I remember the PI incident well, at that time, I was a co-pilot on VC10s. Since this was also a T-tailed aircraft we were naturally also concerned about deep stalls and the effects of retracting leading edge devices by mistake. From what I have read about the Trident the VC10 was a much more forgiving aircraft - it had leading edge slats rather then droops. Furthermore, they took some 20secs to retract and the slat lever was mechanically locked to the flap lever so that in normal operation it could not be operated seperately. In abnormal conditions these levers could be unlocked and operated independently. Another advantage was the time the slats took to retract, even if they were retracted without the trailing edge flaps the aircraft was able to accelerate sufficiently rapidly to avoid the stall. Our training department undertook several tests to verify this.
I also knew Simon Ticehurt's parents who were devastated not only by the loss of their son but also by all the various issues that crept out of the woodwork after the event - as described succinctly by Blind Pew.
In the 1970s CRM had not been invented. There were good captains and there were bad ones - mostly good, but on some occasions the atmosphere on the flight deck could be distinctly icy. We had our share of bad eggs in BOAC too.
However, I think the BEA operating philosophy protected inadequate captains far too much. When later I was a training captain on 747s in the early 1980s, we had a large number of failures on conversion courses of senior Trident captains who wanted to come to 747s at the end of their careers to earn more pay and thus increase their pensions. It seemed to me that too many of them had been 'carried' by their copilots and protected by a familiar limited route structure and good ATC. Some, who had been almost exclusively flying the shuttle, knew little else other than Amber 1.
The 747 was a real pussycat to handle, but it did have multiple electrical, hydraulic and pneumatic systems, a fairly complicated fuel system, five flap settings and a poor autoland system, especially on the -100 series aircraft. Despite its very good handling qualities too many of the ex-Trident captains could not cope with the system complexities, the wide-flung route structure and the sometimes non-existant ATC. There is a substantial difference between flying in Africa, in the Arctic and over the oceans when compared to flying in well-equipped continental airspace such as Europe. The tactical issues are different and rather more complex.
Our management at the time came under considerable pressure, mainly from the ex-BEA brigade, who thought we were being unfair to these pilots. But the fact was that too many of them simply could not cope. Blind Pew has hit the nail on the head in his various posts!
Last edited by Bergerie1; 8th Jan 2013 at 10:10.