DH Comet 4

[chrisal]

Hi

I'm just picking up on a previous thread and hope someone can help.

When climbing an old turbojet such as the Comet 4 using the mechanical RPM gauge, would one maintain the recommended actual RPM (7350 rpm for the Comet 4) as per that gauge's read out - or make additional throttle adjustments for TAT etc.

Thanks

Chris

[gengis]

You got a comet 4 to fly? Where? Can i join you..... pweassse...?

[chrisal]

Sadly Gengis, and some woud say very sadly, the truth is not as exciting.

I'm attempting to create an accurate simulation of the Comet 4's performance, handling and behaviour on the FS9 platform (yes, I know, I'm just a "simmer" these days).

I have accumulated a good deal of documentation regarding the Comet and its RR Avons as well as a copy of the Pilot Handling notes from the time.

Having fed in all the relevant parameters it is performing very closely apart from it's rate of climb. She's going up like a rocket! Hence my question about setting climb RPM.

Thanks to all those here who have offered guidance.
Cheers
Chris

[Milt]

Only know about the Comet 2C. We just used raw RPM but can't remember the numbers - somewhere around 8000 maybe

Flight tests at Boscombe Down were scathing on the flight control spring feel system and demanded Q feel - ie I/2 rho V squared to give a pilot some feel for IAS.

Did the Comet 4 have Q feel ?

[Driver (airframe)]

I was standing in Battersea Park and saw the last scheduled BOAC? Comet 4B on finals for LHR. When was that? I've been up the front of a BEA comet in the cruise. I also saw a Dan Air Comet being pushed back at LGW when the tow bar became detached and went up into the flight deck. The expensive mistake was the tug driver selecting reverse and trying to pull the thing clear. The other incident that same day was a Dan Air 727 being pushed back when a trailing edge connected with a fuel bowser.I digress

[HEATHROW DIRECTOR]

<<BOAC? Comet 4B >>

If it was a British State Airline it would have been BEA who used 4Bs. BOAC had just straight Comet 4s.

I had the pleasure of flying into Malta on the flight deck of a BEA Comet 4B (Captain Reg Ivy possibly??). Great fun..

(Sorry chrisal - didn't mean to hijack your thread).

[enicalyth]

Notwithstanding many many sims are junk reflecting the price paid up front.... a delightful day out is a date with Doris.

Department of Research and Information Services or some such name. Anyway Doris. To be found in the library of the RAF Museum at Hendon. Phone 'em, book a table, give a clue what you want to see and when you arrive the table will be piled with manuals. Comet will be a piece of p***, they probably have a crate marked "Comet" anyway!

But always have at the back of your mind that $35 does not an aircraft make. But if you have a machine code reader and a penchant for software writing CHANGE IT!

Best of luck with a fun project

enicalyth

[WHBM]

last scheduled BOAC? Comet 4B on finals for LHR
Sorry, details for this are at home and I'm not !

BOAC had Comet 4 only, last of these ran in about 1965 from Africa, most sold off to Dan-Air afterwards.

BEA had the Comet 4B (shorter range) which lasted until about 1969. But when they were replaced by Trident 2s they were moved to Gatwick for the new BEA Airtours charter operation. It was not unknown for them to come back to Heathrow on "charter" to BEA mainline operations when they were short, so the last schedule with a BEA Comet would be more dificult to trace. Most of these aircraft went on to Dan-Air or Channel Airways.

One BOAC Comet 4 did stay at Heathrow as an engineering trainer for years afterwards. The recently published book on BOAC history has it in the background of the cover photograph of the first BOAC 747, which arrived in 1970, and you might have thought it was not possible to get a photograph of these two types together in BOAC livery.

[chrisal]

Point taken enicalyth, but I still enjoy the challenge of trying to replicate as much as possible of the original's character (albeit in the limited environment of a low cost simulation).

You might be surprised at the number of variables available to be hacked and re-programmed - I'm working on mach drag at the moment.

However I suppose it really has become a bit of an obsession and your tip about Doris needs following up!

I'm old enough but didn't get to fly on the Comet so these other reminiscences are a delight to hear.

Cheers
Chris

[411A]

Let us not forget the Brits, who initiated jet transport operations.
Good for them!!
CATIII yep, the Brits as well.
Many in the good 'ole USA seem to forget...they were not the first.
EXCEPT, swept wing jet transport ops....B707.

And, wide-body CATIII...Lockheed TriStar (with a lot of help from our British cousins, at Smiths.

[Unwell_Raptor]

I can't give you any technical info, but as a boy spotter at LAP in the late 50s and early 60s BOAC Comet 4s on training were a common sight, and they went up at about 45 degrees to my unutored eye.

[enicalyth]

Get up off that seat by the wall, chrisal, and dance with Doris!

You seem to be across the handbooks but are you across all the amendments and modifications? This is where Doris can be of particular value inasmuch as they should have the whole kit and caboodle somewhere. If there was a mod resulting from goodness knows what in Muscat or Gan, or a procedural revision it will be there. Particularly Avons.

And you get the most delightful surprises. I was confronted one day with an original document and there was my Dad's signature on the amendments list. Clearly written in blue-black ink with his Parker pen. Choke. You may discover also your own siggy or handwritten note and that will conjure up memories.

Doris lets you take in a laptop and they photocopy for you unless to do so would damage an original.

Terrific pot of tea in the museum canteen where sadly they have travestied the atmosphere in privatisation. The original decor represented the airmen's NAAFI so evocatively many's an old-timer remarked on it. How can they do this? You used to walk from a Hall packed with aircraft you or your Dad flew/knew into a fifties/sixties style canteen redolent of jam doughnuts and egg banjoes. The tea is better. Milk and sugar? Yuk.

Canopus XS235. Ahhhh. Where did it all go wrong?