (pre-911 the door was usually always open anyway). The trolley hit the back of the E/O’s chair and subsequently damaged a couple of fuel transfer switches on his panel. You can imagine what the three crew thought; they were just landing the aircraft when a high speed trolley decides to join them on the flight deck in an extremely noisy and spectacular entrance. (The language went something like ‘what the ***** was that!!). The two switches, although damaged still operated normally, and so the crew taking the aircraft to YYZ decided to accept the aircraft with just a couple of ADDs for the broken but still funtional switches.
So the aircraft, plus FOUR flight crew (an extra crew member, a captain in this case, was taken along to do the PR over the PA, as was usual on charter operations). Everything seemed to be going smoothly, or so it seemed, when there was a warning that the number 2 secondary nozzle ‘buckets’ had travelled towards reverse (the blue transit light was flashing) although the indicator on the E/O’s panel still apparently showed the nozzle at the correct zero degree position for supersonic flight. As always (at least with BA!!) the correct drill was applied, and a precautionary engine shut down was carried out. This now meant that the aircraft would have to decelerate to subsonic speed, and as a consequence would not be able to reach YYZ safely, and so a technical diversion to YQX (Gander NFLD) was carried out, the aircraft and passengers having an unscheduled night stop there. (This eating into the first night of the passengers stay in Toronto). The two JFK engineers who had been waiting patiently in YYZ had to quickly jump on a Lear Jet to Gander, and on arrival there got on the phone to London, that’s where I come in. The nozzle itself had not run away at all, it was merely an indication problem, but we all decided that the best course of action for now was to have the secondary nozzle physically locked at the intermediate position of 10 degrees as a performance ADD. This would still allow supersonic operation (although from YQX to YYZ there would be precious little of that), but with a fuel penalty of at least 1.5 tonnes per supersonic sector, plus of course no reverser operation on that engine. I still had concerns about the aircraft being able to return on the YYZ to MAN sector with a bucket locked out, but at least the passengers could now start their delayed holiday in Toronto, and the aircraft could happily fly on to the wilds of Wisconsin.
Every day during the EAA fly in, Concorde would do some charter flying, and the JFK guys would be on the phone every day letting us know how things were going. It seemed now that the secondary nozzle defect had ‘cleared up’ on it’s own, and the guys had decided to reinstate the secondary nozzle air motor to its normal position. We were all very apprehensive about this, and started to think about what the possible cause of the original defect was and maybe see about provisioning a spare part if necessary. On the final day of the EAA event, the aircraft was taxying out when another warning light for the number 2 bucket illuminated. The aircraft returned to the ramp where the JFK engineers again locked out the air motor at 10 degrees before leaving on its charter. We had discussions over the phone as to what the symptoms were, and it looked like the culprit was the switch pack that lived underneath the bucket assembly. I spent several hours getting spare parts shipped via MAINTROL to YYZ, the idea being that the bits could be flown out to Toronto on the next scheduled subsonic flight. It was generally agreed that the aircraft could not fly the YYZ-MAN sector with a bucket locked out due to performance considerations and so a fix was essential. (The spare parts included by the way the two switches that had been broken on the first landing into Manchester).
I was at the airport until quite late that night making sure that from the information that we’d been given the correct course of action had been chosen, and I only got about four hours of sleep before I had to head back to Heathrow the following morning. I had a feeling that I’d be possibly be asked to fly out to Toronto (the JFK guys requested this also) , so I took my passport, a change of clothes etc. with me just in case. Sure enough before I knew it I was on the 10:30 BA001 Concorde to JFK, a Limo taking me immediately across town from JFK to La Guardia. From there I was put on an Air Canada A320 to Toronto, arriving there at about 14:30 local time. (19:30 ‘my’ time, I was knackered already). When I got to our Concorde the JFK guys told me that the bits I’d sent the previous evening were stuck in Canadian Customs, and it took another hour or so to get our hands on them. We proceeded to get her ‘fixed up’ between us, and by about 20:00 local we were serviceable. I phoned the crew at the hotel, telling them of the good news, and was told that as soon as I’d checked in and had a shower, we were all going out to dinner (my body clock was now at 02:00). Now the flight crew and cabin crew are well [FONT='Calibri','sans-serif']acclimatised, having been in Canada and the States for FIVE days, but I am now a total wreck, (more so than usual), and when I finally got to bed it was around midnight Toronto time (05:00 London time). Now no one (including me) expected to see me for the 07:30 pick up from the hotel in the morning, but somehow I miraculously made it. Because one passenger had gone home to Manchester early, there was a seat available for me on the aircraft (I’d expected to have had to fly home subsonic, due to the only other available seat being the flip down flight deck aisle seat; to have sat there for over four hours would have been less than pleasant). So all I now wanted to do was get on the aircraft, collapse into my seat and SLEEP, but I had to wait until all passengers had boarded before I was allocated my seat; 26B right at the back of the aircraft. So here I go, getting onto the aircraft in what I thought was total anonymity when as I get on board the purser in the fwd. galley announces that ‘this is Mr Dude who flew out yesterday from London especially to make sure we don’t have to divert again’. I just wanted to die as I have to walk the gauntlet of 99 passengers all clapping and cheering all the way to the back of the aircraft, my face as red as a beetroot, and when I finally get to my seat I find that I am sat next to this really lovely elderly lady who wanted a blow by blow account of what had gone on, as well as a running commentary on the flight itself. (Of course alll I wanted to do was sleep, I was totally exhausted, but this old lady was absolutely delightful). About an hour after take-off one of the stewardesses informs me that the crew want me up front urgently, so here I go again walking the length of the cabin up to the flight deck. As I go in the guys said ‘I thought you’d fixed the *** ing thing.’ ‘I did’ replies yours truly, and I took a look at the flight deck panels and everything is normal. The four guys are killing themselves laughing, ‘fooled you’ , the flight engineer chirps up with (everything was fine, the joke was on me yet again). I once more stagger back to my seat, and for the rest of the flight I keep my lady passenger friend entertained with Concorde stories all the way back to Manchester. At Manchester there is another few hours wait before we FINALLY fly back down to Heathrow, with yet another load of passengers and I finally go home to bed. In all of my Concorde years I’d had many exhausting episodes, but Toronto ’94 really took the biscuit.

Dude