even more Polar stuff
whilst not a lot to do with BOAC except I would be interested in the implications of the Hermes landing in the Sahara on BOAC Nav ticket philosophy.
I attended the same college as Bergerie and probably had the same Nav tutor...originally a pilot but after an accident was retrained as a Nav IIRC.
I believe I was on the first course of ex Hamsters to fly the VC10 without having a Nav ticket...having come from the "opposition"...The aircraft having been retrofitted with INS.
My next venture into long haul was with my subsequent employer who literally threw heaps of money into training and equipment.
They also had an alliance with KLM,SAS and UTA to share facilities; documentation, spares, simulators - to name a few.
Whilst some of my mates spent 18 years on their first aircraft I went through them faster than wives. So 5 years after leaving the Iron Duck I was driving my third "new" jet.
The DC10 upon launch had the most sophisticated NAV system...two computors driven by three INS platforms with autotuning and update although our routes were sourced via a Betamax sized cassette tap - 12 mins to initialise.
I had learnt early on in my career through the deaths of several colleagues that doing the minimum wasn't a guarantee of not crashing - so in some ways I became a bit of a "Pilot Nerd". This led me to buying an Ebco sextant and some complicated book on Astro which I attempted to come to terms with.
Before the advent of INS Swissair carried professional Navigators.
We had two "risky" operations o the DC10...RIO and Anchorage. Even our extended range versions couldn't carry enough fuel and the forecasting wasn't the best. The latter we started in the late 80s and I found myself returning to home base on a BA 737 24 hours before my first flight departed - personal flight preparation and rest. As fate would have it the purser was an old friend off Tridents who had been on the 747 and night stopped in ANC.
I asked him about it and he described his journey in crew transport - a yellow school bus driven by an adequately built Afro-American who no doubt had belonged to a Baptist choir or six. She was asked by a ex public school, demure young lady about the entertainment.
WELL HONEY, IN SUMMER THERE'S FISHING AND F##KING, AND IN WINTER THERE AINT NO FISHING!
Anchorage was my favorite destination...it was and probably is frontier land with the wagon trains replaced by dog sleds; I rented a large number of light aircraft - all equipped with a weapon and ammunition - mandatory in case you crashed and the bears arrived. Low flying along the gold rush rivers (20ft)..landing on a frozen river and collected by a snowmobile...aerial photographical hunts for bears, whales, moose and of course float planes.
We had slips of up to 7 days and my family spent a lot of time with me...
You couldn't invent a better life and all paid for in Swiss francs.
My third trip was the "eventful" one. As no doubt my ex colleagues will confirm - flying is about risk management although it was never talked about. If the commercial branch decide we could make money and some effing hero says "yes we can do it" then we do it....alternative get another job.
So at briefing where we were told how much fuel was needed and how much we could take the dispatcher said would you like to be the first Swissair flight over the Pole...it only needs a couple extra tonnes...and I have planned you destination Fairbanks with an inflight diversion to ANC...not out of the ordinary... we normally saved contingency fuel and the engineers reduced consumption by switching off two of the aircon bleeds...which I hated as I developed migraine due to the low oxygen levels (and no doubt ozone and organophosphate levels)
It got dark fairly quickly into our 9? hour flight but we had a beautiful moon just off the nose and low down on the horizon and all was normal until we were overhead the pole...when the panic started.
Company procedures dictated that above 65 degrees we had to be in True North compass display and under NO conditions were we allowed to disengage Nav mode. Our two computors were decoupled - can't remember whether they used average ins position or individual.
Crossing the pole we suddenly had two different track displays - 30 degrees apart.
Our next waypoint was at 80N...360nm...
I tried direct to on both displays...no change...checklists and books out...nothing...the consequences could be as speedbird wrote or just running out of fuel...at night...
Whilst not as clever as his cheese toothpicks...I disengaged everything..kept a constant bearing on the moon and by making "softly softly catchee monkey" heading changes got the Longitude counters on the INS changing towards the correct one.
After the next way point it all went back to normal.
Flying as we know is about learning from other's mistakes so I wrote a detailed report about the incident only to get a very rude reply.
Whilst I have had some excellent management pilots there are a certain group who shouldn't be in the job but as they are crap pilots many think that an office is the safest place. Fortunately our technical pilot wasn't one of these and I knobbled him on a sim check and he contacted McDonnell Douglas who came back several months later saying yes it could have happened and we don't know why but it shouldn't happen again...Inshallah
Happy days