…anything nice to say about…
Yes, they do. We ex Gripper chaps are professional aviators and we do not go all gooey over our aircraft. We flew and enjoyed ourselves without fuss. (Tongue in cheek, in case.) I went from “Guardsvan” to Tridents as F/O, back to Merchantman as LHS and then back to Tridents. I had 2 years in each of the Trident seats and enjoyed it immensely. It really was a marvelous aeroplane and going back to the VC9 seemed like going back to the stone age. I remember Slast very well but did not have nearly such a distinguished Trident career as he did, so I cannot comment on the background of much that went on. I remember well sitting on the edge of my seat during the early days of autoland. There was an alarming, but fortunately rare, likelihood that it would either try a reverse acquire or do something equaling entertaining at the flare. I used to wish that all the dolls eyes and other A/L indications could be grouped together in a ladder, to advance progressively to (hopefully) give a LAND decision. I, too, converted to the 75 and there was the ASA!! And I was dumbstruck at climbing to FL410 in 20 mins – on the Gripper, one applied “contingency power” (an extra 200 rpm!) when the rate of climb fell to 300fpm. Getting to cruise could easily take 30 mins or more and yes, the T2 had a Fin tank which would be empty before TOC. But to answer the question – YES, it was brilliant and great fun to fly. Only the 767 has anything like its controls response – and that definitely in ROLL only.
I remember the report on the 2 eng go around for the T3 at MAD (the R/W layout had been sitting there just waiting for this to happen). The average ROC was 200 FPM and the ATC reported that when it disappeared behind the hills they did not expect to see it reappear. I never discovered why the Boost was never cleared for an inflight start – I bet that crew wished it had!
Prober