Danny; safety speed equals V2. V1 means there is not enough runway left to stop. Nowadays all multi-engine aircraft reach V2 before V1 so between those two speeds there is a choice. Not then; there could be some time where you were in trouble either way.
Those posts took some time because they came out of a book I once wrote. Shiksha was such an unusual exercise that I decide that it would make a good subject. I started writing it in 1994 when it was only thirty years ago so it was fairly sharp in the memory banks. I doubt if I could remember it now.
Whilst I was in China in the nineties I had a fair amount of free time. Laptops had become affordable in Hong Kong and I bought one of the first Windows 95 products. Eventually Office 97 came along and two weeks later I bought a pirated copy in Mok Kok for HK$25.
The story started off as purely a technical narrative with loads of fact and figures plus a rundown on all the techniques used. This got a bit boring after a time so I deleted all the technical stuff and threw in the opposite sex. It then went from fact to fiction with a factual base. Reading my posts on this thread, believe me, you ain’t seen nutting. It was a bit like Sex and the Stratosphere.
I thought about publishing it but the costs were too much. Should I have sent it to a book publisher it would have to be proofed. A proof reader requires it double spaced which would have lengthened it to 500 pages at £1/page. Self publishing was just as expensive and there was no shortage of aviation books so it would be against a lot of competition. Finally I sent proof copies to some acquaintances and the reaction was not encouraging, if at all.
The commentary on Shiksha for this thread involved a lot of cut & paste and remembering not the facts, but the fiction, and deleting it. As a guide when I reached the point where I stopped in Butterworth I was on page 42. From then on the book is total fiction.
Even for the above posts I have used the fictitious names of my captain and others as they may still be alive and I feel I should not use their names without their knowledge.
All books have to have and ending. I thought about riding into the sunset or living happily ever after with a beautiful heiress but I let it end the way I thought it would end when I joined the RAF. Ted is the captain; I am Chris.
Quote:
It’s a thirty minute flight to Rougham and I was already planning the strategy for Sridevi. Two week’s leave? I could get a flat for that time in London. I knew there were short term rents and I could afford it. It’s not to get her into bed or anything like that, I didn’t want to, but at least we could be alone. My thoughts were interrupted as we went through the descent checks.
We established on the ILS at 2,000ft.and as we came to the glide path Ted called for forty degrees flap. I watched the indicators and as they reached forty degrees I stopped the flap and confirmed forty flap. There was a bang behind us. The main door’s popped, I thought, and I craned round to look. The door was still on and crew were all looking up at the top of the coal face. I turned back to check the instruments. Christ! We had forty degrees of bank on.
“Help me Chris! I can’t hold it.” Ted had the controls hard over.
There was nothing I could do except hold it with him against the stops. I saw the altimeter unwinding through a thousand feet.
Ted saw it too. “Abandon Aircraft! Eject Eject!”
I don’t believe this, it can’t be happening. Years of training came in. Automatically I pulled the canopy jettison handle; there was a rattle around my ears as the explosive bolts blew. It was now suddenly very bright in the cockpit. I reached up for the ejection blind; it was flapping so it took two goes to find it. Three bangs as the seat fired with a crack from the drogue gun and a tug as my legs were pulled together. There is no sense of acceleration, my eyes are looking down and I could see the aircraft rushing away below me. A jerk as the drogue stabilised the seat and then I felt the seat harness release. At the same time the seat ejection blind came free and I could look around.
Christ! That’s a five barred gate.
End of quote.
From the Board of Enquiry:
The Co-pilot.
The co-pilot was found in a face down position suffering death through multiple internal injuries and fractures as a result of impacting the ground at high speed. His ejector seat was on the ground 25 ft away. Inspection revealed that the seat had gone through its correct sequence and had released the pilot. It had then deployed the parachute drogue and this in turn had released the canopy from the pack. There was insufficient height to deploy the parachute and when the co-pilot struck the ground some of the canopy shroud line loops had not been extracted.
As you probably realise the rest of the crew didn’t do very well either.
At least I don’t have to write a sequel.
When the Valiants folded I went on to helicopters where I learned to fly from 0 to 95 instead of 95 to M0.8. Then I went off to North Boneo.