Guys ,
Daarn Sarf we heard that the BEA Skyliners [ Skyvans ] were 2 tonne budgies .
Thus the 748 became a 4 tonne Budgie ...
25 years later ...80p is new to me , wuz in the day Parrot [Budgies Big Bruffer ! ] , Advanced Technical Problem , Wigwam [ A TePee ! ] , BAT [ as entered on ATC flight plans ] Skoda [ on Berlin IGS services with a lot of Trabants around ].
Reckoned if built East of the Pennines or with £1 gizmos [ instead of 50p gizmos ] they would have been more reliable .
Memories ... conversion course with BAe trainers '' Just like the Budgie '' .......'' BUT we've never been on the Budgie '' , seeing the North Sea from FL180 through the gaps around the doors . Needing hair dryers to unfreeze doors after landing in German winters . 1 in 1 descents ....FL180 to ground in 18 miles . Reversing around various airfields /runways . Smooth as silk in huge Hebs cross winds . Feet on the dash board to help rotate , trimming [ electric ] to help with the flare .
1st 20 pax went in the back , if less than 20 ; then 25kg bags of shingle went in the boot as ballast . 2 a/c each having an engine change in a Kirkwall winter . Tent sided artics which had deliverd the engines , parked around each offending one so the engineers could have a semblance of shelter [ Glasgow engineers are exceedingly tough ] .
The Budgie 'tho had much better freight hold ... trying to get a coffin in the boot was challenging [ would not fit in the bonnet ].. good job traveling rellees could not see our struggles or solution .
All that said ; they are a tough a/c , low wing , wide u/c , easy to de-ice , built like brick Karzee ,... handled all that the Hebs , Northern Isles , and N Germany
[ before the wall came down ] could throw at them .. and 25 + years later can be seen on Flight radar 24 ; still nightly trucking on as freighters from the Channel Isles throughout UK and around Scandinavia .
Rgds condor .
PS DC10 ... Def Cruiser
MD11 ... More Def 2