Any Caravelle pilots?

[gareth herts]

Good afternoon all

I am writing a piece on the wonderful Caravelle for Global Aviation Resource (https://globalaviationresource.com/v2/), our free, award-winning, online repository of aviation features and imagery.

What the piece is really missing is a human angle and I wondered whether anyone here might have flown the Caravelle or knows anyone who does?!

The piece will be illustrated with the some lovely, mostly never before seen, images from our gallery, so a chat with someone would round it all off perfectly.

Please feel free to send me a message if you think you might be able to help.

Many thanks in advance!

Gareth

[sixchannel]

Have you tried SudAviation in Sweden who have SE-DAI the last Ser III Caravelle to fly?
I think they also have a fully operational Simulator so it figures that it is ''flown' by ex-Caravelle pilots.
Worth a try?

[gareth herts]

I have indeed emailed them this evening! Thanks so much for taking the time to respond.

[rog747]

Used to handle and see them at LGW LTN STN and SEN - mostly on holiday charters to/from Spain Italy North Africa and Scandinavia

SAM Societa Aerea Mediterranea (AIitalia charter arm) often 3 on the deck at LGW at the same time
Transeuropa
Aviaco/Iberia
TAE
Sterling (They had Supers and the ultimate stretched series 12)
Transavia Holland
SATA
Corsair
Tunisair Royal Air Maroc Kingdom of Libya Airlines Air Algerie Alia Royal Jordanian Airlines were all LGW regulars

Saw an AF one land on 27R at LHR in the 70's and they deployed the parachute on landing.
LHR saw Caravelles of many European airlines there from the very early 60's plus Syrian Arab Airlines - It really was the first short haul jet seen here in any numbers - long before the BAC 1-11 or Trident.

The first ever jet IT package holiday flight series from the UK was on an Air France Caravelle from London Airport to Corsica chartered by the Travel Club Upminster.

[gareth herts]

Lovely stuff Rog - you'll definitely enjoy seeing some of the images when we publish this!

[sixchannel]

Rog, not to go too far off topic, why did they need a brake parachute? A bit short of stopping power?

[rog747]

Lovely stuff Rog - you'll definitely enjoy seeing some of the images when we publish this!

Look forward then to it -

FYI
Sterling was the first to use their Supers on ultra long haul IT package holiday flights all over the world - Ceylon Mombasa Thailand, even the USA.
Sadly they had 2 fatal losses on these such flights - A Super (Sterling Airways Flight 296, in 1972 ) was lost on let down to DXB at night in IFR on its way home from Colombo. The flight from Colombo to Copenhagen was scheduled to make refuelling stops in Bombay, Dubai, and Ankara. A change of crew was also scheduled during the stop in Ankara.

Another Super was lost in 1974 taking off at Tehran.
The Caravelle had been chartered by travel agency Tjæreborg Rejser to take tourists on a tour around Asia. The tour had started in CPH and had taken the tourists to several cities in India, and the Middle and Far East. The tour, was making a tech stop at Tehran, before flying back to Copenhagen. As the aircraft was taxiing to the runway, the right main landing gear suddenly collapsed, causing a fuel tank in the right wing to rupture and spill fuel which then ignited.

[rog747]

Rog, not to go too far off topic, why did they need a brake parachute? A bit short of stopping power?

Yes, the first early Caravelle's were the series 111 and the V1-N (no reverse) these did not have thrust reversers but had parachutes deployed from the tail cone.

UAL's order in the USA was for the V1-R series that saw the first Caravelles to have their RR Avons with reverse thrust. (I think the FAA required this plus bigger cockpit windows)
All subsequent series 10/11/12 had PW JT8D's with T/R.

Not sure why at LHR landing on 27R did the AF need to deploy the chute on such a long runway, but it was quite spectacular.

[treadigraph]

I seem to recall an AF Caravelle using the chute at Heathrow as well on 27L although I may be renembering rog747 or somone else descrbing it!

One or two other Italian ops into Gatwick, Altair was one? Also Minerva or something like that?

[rog747]

I seem to recall an AF Caravelle using the chute at Heathrow as well on 27L although I may be remembering rog747 or someone else describing it!

One or two other Italian ops into Gatwick, Altair was one? Also Minerva or something like that?

Yes, there were later on, quite a few small operators that appeared as you mention, Transwede was another - Transeuropa and TAE went under but Hispania rose from the ashes.

[dash7fan]

At Swissair the parachute had to be used when the landing weight was over a certain weight. The a/c had a reserve parachute on board. The Station mechanic replaced the used parachute before the next takeoff.

[Adverse Jaw]

I suppose this is the place to unload my only Caravelle experience.
It was in 1974, flying into Linate on a dark and dirty night in a Merchantman when a propeller ran away at top of descent - not very high in those days - 16,000ft, resulting of course in shutting down the engine. All very well until the Caravelle proceeding us to land on RW36 streamed his chute which in the brisk crosswind from the right got snarled up with the runway lights or signage causing them to stop in the exit taxiway at the far end, the parachute billowing behind on the runway. At this point we were instructed to overshoot (that's what we said in those days) to Trezzo, the designated go-around beacon but a quick look at the WX radar, then out of the window confirmed what we knew already, a very active CB over the Trezzo the go-around beacon. Now on short finals, in the lightning flashes we could see the wretched Caravelle and it's inconvenient chute, we could also hear the the increasingly urgent instructions to fly our crippled machine into the thunderstorm. We remembered the not very distant episode of one of our Argosies crashing non fatally into the snow on those nearby alps and made the kind of decision pilots are supposed to take. Weighing up the possibilities, the parachute looked like a nice comfy option and we suffered a radio 'problem'. Well, the Caravelle pilots, sideways on could see this desperate set of lights bearing down on them and also made a quick decision - to get out of the way. So, either they released the chute or a mighty burst of thrust ripped it free and they stumbled off allowing us to land without incident, our radio miraculously recovered and curiously not a word was said of the incident and no reports filed!
There was actually a little more to this story which I will not commit to a public forum.

[compton3bravo]

Once saw six Sterling Caravelles on the deck at Luton with the passengers on shopping trips to London. Also Altair of Italy Caravelles regular visitors at Luton.

[PapaDolmio]

At the risk of thread drift.....

I only ever saw one which resulted in some of the most spectacular airliner flying I've ever seen.

Heathrow sometime late 80s early 90s, spotting on the top deck of the T3 car park., arrivals on 27R, departures on 27L.
Caravelle lands and takes the whole runway to stop- Aer Lingus 737 following behind, looking like a go-around.
Nothing lined up on 27L and the conversation on TWR went something like...

Tower: Shamrock xxxxx- can you make 27L from where you are?
Shamrock: I'll give it a go (broad Irish accent).
Tower: Roger, clear land 27L surface wind etc.

Cue stonking left bank to roll out perfectly short finals, good only knows what the pax thought.

[lotus1]

Altair that was a regular sight at Luton remember the Reg I GISA Didn't they do student charter flights also had a caravelle engine explode at Milan or Pisa aircraft was a right off

[Cymmon]

I was lucky enough to be on the last Caravelle flight by Air Inter, a Caravelle 12

[pax britanica]

Lovely elegant aeroplane but very noisy. I saw a Swiss Caravelle deploy the chute on what was 28L , I dont know why as i saw it from a sort of head on position in my teenage spotting days , brightened the day up . I imagine there was some emergency involved as fire trucks appeared and it 'deployed ' the FO from a cockpit window for a look around once it had stopped.

The Aer Lingus remark also took me back as i say a 737 on short final to the same runway start a go around but then immediately banked hard left into a 360 circle over Bedfont way and rejoin as though it was a Cessna 152 . It was Sunday afternoon and LHR was relatively quiet at the time so I assume someone was slow to vacate and there was no one behind the 73, can't see that working today .

Going back to the Caravelle I never had the pleasure of a trip on one with their nifty triangular windows (an alternative solution to comet problems one supposes) but ti didnt look as it would be a lot of fun with an engine failure right after take off, that was putting lot of trust and weight on one Avon I used to think

[WHBM]

UAL's order in the USA was for the V1-R series that saw the first Caravelles to have their RR Avons with reverse thrust. (I think the FAA required this plus bigger cockpit windows)
All subsequent series 10/11/12 had PW JT8D's with T/R.
Although the P&W versions were available from 1964 (Finnair were first), the Avon-engined ones continued to be built into the 1970s, including the original spec without reversers. The ones with reversers were also bought by quite a number of others apart from United.

Sud tried very hard to sell the Caravelle to other US operators apart from United, the closest they came was with TWA, where Howard Hughes had (inevitably) taken a personal interest in it and wasted a lot of the Sud sales team's time. They also put much effort into coming to a deal with Douglas to build it under licence, at the old Douglas plant in Santa Monica which had turned out all the DC6/DC7s, and been mothballed when they put the DC8 assembly down in Long Beach. In the end Douglas built the DC9 instead and TWA was one of its first customers.

The FAA didn't care for certifying the original Caravelle at all and required some substantial (plus many minor) mods for the United order. Braking parachutes were seen as a no-no at US airports and so Rolls-Royce had to come up with reversers for the Avon engines. The cabin supplementary oxygen arrangement had been just the cabin crew running round with hand-held units, while the team up front made a presumably rapid descent, this had to be changed to a proper drop-down automated system. And the flight deck windows were found too small, and had to be increased in size quite notably.

The nose looked like the Comet because it was indeed that of the Comet; the front end was designed by De Havilland as a subcontractor and the first few noses and flight decks were actually built at Hatfield and shipped over as subassemblies.

[Krystal n chips]

I saw an AF Caravelle stream twice at MAN ( "sometime ago "...in my youth ) which caused a bit of consternation to put it politely

However, I also understand, and am open to correction here, AF also carried an F/E as part of the crew compliment on the insistence of the union at the time....bit like Ansett on their 767's because there wasn't really a lot for an F/E to do on either type.....assuming the Caravelle crewing wasn't just an urban myth of course.

[WHBM]

Caravelle needed a flight engineer, as did all jet airliners of that era. There was little automation and the FE was more than kept busy with handling the systems things. Plus this was aided by an FAA rule that all US aircraft with MTOW over 80,000lb (40,000kg) had to have three crew. This had been brought in to address a separate issue, of secondary carriers reducing DC-6 piston aircraft flight crews down from three to two, but stayed a requirement for some time. The first jet without an FE was the BAC One-Eleven, which was deliberately designed to come in under the FAA limit (just), as was the first DC-9-10, but then the requirement was changed.

If you compare the Caravelle and Comet flight decks, including of course the FE panel, you will find they look pretty much the same, all the knobs look familiar and are in familiar places. The yokes might even have been interchangeable. All apart from the number of throttles of course.

[Bowmore]

Caravelle needed a flight engineer, as did all jet airliners of that era. There was little automation and the FE was more than kept busy with handling the systems things. Plus this was aided by an FAA rule that all US aircraft with MTOW over 80,000lb (40,000kg) had to have three crew. This had been brought in to address a separate issue, of secondary carriers reducing DC-6 piston aircraft flight crews down from three to two, but stayed a requirement for some time. The first jet without an FE was the BAC One-Eleven, which was deliberately designed to come in under the FAA limit (just), as was the first DC-9-10, but then the requirement was changed.

If you compare the Caravelle and Comet flight decks, including of course the FE panel, you will find they look pretty much the same, all the knobs look familiar and are in familiar places. The yokes might even have been interchangeable. All apart from the number of throttles of course.


Actually, Finnair was the first airline that did not have FE on Caravelles, and I believe SAS was the second.

[capricorn23]

I was a brand new "Third pilot", or CM3 (Crew member N.3), from 1970 to '72 in Alitalia.. there was no "Flight engineer" in the company Caravelle SE210 flight crew set-up on those years... The duties were basically to operate the landing gear and flaps, checking the overhead panel, the side electrical panel and monitoring the fueling on ground... once in a while we got a "sector"... my first one was Rome-Genoa... we were approaching GOA while I was still busy on fixing the seat-belt for...take off... But I did make some improvements since then... :)

[Maoraigh1]

I think a cargo Caravelle picked up shellfish at Inverness, 1990s?

[condor17]

If I remember correctly , and with 12 years experience of Trident walkrounds [ albeit a long time ago ] .......... The Spey engine pylons had small placards announcing they were built under licence from Sud-Aviation . Might have been a straight swop for the Comet noses .

rgds condor .

[bill fly]

First ever jet flight was as a pax on Swissair Caravelle from LHR to ZRH. I took my bike along...
We took off from RW 28L (not 27L in those days)...
Remember looking out at the wing fence with Elmo’s fire on it and trying to figure out what town it was.
Later joined said airline just after Caravelles were replaced by DC-9.