BA's monitored approach and it's origins or not!
I wrote this piece after reading a thread involving a tail strike and some comments about the disasterous post war history of my first employers.
I can't find the original thread and some of the posts about the "wonderful" BEA invention frankly pure wishful thinking.
It is different perspective of the Brits leaving aluminium strewn around the globe, perhaps the real reason for BEA 's monitored approach and why it was the best of a bad job at the time.
As was noted in the previous thread the Brits had a terrible accident rate post war ...and, for some, for the following thirty years.
Firstly the RAF in effect trained suicide pilots. Inadequately trained and with little prospect of surviving the war. An acceptable loss rate of 4% per bomber operation with the tour lasting 30 missions. Those that survived had the chance to join the Corporations and most of the management in BEA in the early 70s were from this group.
The father of one of the crew members in Papa India was sent on a solo, daylight raid on Berlin during the Battle of Britain - he spent the war in stalgluft drei and participated in the "death walk" - his rear gunner wasn't as lucky.
Brave men who were let down by the system in many ways...single pilot with an escape hatch too small on the Lancaster and we all know what happened after the war although it was kept secret until recently that Bomber Harris refused to carry out the last three major raids, including Dresden unless he had a specific order from Eisenhower and Churchill.
They weren't the only ones as I recall an allied parachute drop in The World at War where several of the British parachutes candled with the poor bastards plummeting to their deaths. The Germans and Americans had reserve chutes.
In the late 50s the Corporations took over AST at Hamble with the first course starting in 1960.
It was a farsighted step which would eventually pay dividends. Entrance qualifications were the same as those for university which 4% of the population gained. It made it the domaine of the middle and upper classes and,of course, was misogynistic, racist with smatterings of religious prejudice as was normal then.
In comparison the RAF demanded only sixth form entrance qualifications but their training could not be compared with that of Hamble; without doubt it was the reason that in one peaceful year they lost 200+ airframes and had a % loss rate on several types that exceeded that of the Starfighter flown by the Luftwaffe.
Other factors are that Johnnie Foreigner had a larger pool of talent available and used exfighter pilots. There is enough information on the net about pilot selection with the best going to fighters yet the corporations were run by bomber command.
Hamble was staffed by predominantly fighters boys and the BEA training organisation was a huge shock to me when I joined BEA in 1971.
BEA MONITORED APPROACH.
I believe it was a poor tool in an even poorer system.
The technicalities were; fully established by 3,000ft...landing configuration and approach speed.
The copilot flew the flight director whilst the analogue auto throttle controlled the speed and was monitored by the captain.
We approached on the back side of the lift/drag curve.
In reality the flight director pointed the beast through the copilot and the throttles did their best to manage the energy.
With wind shear and turbulence it was a balls up and into Gibraltar once the captain had taken over I would overpower the auto throttle and more or less use it as manual thrust anticipating and restricting the changes.
As those who have lots of hand flying know one sets the attitude and control the flight path with power.
One can do it the other way but....25 years on I reverted to BEA procedures when I returned to gliding and pointed the nose at the aiming point and controlled the speed with air brakes...I was quickly sussed.
We only manually operated to CAT 1 although others flew to CAT 2 and I witnessed one genuine CAT 2, manual approach but not in a British aircraft.
BEA had a unique way of operating aircraft which one can read about in the Lane inquiry, this carried on and the checklists were changed in the 777 prang and the LAX incident as happened with Papa India which one can read in the relevant reports.
We also had this thing that everyone was suitable for a command and suitable to fly the biggest and best kite.
There were a few guys, me included, who were frightened of the Trident. This included some management and one national service pilot who went on to be a top management trainer!
So how do you get a successful instrument approach when the skipper can't fly one...give it to the first officer and when you see the runway take over.
BEA and it's associated companies lost eight aircraft in my six years flying for them.
It changed with a change of management ...Hamsters and BOAC philosophy.
IMHO for a successful operation one needs realistic SOP, proper training and a culture that encourages criticism.
This wasn't so as we had several management stars who would ignore SOP and basically tell you to shut up if one had the courage to open your mouth.
It is why BALPA was so popular.
BUT we also had some ex WW2 pilots who could fly a raw data, manual own throttles, IMC approach and boy were they a pleasure to watch. It opened my eyes that there are many ways to operate an aircraft but in BEA is was dictated by the lowest common denominator.
As a demonstration of how dodgy the system was a mate of mine, long after I had left for pastures green, flew a manual approach with the captain setting the rpm he called. This was verboten in my time unless one had an engine failure.
The captain was mentally ill and killed himself a few months later but the important part is that he was unusually slow in setting the power which resulted in an even higher pitch attitude and the inevitable tail strike.
Many would say why didn't the copilot overpower the captain but I was taught that one kept ones hands well away from what sir was doing. It nearly killed me two years ago which is another story.
Next post will be on what BOAC did to reduce the aluminium litter strewn around the globe.