Interesting thread. I was a contemporary of Blind Pew at Hamble and find amusing his claim to be the star of course 702. I spent nine years on the Trident - up to it’s withdrawal from service. And I must say that I find some of Blind Pew's memories quite different to my own experience. I look back on my time on the Gripper with much affection.
However, in the early 1970's, things were a bit different and I must agree with him, the airline was state owned and not well managed, as a company or politically. A large proportion of Capts were ex WWII or National service and perhaps not so uniform in performance. Coming from prop types, some struggled with the Trident. A few were overbearing and downright difficult, but CRM had not yet been conceived. However, most of us managed to simply to get on with the job and I would like to think produced a more humble type of captain when our turn came. Promotion was slow, so we had an exceptionally long apprenticeship. It was noticeable that when the first Hamble trained pilots gained their commands, attitudes toward colleagues improved.
There is a tone of aggrieved rant in BP's posts, not many pilots left BA, perhaps he did the right thing in leaving for Swissair and I hope that he found things more to his liking there. But I imagine not.
A few other points. He makes it sound as if the Trident was a dangerous and unstable aircraft. It was not. Trident was handicapped by by its engines, not bad, just too small. (imposed on the manufacturer by BEA)
Now reaching the point of this thread. The greatest error in Trident's design - and certification, was that, incredibly, the flaps and droop/slats were commanded by separate levers. (The T1 employed drooped leading edges, while the T2 & T3 used slats, but the controls were the same.)
This defect allowed the droop to be retracted improperly, placing Papa India 60kt its below its speed for the configuration and well into the stall. As to who performed these actions including the stick-push override operation become unimportant, the design should never have been approved. After Papa India, an extra baulk was introduced in the quadrant and all slat/flap selections were made with almost exaggerated care.
BP gives the impression that Trident was a dangerous and unstable aircraft. It was not.
Trident was fast, very fast, I have seen Mach Nos. close to sonic and all without displaying any bad tendencies or need artificial protection. No high speed buffet or need for Mach trim, bank angle limiter, recovery speed brake etc. The aircraft was a delight to fly. It could do things that no other airliner could in its time and some that they still cannot do now.
It was very easy to fly, but the simulator less so. Apparently, because the CAA decided that the fuselage mounted engines presented insufficient asymmetric challenge. So, the sim had its engines mounted an imaginary18ft outboard (If I recall correctly) as well as being very pitch unstable unlike the aircraft itself. As for BP’s assertion that Trident was speed unstable on the approach nonsense, but like any jet, get it on the back of the drag curve and much power was required to recover speed, just like any jet.
Tridents autoland capability was revolutionary, though the mechanism used to achieve this seems quaint nowadays, employing triplex parallel circuits from ILS receiver to control surface actuator. But remember, this was an electro-mechanical system, no electronics. I remember on a few occasions doing four Cat3 autolands on a single day when we Tridents were the only traffic in the skies and it was 12ft/75m if BP's photographic memory needs a nudge.
Another area where Trident was a leader, was in Quick Access flight data recording. In order to gain approval for its groundbreaking Cat3 autoland, all the aircraft were equipped with a 72 channel flight data recorder, extraordinary at the time. On the completion of these trials, the evidence of these recordings could have been used in many ways. Keeping the pilots in line? In fact, the company, in cooperation with BALPA came up with the enlightened SESMA programme, whereby data derived was used to monitor performance and detect deviations and used in an intelligent manner, rather than as a weapon against offending pilots. It has been a model of its type.
A consequence of Papa India was the mandatory adoption of CVR, as without this information, despite the FDR, the actual events of the Staines accident will never be known, only their outcomes and contributing factors.
For those of you who might have been taken in by BP’s bitter and jaundiced posts, I would suggest that you look up some of the many Trident threads to discover its many fans.