Habsheim was 25 years ago but still some of the lessons are there to be learned by newbies (as well as by one 86 year old !)
As a trainee at Hamble in 1949 we heard only a limited amount of the information about some of the many more frequent accidents which occurred. ( Someone had taken off in a Tudor with some of the external controls locked... But was able to land... Because he was brilliant... or exceptionally lucky ?)
The York was my first large aircraft, and it was based on the Lanchester bomber but with a different fuselage. Of the 259 built there were recorded 87 " hull losses" in the twenty years of service. In too many cases, if the pilot(s) were killed, the accident could be attributed to PILOT ERROR, without really trying to find what were the factors which contributed. An early study by David Beaty was called "The Human Factors in Aircraft Accidents".
The technology, radio communication and navigation aids together with their reliability and redundancies are now built in to an aircraft at relatively small cost in terms of weight.
A round trip from Stansted- Keflavik- Gander- N/S -Bermuda- Kingston- 2 N/S- Bermuda-Gander -N/S -Stansted took 52 hours flying, using about 10400 gallons of 100 octane petrol to carry 36 troops, each way. (Capt, F/O, N/O, R/O, G/E and Sss). Astro and weather ships for fixes, no LORAN, or ILS. ( We had SBA !)
Today might be different !
Last edited by Linktrained; 30th Jan 2014 at 01:27.