BOAC London - Singapore early 50s [Archive]

WHBM

19th Sep 2004, 20:24

I have here in my collection the BOAC timetable for August 1952 which I think could answer these points.

Singapore airport was still Kallang then. BA (their flight prefix even then) had 4 Canadair Argonauts a week from London, plus 2 a week from Hong Kong, and also 3 faster Lockheed Constellations a week going through to Australia.

The outbound timetable for the Connies, flight BA 704, was:

London 0930 Day 1
Zurich 1200/1300
Beirut 2130
....Nightstop
Beirut 0945 Day 2
Karachi 2030/2300
Calcutta 0530/0645 Day 3
Singapore 1545
....Nightstop
Singapore 0800 Day 4
Jakarta 1030/1130
Darwin 2000/2245
Sydney 0700 Day 5

Cairo (and many other points) were done by the Argonaut schedules.

All times local. Baggage allowance 30 kgs to Singapore, 40 kgs if going through to Australia.

Fare London to Singapore £ 352/16 shillings return. One class only.

The same timetable has the new Comet 3 times a week to Johannesburg, while there are 22 transatlantic flights a week, Stratocruisers and Constellations. The BOAC fleet was very mixed at this time, there are even a few Hermes still about. I suspect you remember the Stratocruisers from the transatlantic sectors.

Earlier timetables in my collection still have the Far East route done by flying boats !

edwardh1, PM me if you would like a scanned image of the timetable when I get back to the UK in a week's time.

Skylion

20th Sep 2004, 12:41

Further to what WHBM says, the aircraft with the pull down bunks were the Constellations as the Argonauts were never so fitted. The Stratocruisers never appeared outside the Atlantic routes apart from a brief operation to West Africa in 1958 and 59. This was to counter growing criticism that BOAC was abusing its monopoly position on the colonial cabotage routes and giving the newly emerged Nigeria Airways ( then WAAC) and Ghana Airways outdated equipment when they started long haul services to London. The Stratocruisers then gave way to Britannias. Sadly the Stratocruisers never ventured further east, although en route to Nigeria and Ghana they did give the citizens of Rome an interesting alternative service to London in competition with BEAs offerings.
Between London and Singapore, the Constellations and Argonauts soldiered on until the arrival of the Britannia 102s in March 1957 although these only had a life of just over 2 years on the route until the arrival of the Comet 4s from June 1959. The 50s were an incredibly fast moving decade with BOAC fleets such as the Hermes 4, Comet 1 and DC 7C lasting only 2 to 4 years at best and in contrast the Argonaut spanning from being in the passenger fleet at the same time as the York right through to within a month or two of the 707.

edwardh1

6th Oct 2004, 17:39

Cairo and the Argonauts ring a bell in my brain so perhaps that was our route in the fall of 52.

on that route was there a Karachi stop then direct to singapore? or were there stop(s) in India?

WHBM

6th Oct 2004, 20:21

edwardh1, I'm back in the UK at the weekend and will look it up.

edwardh1

6th Oct 2004, 23:08

Thanks.

on our flight we had a engine fail - i think on the karachi - singapore leg and they landed "somewhere in india" ---where would that have been? and worked on the engine all day - we spent the night there not planned .

how was maintenance handled - were there enough techs and parts out there to fix things?

WHBM

8th Oct 2004, 20:32

Cairo and the Argonauts ring a bell in my brain so perhaps that was our route in the fall of 52.

on that route was there a Karachi stop then direct to singapore? or were there stop(s) in India?
As promised ....

This makes things easy because of all the BOAC Far East schedules that year there is only one that combines Cairo, Karachi, Singapore and Argonauts.

BA 780

London 2130 Tu
Rome 0150/0250 We
Cairo 0930/1030 We
Basra 1600/1700 We
Karachi 0035/0235 Th
Delhi 0650/0750 Th
Calcutta 1140/1240 Th
Rangoon 1645 Th
.... nightstop
Rangoon 0800 Fr
Bangkok 1025/1125 Fr
Singapore 1600 Fr

As you will see Karachi to Singapore was not only not nonstop, but was 36 elapsed hours including a nightstop and several others. You must have been very tired by then ! All the Eastbound Argonaut schedules nightstopped in Rangoon.

edwardh1

9th Oct 2004, 00:36

wonder what the basra airport looked like in 1950s?
I need to do some web searching.
Iremember a place with electricity but no refrigeration - is that possible? lots of sand, a fuel stop??????

John (Gary) Cooper

9th Oct 2004, 06:38

This one late 50's, if it helps, 'twas Airwork too but under the tailplane in very small letters B.O.A.C. could be seen.

My flight log records this journey:
By Hermes G-ALDC of Airwork
25/01/1958 Dep Blackbushe to Brindisi, Italy 6.00 hours
26/01/1958 Dep Brindisi to Ankara, Turkey 4.05 hours Damaged undercarriage on snowy runway, 4 nights in Ankara hotel
02/02/1958 Dep Ankara to Basrah, Iraq 4.00 hours
02/02/1958 Dep Basrah to Karachi, Pakistan 5.45 hours overnight stop at Minnewallis (sp?) hotel
03/02/1958 Dep Karachi to New Delhi, India 2.55 hours Prime Minister Nehru inspecting the PAF whilst there
03/02/1958 Dep New Delhi to Calcutta, India 3.25 hours
03/02/1958 Dep Calcutta to Krung Thep, Bangkok, Thailand 4.25 hours
04/02/1958 Dep Bangkok to Paya Lebar, Singapore 4.30 hours

I still retain the original Flight Information sheet, the pilot was Captain Talbot, Air Hostess were Miss Adams and Miss Irwin we were then (on issue of info) at Zakho on the Turkish/Iraq border at a height of 11500 feet 205 ground knots 236 MPH

I recall Basrah being extremely hot even in February and at that time of the day too. I'm fairly positive that the engineers wore white overalls at our staging stops and that the passenger steps were in BOAC livery

WHBM

9th Oct 2004, 14:47

Just as I've got the 1949 BOAC timetable out as well (only 3 years before the original question), here is a detail from the last summer of flying boat operations to the Far East. Service to Singapore had stopped by then, but you could still go right round to Japan. No real night flying. 8 days for the trip ! Believe crews stayed with the aircraft for several days, and were slipped at Karachi and Hong Kong.

BO 900

Plymouth flying boat

Southampton 1100 Sa
Augusta (Sicily) 1900 Sa

Augusta (Sicily) 0900 Su
Alexandria 1515 Su

Alexandria 0700 Mo
Bahrain 1700/1800 Mo
Karachi 0145 Tu

Karachi 0800 Tu
Calcutta 1600 Tu

Calcutta 0600 We
Rangoon 1100/1200 We
Bangkok 1500 We

Bangkok 0800 Th
Hong Kong 1645 Th

Hong Kong 1000 Fr
Shanghai 1500 Fr

Shanghai 0800 Sa
Yokohama (Tokyo) 1630 Sa

Georgeablelovehowindia

11th Oct 2004, 21:44

The Argonaut, or DC-4M2, was a classic Canadair hybrid. Derived from the DC-4, but pressurised, it had square DC-6 cabin windows and had 1760 h.p. RR Merlin engines instead of the 1450 h.p. P & W R-2000s of the DC-4. Max takeoff weight was 80900 lb. In BOAC, it was configured either in 40 seat 'Majestic' or 54 seat 'Coronet'. Normal crew complement was 7: captain, first officer, navigating officer, radio officer, two stewards and a stewardess. The Argonaut, like the DC-4, didn't carry a flight engineer. It entered service with BOAC in 1949 and soldiered on until 8 April 1960. One wonders why BOAC favoured the Argonaut over the bigger, faster, sleeker Constellation. That said, the only bad thing I ever heard about it was that fitting the crossover exhaust manifold was a nightmare, especially with the hot sun beating down. (edwardh1, your 'unsheduled engine change' please note! Delhi? Calcutta? At either place and all round the other routes, BOAC had an army of people and spares.)

A fuel flight plan for BA165 G-ALHF Cairo - Khartoum is shown in the book Airline Pilot by Eric Leyland (long since out of print). 880 n.m. stage length, 4.20 flight time, at FL135/140, 8000 lb. fuel consumption, loadsheet fuel 14840 lb., planned take-off weight 80000 lb. The number of pax is 54, so 'HF was in Coronet (tourist) config. Planned time of climb to FL135 is 49 minutes (!) at an average TAS of 171 kt. Initial cruise TAS is 197 kt., increasing to 211 kt. by top of descent, at which point the TAS increases to 221 kt. for the last 20 minutes.

There was no weather radar in them thar days, of course. I can personally attest to being frightened rigid on my first ever flight, in a BOAC Argonaut, in June 1953. Somewhere over France, en route Heathrow - Tripoli, eventual destination Accra, we entered a CuNimb. For what seemed for ever, we were flung around, to the accompaniment of vivid lightning flashes and the clattering of the ice coming off the props and hitting the fuselage. Eventually, we came out the other side, calm was restored and the business of serving dinner got under way. What a welcome to flying! No soothing words from the captain on the p.a. The Argonaut didn't have one of those either. As was the custom, he did eventually pay a visit, resplendent in his four (three and a half? three?) gold bars, wings and medal ribbons.

Ah, the Hermes 4! In contrast to the Argonaut, it entered service with BOAC on 7 August 1950. All 19 were gone by 1 October 1953. As early as August 1952, BOAC were passing some on to Airwork. Apparently it was: " ... the biggest Heap that anyone ever flew, that it built up an unenviable reputation among passengers for monstrous irregularity and non-appearance, and that it did more damage in its ludicrously short operational life to BOAC's reputation than all the other aeroplanes we ever owned put together." (Horizon - The Magazine of BOAC Flight Operations September/October 1966.)

Gosh! That said, the Hermes was gratefully received by Airwork and then Britavia. They were operated on trooping flights to Africa and the Far East. 11500 feet over Zakho, eh? I suppose that's as high as the Hermes could climb with all those 68 people aboard. I'll bet there was double and treble checking of the navigation. Just north of that position, the MSA is shown as 13.1, rising to 16.0 in the Baghdad FIR and the MEA on the airway is FL195! Interesting to note that between them, Airwork and Britavia wrote off five Hermes (Calcutta, Orleans, Sicily, Blackbushe and Karachi) although with what loss of life isn't mentioned.

Golf Charlie Charlie

11th Oct 2004, 22:30

<<
Interesting to note that between them, Airwork and Britavia wrote off five Hermes (Calcutta, Orleans, Sicily, Blackbushe and Karachi) although with what loss of life isn't mentioned.
>>

Fatalities were, respectively : zero, zero, 7, 7, zero. Perhaps it could have been a lot worse, as occupants were respectively : 64, 70, 57, 80, 72. Never knew the Hermes could take quite so many !

edwardh1

12th Oct 2004, 00:39

dumb question but where did the food and water come from?

I ask because many flying public people in the US (and some flight crews I hear) will only drink bottled water (nothing from the planes tanks?) . I bet there was not too much bottled water around then - so where did the passenger drinking water come from and was it kept in plane tanks or in seperate bottles/jugs?
same on food - I remember the food as really great - was any of it cooked aboard?

WHBM

12th Oct 2004, 13:12

One wonders why BOAC favoured the Argonaut over the bigger, faster, sleeker Constellation. That said, the only bad thing I ever heard about it was that fitting the crossover exhaust manifold was a nightmare,
There was a lengthy article in Propliner magazine a while ago by an ex-Argonaut skipper which described several interesting little features of the aircraft ! I'll look up the reference when I have some time. Apparently the noise on the flight deck was such that many long-time Argonaut crews developed hearing problems in later years.

Pesumably in those days the various base engineers had all been experts in Merlins since they were in the RAF in WW2, which did seem to be relatively unburstable in comparison to the US-built radials, particularly the Wright ones (Pratts being better), and very particularly the various Wright models put on the Constellation (once described as "a good 3-engined aircraft" after its tendency to get in-flight shutdowns ! Possibly away from main bases it just was not viable (the DC-7 used the same engine). Notable the Wright-powered Connie and DC-7 disappeared very quickly when jets came, the Pratt-powered DC-4, DC-6 and Convairs lasting much longer.

Part of the reason the Argonaut soldiered on so long was all the troubles with its successors:

Hermes - heap of junk.
Comet 1 - the well known withdrawl from service
Britannia - years of development delays.

Georgeablelovehowindia

12th Oct 2004, 16:28

Yes, Merlins made a lovely noise, but not when you were sat between them, for hour after hour. On each occasion I flew on the Argonaut, my ears were still buzzing two days afterwards!

I wonder if another reason why the Argonaut lasted until the Britannia finally came into service, was that the much more widely ordered Constellations were easier to sell on. The only other airline to operate the Canadair was TCA, where it was known as the North Star.

In addition to the Wright Cyclones on the Constellation, the P & W Wasps on the Stratocruiser were also troublesome. The Strat was often seen limping in on three, perhaps having had to turn back from well out in the Atlantic. PanAm ditched one in the Pacific with a prop which wouldn't feather, the drag making all the PNR and ETP fuel calculations irrelevant. The ditching, next to a ship, was so skilful that the only fatality was an unfortunate dog in the hold, as I recollect.

As regards, the food served aboard, yes it was of amazing quality. You also have to remember that in Britain we were just coming out of food rationing and the stuff served up in restaurants was generally dire. The meals were prepared in flight kitchens. BOAC had its own catering unit at LHR, right up to fairly recent times. Down route, the job was usually contracted to a local hotel, the quality of whose preparation was subject to regular checks. The meals were heated up on board. On the Argonaut, the pantry units were either side of the main passenger entrance door and were discreetly covered during boarding and disembarking. You have to take your hat off to the cabin crew who delivered the service out of that confined working space.

All the water came from an onboard tank, which was replenished at each stop from a bowser clearly marked Potable Water. This also was subject to regular quality checks and treatment, if necessary. Again, you have to remember that this was the fifties. We didn't know to drink wholesome water in the quantities that we do now and I'm sure that most water drunk aboard was either as tea or with whisky! The previously mentioned Cairo - Khartoum fuel plan has an allowance of 173 lb. for domestic water discharged overboard at the rate of 40 lb/hr. This would be from the two washroom sinks and pantry unit and isn't permitted nowadays.

edwardh1

13th Oct 2004, 02:24

the reason I asked about the water is that my wife and I rent sailboats sometimes in the caribbean - BVI, St Martin, Grenadines, and over the years we have stopped drinking the water out of the "ship's tanks" because when you think about it they are very hard to keep clean- on a boat you would have to pump them out - maybe on a plane just drain them?

Anyway, about a month ago some agency in the US checked about 200 commercial planes water and found about 20 of them (water tanks) contaminated with bacteria - a problem really to me. Not much progress in 50 years huh?
So that is why I asked .
Was the water then in rangoon or Bagdhad at the airport drinkable ?

kala87

13th Oct 2004, 22:42

Didn't BOAC stop serving Cairo in the late 50's due to the repercussions of the Suez crisis? We lived in East Africa at the time, and I vaguely remember BOAC African flights being routed through Tripoli or Benghazi during this time. Our tribe did land at Cairo in September 1958 as pax in a KLM DC6B, en-route from Amsterdam, to be warmly welcomed as long-lost British friends by airport staff, so maybe BOAC hadn't returned to Cairo by that date??

By then most if not all of BOAC's East and South African flights were probably operated by Britannia 102's. I can remember their unreliability being a frequent topic of conversation among the adults (I was all of 8 and 9 years old at the time) if my memory serves me correctly. Would that have been the well-documented engine ice problem?

I do remember being on the roof terrace at Khartoum airport when the inaugural Comet 4 flight landed, en-route from London to Jo'burg. Everyone stood up and clapped as it taxied in. And I can remember being in transit at Rome airport when a very noisy jet took off which was the inaugural Caravelle flight Paris-Rome-Istanbul, in May 1959.

Regarding the Stratocruiser, Pan American had a litany of incidents with the aircraft in the 1950's including the Pacific ditching already mentioned. They also lost a Strat. over the Amazon jungle in 1952, and yet another Strat. was forced to ditch in the Pacific in 1957. There were no survivors in either tragedy. Another Strat. narrowly avoided having to ditch in the Pacific and made an emergency landing on Johnson Island. In each case the cause was, or was surmised to be, engine overspeed and/or loss of a propeller blade.

PAXboy

14th Oct 2004, 16:24

was 36 elapsed hours including a nightstop and several others. You must have been very tired by then ! I wonder? Although I did not do those long multi-sector flights, the pax in the a/c under discussion had more space than today and got regular nightstops. Also, they could probably disembark during the tech stops? With better food and the slow progress making the clock changes much easier too? That said, the noise and vibration must have been ghastly!!

A great aunt of mine, who lived in CPT recalled the days of the Flying Boat service from Southampton Water to Table Bay, with the Nile and Lake Victoria en route!

I can well believe that the long serving crews had hearing problems. My father was in Beaus and Mossies (+ sundry others) and he had 'high frequency deafness' from then on and it got steadily worse in his life. I gather that this was usual for crews that had uninsulated a/c and only the flying cap between them and the Merlins. When they went to Berlin and back, they could be up for eight hours, not to mention the noise of the guns, but that's another story.

My first long haul flight was not until 1965 on the LHR~JNB route with Rome and Nairobi and served by the magnificent VC-10.

This is a cracking thread. Thanks to all whose memories still work. ;)

WHBM

14th Oct 2004, 19:50

Thanks to all whose memories still work. Oh gosh Paxboy, I'm not that old, surely ! Just have a lot of history collection (especially timetables) from the old days which I have built up in more recent years.

<From Ms WHBM .... "Don't I know it :rolleyes: >

It's a shame to have to write the truth about the Handley Page Hermes, as my father was aircrew on the HP Halifax in WW2 and never said a bad word against them.

I never did a major piston-engined flight but a relative who travelled by hovercraft from Dover to Calais with me in recent years said the noise and vibration were very reminiscent of what it was like in a Trans Canada Connie from London to Vancouver, except that was 20 hours !

The basic Pratt engine had a good development pedigree, but the version put into the Stratocruiser/C-97 was just too complicated with 4 rows of cylinders in each engine, and when it burst it could do so spectacularly, sometimes with bad consequences.

The Wright engine was more power from a more compact unit but was really overdeveloped and overstressed, and was nothing but trouble to the end. It was initially used on the B-29 in the Pacific in WW2, and I've an account of the most enormous heap of defective Wright radials, maybe 50 feet high, taken out of B-29s at Guam by the end of the war. Wright didn't really have the production facilities to turn them out in quantity, although Chrysler were drafted in to assist.

Paxboy, It's still a high point of the week if I am driving down the M4 to Bristol and a VC-10 on a training circuit from Lyneham comes overhead. Never rode in one of those either.

Regarding the water tank contamination (how did THAT get into this thread ?), the railway has the same problem in restaurant cars, etc, and has long installed an ultra-violet filter that does a flash purification of the water as it comes through. Surely aircraft can do the same ?

edwardh1

16th Oct 2004, 01:06

water tank thing was added as it was part of the challenge
food water parts mechanics navigation. I doubt UV light will purify water in a tank.

-was the water drinkable in say cairo airport or basra in early 50s?

-why did planes have 4 crew: pilot co pilot radio officer navigation officer

-were the radio officer and nav officer qualified to fly?
-----------
off topic but a favorite place

http://w1.901.telia.com/%7Eu90121659/bilder/Winair_Twinotter_on_short_final_SBH.jpg

WHBM

18th Oct 2004, 09:18

UV filters (not in the tank but in the outlet pipe) do indeed work, see:

http://www.plumbingsupply.com/uv.html

as an example.

Back to flying matters, aircraft of the 1950s often had 5 crew (Filght Engineer in addition to those stated) because equipment was much less automated and there was often simultaneous work for all of them.

Separate radio officer because not only were radios much more arduous to work but there were also elements of morse rather than speech transmission (for those who don't fly, there are still a few traces of this left nowadays, like the identification codes of VOR navigation beacons you tune into are transmitted in morse).

Navigator for all the charts and course calculations, also for doing celestial navigation by sextant then looking up everything in tables and doing paper calculations which is a time-consuming procedure.

Flight Engineer often the busiest person in the crew, looking after systems so un-automated compared to nowadays, particularly looking after 4 piston engines in flight for mixture, ignition, manifold pressure, rpm, all of that. A good flight engineer could save multiples of their salary in preventing engine damage by seeing problems coming. The FE was the last of these positions to survive, well into the jet age until the current generation of aircraft.

edwardh1

19th Oct 2004, 01:13

Stupid question but I guess the reason for the night stops was the difficulty in navigating at night?????????? true?
You could navigate at night then I guess but not well. the sextant must have been a real mess especially "reducing the reading' as I learned in naval Officer Candidate school - odd, my plotted location for the ship was always in kansas or somewhere equally stupid. What killed the sextant? Loran?

The modern US regional jets like i flew on last month - 50 pass. 2 pilots, 1 cabin attendant. lot less labor costs.
Concorde had a flight engineer but on a TV show i saw today, that was listed as one of the 3 cost reasons they stopped flying. other two were general high end business recession, and also future mandatory general flight safety and security upgrades.

re the uv water sterilizer - just cause its sold does not mean it works - they try to sell these things for central air conditioning sysytems too but i have yet to see an independant 3 rd party testing lab prove they work. (the company's test prove they work, of course)

Georgeablelovehowindia

19th Oct 2004, 11:53

No, that wasn't the reason for night stopping. In fact, you could argue that navigation at night was easier because you could use celestial to a greater extent. What did make life more difficult was pressurisation, which brought in the periscopic sextant instead of the astrodome. This meant you had to have a reasonable idea of the whereabouts of the stars that you were going to use before you shoved the sextant up through the airlock. This meant a certain amount of pre-computation and some rapid work when you took the star shots, even in an aircraft doing 210 kts.

Unfortunately, the navigator of a BOAC Hermes got it wrong over the Sahara at night, en route Tripoli - Kano. The aircraft ended up several hundred miles off track, and belly landed in the desert, out of fuel. This accident was the subject of a fairly recent television programme in Britain, and a long string of discussion in this part of PPRuNe.

As recently as the 1970s, 707s and VC10s were being navigated across oceans and deserts by a mixture of celestial, DR, Doppler and Loran. In the 1950s, BOAC decided to dispense with the specialist flight navigator. Thereafter, all new entrant pilots did their aircraft type ratings, but having qualified, immediately went back to ground school to attain their flight nav. licence. (Where they were instructed by some of the displaced flight navigators!) They were then rostered as the navigator, for the first quite few years of employment. What eventually ended the requirement for a qualified flight navigator was the advent of triple INS.

Going back to the nightstop issue, it was probably to avoid a crew being stuck somewhere for up to a week, due to multiple destinations and complex rostering.

WHBM

20th Oct 2004, 09:32

I believe that nightstops were a hangover from the flying boat days, when night landings were considered hazardous at some locations.

Also the crews traditionally stayed with the aircraft, because if you slipped every 12 hours or so, at the frequencies being used in the 1950s it would take a couple of months to get back home again for the BOAC Argonaut crews who were the initial subject of this discussion (OK, it would be a great trip, and much better than merchant shipping crews of the time enjoyed).

The prospect of several sustained days in the noise and vibration of an Argonaut would surely have been a real turn-off for the passengers.

And the pax in those days were just the well-heeled set who paid a substantial premium over going by ship. And they expected to sleep in a bed, if not every night then every other one. And they weren't like me, work in the office in London up to Friday afternoon, evening flight to Australia, expect to start work in the office there 08.00 Monday morning, reverse the following weekend.

Seats in economy may have had more legroom then, and there were a few aircraft with first class seats that converted into bunks, but most seats were not a patch on the sleeper seats of today.

Remember that aircraft were not nearly so expensive in those days too, so annual utilisation figures didn't matter as much !

I wonder, what was the last flight to make nightstops en-route. I seem to remember there was a Northwest until recent years which did an afternoon run from the US to Tokyo, then continued the next morning, same flight number, across Asia. Through pax were put in a hotel overnight by the airline.

kala87

21st Oct 2004, 10:37

Actually, not all the 1950@s airline pax were "well-heeled!" A lot of them (at least on BOAC and certain British charter airlines) were in the Colonial Service or doing other government-related work in African and Asian colonies. Remember, a lot of the world was still coloured pink on the map in those days! Even after independence, many of these countries still retained a lot of British advisors, especially in areas such as agriculture, forestry and irrigation. Traffic to destinations such as Nairobi, Entebbe, Lagos and Khartoum, to name but a few destinations, was quite respectable.

Slightly off-topic, I've just read a portion of a BOAC UK-USA and Canada timetable for October 1958, which surprised me in many ways: Up to 6 flights daily in each direction between London and New York, 4 of them by DC7C's, plus the long-standing "Monarch" Stratocruiser daily de-luxe service. Only one Britannia flight on certain days of the week. I didn't realise that the Strat's were used on the New York run as late as 1958. I guess the reason was to provide sleeper beds. The schedule doesn't show Shannon or Gander but I would guess the Strat. stopped at both.

Why so few Britannia 312 flights? The first London-New York by Britannia was December 1957, so was the operational fleet only building up slowly due to technical problems?

Also of interest is that Manchester had direct flights to Montreal as well as New York, and Glasgow was linked to Boston, New York, Detroit and Chicago, which is a more comprehensive choice of destinations than BA can offer now!

The SSK

21st Oct 2004, 12:18

I'm looking at the May 1958 copy of the ABC guide (now the OAG)

It shows for BA LON-NYC:
A daily nonstop DC7 at 22:30, arriving 06:45
A daily nonstop Strat at 20:00, arriving at 08:00
A daily 09:30 DC7, calling aither at MAN (4pw) or BOS (3pw)
A daily 21:00 DC7, calling either at PIK/BOS (4pw) or MAN/PIK (3pw)
Twice weekly Britannia 23:00/06:00 continuing to SFO
That last, plus the daily Montreal-Detroit-Chicago (via PIK 3pw) was the only Brit312 operation in the whole schedule.

edwardh1

21st Oct 2004, 13:25

do you know what a typical early 50s strat schedule for NY - London was?
-when leaving NY (late in evening?)?
-and where were the stops?
-i thought one was in Iceland - any others?

-how long in elapsed time? and when were the berths used? - i assume an evening flight through Iceland took a while to getto London so thats when people slept/

My only winter memory of London on that winter trip was rain and fog!!!! and a hotel with a small elevator before the next day's trip going to Singapore

Georgeablelovehowindia

21st Oct 2004, 19:02

Britannia 312 delivery dates: G-AOVB 10.9.57, VC 15.11.57, VD (oops!) 6.12.57 (W.O. 24.12.58), VE 21.12.57, VF 2.1.58, VG 19.3.58, VH 11.2.58, VI 10.4.58, VJ 13.3.58, VK/VL ?.5.58, VM 10.6.58, VN 4.7.58, VO 4.9.58, VP 31.7.58, VR 3.10.58, VS ?.10.58, and VT 1.1.59.

In contrast, all fifteen of the initial order for Boeing 707-436s were delivered between 27.4.60 and 22.12.60. I imagine that the training section must have been going at it 24/7 to get them into service.

Source: Turbine Engined Airliners Of The World by F G Swanborough, Temple Press 1962.

(Much climbing up into the attic and the blowing off of the dust!)

Skylion

23rd Oct 2004, 20:18

A few answers and observations.
The winter 1956 schedule shows the daily Stratocruiser " Monarch" service as departing New York at 1700 and arriving at Heathrow at 1000 the following morning. Although no intermediate stops are shown it is probable that a technical call was allowed for, probably at Gander.
Travel on all the piston types, not just the throaty Argonaut, was very noisy and both the noise and the motion of the aircrafy could often be felt for more than 24 hours after arrival.
The Argonaut outlasted the Constellation probably due to its reliability, which stemmed from a number of factors including the wartime familiarity of air and ground crews with the Merlin. It was also easier to load than the long legged Constellation and in Tourist configuration had a more attractive cabin, three rows in the Constellation being windowless or almost so.
BOACs favoured hotel for delayed passengers in the days when most passengers checked in at Airways Terminal ( still there opposite Victoria Coach Station) was the Eccleston, just across the railway bridge from Buckingham Palace Road on the the left/eastern side of Eccleston Square. The building remains , though now converted to other uses, but the original hotel entrance layout is clear to see.
Each departing flight had its own bus from Airways Terminal with the destination shown proudly on the front,- very status enhancing for the passengers in the Earls Court Road!

edwardh1

17th Nov 2004, 23:54

For the aircraft with also a radio officer and a nav officer - were they qualified pilots?

Georgeablelovehowindia

18th Nov 2004, 18:30

In the early fifties, the era that you started this topic in, they were specialist radio officers or navigating officers, having had those functions in the wartime RAF. The radio officer disappeared with the Argonaut - the Britannia was crewed by two pilots, a specialist flight engineer and a navigator. By that stage, BOAC had decided that all pilots had to hold flight nav. licences as well and the specialist navigators were gradually replaced by them.

edwardh1

7th Nov 2005, 15:21

My mom went through some old stuff- found a BOAC Route Map-I can not find a date on it - pale blue cover- title is Britain to Australia and N. Zealand- has about 4 fold out long pages/maps with an ad in the front for E Hind Ltd- a metal dealer (strange advertiser in my opinion).
Map printed by International Aeradio limited .
back cover says N. Zealand, Australia to Britain.
Marked BOAC with Quantas Empire and Tasman Empire Airways Ltd.

Is there a date hidden on it anywhere?

Brit312

8th Nov 2005, 18:35

WHBM-----I think you will find the problem with the Strats initially was not to do with the P&W 4360 engine alone but more to do to with the hollow steel Curtis prop blades which I believe were electrically controlled rather than by Hyds . This type of prop got such a bad reputation that most Strats [if not all ] were retro fitted with hyd controlled props with solid blades.

The Argonaut actually had cross over exhaust so all exhaust outlets were on the outer side of the engine so as to reduce cabin noise, but like all piston powered aircraft quietness was a relative term
The reason for the Argonaut was that the UK after WW2 had no $$$ and so BOAC had to by from a Stirling area, ie Canada or the UK and so any American aircraft had to be sold on for $$ as soon as a British aircraft became available [ sale of initial Connies ] even if the Brit aircraft failed to live up to expectations

edward1 ----Regarding the Concorde you have it slightly wrong in that they wanted to reduce the crew to a two man crew that being a pilot and a F/E amuch better combination I am sure you would agree ;)

zlin77

8th Nov 2005, 21:23

Ah!..memories. My first plane trip was Sydney-Singapore in 1952.
B.O.A.C. Connie, from memory 38 First Class seats only, a night departure out of Sydney for Darwin, the hostess made up a "bed" on the floor behind the last row of seats using blankets,where my brother and I slept.
Early morning arrival in Darwin, everyone deplaned into the terminal for a proper sit-down breakfast. Next leg to Djakarta with a sight seeing orbit around an active volcano in Eastern Java!! Wish I could do that today in my 777. Total flight time was between 16-17 hours SYD-SIN.
Also recall the smoke coming from a crashed B.O.A.C. Connie that undershot the runway in Singapore, long flight ,extended tour of duty due delays,crew fatigue . Aircraft impacted the seawall and was destroyed.Does anyone have further info on this accident?

edwardh1

8th Nov 2005, 21:30

did any of these planes have a round table in the aft part of the cabin?

Brit312

8th Nov 2005, 21:54

zlin77,

The following website might be of help on that Connie

http://aviation-safety.net

press database and then 1954

It appears to have happened on 13 March 1954 and was a

BOAC Constellation 749A G-ALAM

edwardh1---- I have seen a DC-7 now converted to a Water bomber in the USA where all the interior has been removed except for the 1/2 round cocktail table and settee at the rear of the cabin. Blue and cream two tone, I seem to remember, very similar to American car interiors of the 1950s

WHBM

9th Nov 2005, 08:19

I think you will find the problem with the Strats initially was not to do with the P&W 4360 engine alone but more to do to with the hollow steel Curtis prop blades which I believe were electrically controlled rather than by Hyds . This type of prop got such a bad reputation
Was it not the Connie that had the troublesome Curtiss electric props (as did the C46, and indeed the B29) ? The Connie had Curtiss-Wright engines, which I thought were associated with the prop maker.

shack

9th Nov 2005, 10:15

Georgeablelovehowindia

There was a third airline with Argonauts in the early 60s, Aden Airways. They were used between Aden and Mombassa, there was a Service leave camp there and there was not a lot of difference between 4 mighty Merlins and 4 mighty Griffons, just a little quieter.

Wandering off a little I have had many an SAR call out for a Strat/Connie/DC7c on three. We had to get airborne if, as I remember they were West of 15W to escort them---one problem, The Old Grey Lady could not keep up with them once we had found them

Brit312

9th Nov 2005, 15:26

WHBM------I think you will find that most Connies had
Hamilton- Standard hydraulically controlled solid blade props with the exceptions that I know about being the 10 MATS 121A and some Seaboard and Western Connies. Now I believe that the Ham-Standards were the most popular and perchieved to be less troublesome. The old Connie I believe got it's "3 engine " nickname because of the Wright 3350 engine tendancy to catch fire and drop off in the early days

Regarding the B377 [stratocruiser ] they had 13 hull losses of which some of the early incidents were down to prop blades coming off, and this caused the American Authority to insist that all hollow steel prop blades on B377 be replaced with the solid type [1955]

Now as far as I know [ but could be wrong ] the only people using hollow steel blades at this time were Curtiss-Wright electric props, and this was definately the case on Uniteds B377 and BOAC converted their B377 to Ham - Standard

You might be interested in looking at the following site

http://aviation-safety.net

then Database and 1955 for the info on the B377

When I was an apprentice with BOAC in the early 1960s we were given an old Argonaut to enable us to get piston engine experience, and it is funny now to remember that we used to have to chain the GPU to the nose leg when we had finished otherwise British Eagle would borrow it until the fuel tank was empty. Also one weekend some of our aeroplane's wing flap mechanism was borrowed [on a permanent basis] to service an Argonaut that had landed at Heathrow [mind you I suppose it could have been a DC-4]

Brit312

WHBM

9th Nov 2005, 16:19

Discussion about Strats and props here

http://64.233.183.104/search?q=cache:BPZj5ciF9psJ:howgozit.com/Inquiry944.htm

Brit312

9th Nov 2005, 16:47

WHBM,-----That was a great site , but sort of leaves you in limbo as the aircraft type at one time or another seems to have had all sorts of props on them so perhaps you are correct in that the problems were with the 4360s

I used to work in the Prop workshop as a oung man and only the Britannia 100 series had hollow steel blades with the 300 series having solid blades but as the article states both were DH hydraulic controlled props

WHBM

9th Nov 2005, 17:15

There was a third airline with Argonauts in the early 60s, Aden AirwaysThe only airline purchasers of new Argonauts were BOAC and the two Canadian majors, Trans Canada and Canadian Pacific. It was when they disposed of the type that smaller carriers took them (generally as a cheaper alternative to a DC-6). Aden Airways would have been one such, in fact BOAC had a minority shareholding in them, so a natural to get rid of unwanted equipment to !

Possibly the saddest one was G-ALHG, one of a few sold by BOAC to British Midland, which was involved in the Stockport air crash in 1967 on approach to Manchester Ringway, operating a return IT charter from Spain. My elder brother had just started with the Stockport police and was one of the first on the scene. He still remembers the passengers beating on the inside of the windows before everything was consumed by fire.

Cornish Jack

9th Nov 2005, 17:28

Re the Argonaut
I was a pax on the first BOAC trooping flight to Aden by Argonaut ... London-Rome-Cairo-Aden. My first posting (on 'Pigs') and well remembered for the mind-numbing Merlin accompaniment and my travelling companion a Flight Sergeant ferry pilot going out to pick up a Venom. He had done this many times and made good use of the bar facilities. Not wishing to be thought 'green', I joined him. No contest!!! between Rome and Cairo I totally lost it such that I had to stay on the aircraft for the Cairo turn-round:yuk: :yuk: :yuk: Arriving eventually in Aden to 115degrees in the shade did nothing for the hangover.:{ :{ :{
Many years later, discussing the Strat versus Argonaut/Connie era, I was told that the Strat fleet were very much the pampered pets. Accommodation was totally separated - one hotel for the Capt, one for the F/O and Nav and a third for the rest. The other fleets allowed one hotel for the lot.
My return from Aden was by Britavia Hermes - unbelievably tight seat pitches and interminable leg times. Worrying departure from Malta with a VERY early throttle back after lift-off and a rather uncomfortable few minutes with not much vertical movement:(
The noisy environment of these aircraft was noted in retrospect rather than at the time - we were totally used to that sort of thing in day-to-day flying.
A few years later I 'trooped' to Singapore with another of the non-scheds, possibly Eagle(??) DC6 - almost as noisy and certainly as crowded. They operated on pretty thin profit margins and must have made a considerable loss on that particular flight. We should have routed Istanbul - Karachi - Changi but someone forgot the de-insectisation paperwork and had to divert for a night-stop at Teheran. Super hotel and well looked after but much expense, I fancy.
Return, from Bangkok and HK some two and a bit years later was in a Britannia - again, knees immobilised by the seat in front and a couple of 10 hour plus flight times
Nostalgia isn't what it used to be:rolleyes:

Georgeablelovehowindia

11th Nov 2005, 17:38

The Stockport disaster was due to a double-engine fuel starvation on the same side, and I can't remember which. It was caused by inadvertent fuel transfer, through a fractional mis-positioning of the crossfeed cocks - less than a pencil's width from closed - a known DC-4 type problem.

BBC TV did a programme on the subsequent investigation, which showed the late D P Davies - the then chief ARB test pilot - flying another Midland Argonaut in the same configuration. He was literally standing up in the seat to maintain directional control. Also included was the recording on the Manchester Approach frequency of the last transmission from the aircraft. It was a despairing "HOW far?" on being passed range from touchdown.

The captain, who survived the accident with injuries, put the aircraft down in the only tiny space in the middle of Stockport which presented itself. I'm not sure if he ever returned to flying.

Krystal n chips

11th Nov 2005, 18:32

Without wishing to go off thread too much, a link that may be of interest re the Stockport Air disaster. If you ever get to see the spot he came down in, it was not only a superb piece of flying skill, but a miracle as well that the ground devastion was limited.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/insideout/northwest/series1/stockport-air-disaster.shtml

The cause was a classic "murphy" re the fuel selection cocks as I recall ?---but could be wrong here.

Four Wings

12th Nov 2005, 18:17

A couple of items for the historians:
1. In 1953 as a teenager at school I flew by Comets London - S'pore for the summer holiday. My mother worked as Senior Ground Stewardess for Mansfields (GHA for BOAC and Malayan Airways) at Kallang to save the money for my fare - £300, as a 'student' I paid single for a return (I did all my own bookings and arrangements from school).
The sectors were Rome, Beirut (for which I needed a transit visa for a one hour re-fuelling stop), Bahrain, Karachi, Calcutta, Rangoon, S'pore. The sectors were so short because of the Comet's limited range. And as I remember it she flew higher than today - >40k? because of fuel burn. Result was that one climbed (and descended) like a fighter, plus the effect of poorer pressurisation, so after 24 hrs elapsed I arrived in S'pore needing another 24 hrs to recover.
Outward a/c was G-ALYU (Yoke Uncle that subsequently failed in the Farnborough pressurisation test). Return as I remember it was on G-AMAV, which I understood was a 1A meant originally for Canadian Pacific - 44 seats to the 1's 36 seats. Can the experts confirm? I still have a photo of Yoke Uncle at Rangoon - anybody interested if I post it?
Flying on the first Comets had the glamour of an early Concorde - special call at London Airport North (with its WWll huts as terminal) was for the 'Jetliner to Singapore'. My mother claimed to have done the PA announcing the arrival at Kallang ending with the words 'and my son's on it'!
2. re the Connie crash at Kallang in March 54. My mother was there (waiting to do the PA announcing arrival). Kallang was close in town and a major road, controlled by traffic lights, crossed the runway near the landward end. My mother told me that the crash crews had always practised a crash at the far end by driving out of the terminal area onto the main road and then back onto the runway past the traffic lights, as there was no taxiway and they weren't allowed to block use of the runway. When the Connie crashed it skidded right down the runway. The crash crews, instead of following it, drove out onto the main road, as in training, then got stuck in the traffic waiting at the traffic lights. I am sure it didn't invert as stated on the Aviation Safety Network database because she told me that the pax died a terrible death crowded around the exit door which they couldn't open because it had jammed with the distortion of the frame - and no crash crew on the outside. RIP.
3. She also knew well the crew on Cathay Pacific's one and only DC4 which was shot down by the Communist Chinese (allegedly in retaliation for carrying French gold to Saigon). It is horrifying in these so much safer days to think of how many losses there were then (I am merely a satisfied SLF).

Skylion

12th Nov 2005, 18:38

The First Class Argonaut had a semi circle of seats at the rear of the cabin which acted as a small lounge bar ,- not sure about a table!

Four Wings

12th Nov 2005, 19:38

Regret error in my recent posting: the Comets came into Changi (runway length insufficient at Kallang) so my mother had to go out there with a bus to collect the pax.

WHBM

13th Nov 2005, 10:23

a link that may be of interest re the Stockport Air disaster.
Krystal n Chips

Thank you for the link, which I had not seen. PC Bill Oliver (actually Phil Oliver) mentioned there, first on the scene and well-known for it, was my brother's best man at his wedding a couple of years later, and I remember chatting to him about it on that day. By then just regarded as "one of those things" that the police have to attend to and deal with.

411A

15th Nov 2005, 02:01

Operated a Stratocruiser for a brief time, many years ago, altho this particular one had been just slightly altered to carry missles.

The B377 was pretty much an electric aeroplane, as I recall, gear and flaps, altho the brakes were of the Hayes expander tube hybraulic type.

The R4360 engine was a tempermental beast, and best left in the care of the Flight Engineer.
It used both a supercharger and a turbosupercharger, the latter having a bleed for cabin pressurisation.
Not a bad arrangement.
The engine was especially developed for the B-36 bomber, and when mounted in the tractor configration, the cylinder row offset was the wrong way 'round for proper cooling, the rear row could become quite hot (CHT's) during the climb...OK in the cruise.

A very majestic flight deck.
Pilots entered their respective seats from 'round the 'outside' as there was a lot of room.
Fuel consumption was in the neighborhood of 530 US gallons/hr, as I recall, and each engine oil tank (34 gallons) was further supplied with a 58 gallon central fuselage tank, via transfer pumps, in flight.

A truly delightful aeroplane to fly...:D