Flying the BAC 1-11 in to Jersey

[Michael111]

Hi All

Just wondering what it was like. I flew many times as a pax with BA, Bcal & Dan Air and it often seemed to be on the limits. Landings were often hard and breaking was often heavy. on a number of occasions an apology from the flight deck was made before we left the aircraft because of the hardness of the landing.

I can also remember some toe curling take offs as the landmarks wizzed by and we were still on the ground.

Was the 1-11 on its limits in Jersey or did it just require coaxing in to and out of the Island?

Cheers

111

[ETOPS]

Michael111

I flew the BAC 1-11/510 for BA into EGJJ from 1987 until 1991. Challenging was the word. First the weather - even in summer you could get fog or thick sea mist. The critical wind direction seemed to be 220 degrees. More than a few sevices ended up in Dinard or back to Manchester.
Runway 27 had a pronounced hump at the touchdown point and that coupled with the short runway length tended to produce firm landings. I once bounced spectacularly and my colleague pulled the speedbrake out at about 20 feet up - you can imaging the rest...........

Funnily enough I never had any problems landing on 09 but plenty of others learnt the hard way about the wind curling over the cliffs.

Take-off was performance limited. One very hot day with a full load of OAP's we had to tech stop for fuel in Cardiff whilst just trying to get to Manchester. Try explaining that over the PA......

[VIKING9]

I remember in 1987 I operated a Bac111-475 into Guernsey from Southampton and then from Stansted. To say we were right on limits would not be far off. Lets just say the tops of the greenhouses were rather close for comfort......:cool:

In fact the man in the tower said "that's a big Gulf 3 isn't it?".....

[Wycombe]

Michael,

Not 1-11's I know, but as a teenager I was on holiday in Jersey (I don't remember the exact year, but it was late '70's) when an L1011 came to visit EGJJ:eek:

Although it was Summer, it was one of those days when the fog didn't clear until late on, so there was a backlog of several 1-11 pax loads for LHR.

The 3* arrived, and cleared the lot in one go - pretty sure this happened and that the feat has not been repeated (I remember it was reported on the Channel ITV news)- biggest to be seen at EGJJ regularly was the 75', until BA mainline gave up the route a few years ago.

I believe 75's (non-airline) have visited GCI a few times aswell :eek:

[Doors to Automatic]

I saw an interesting video once of a BAC111 landing on runway 32 at LBA. The aircraft floated a long way down the runway and only the use of full reverse and heavy braking stopped it from going off the end but it was very close!

[Airbanda]

>>I saw an interesting video once of a BAC111 landing on >>runway 32 at LBA.

Somewhere else with a hump in the middle and some interesting fog/wind!!

[Pirate]

I've taken countless One-Elevens into Jersey for BIA, Dan-Air and European. Every one a challenge, most especially on 09 with that wind curling over the lip of the cliff. Absolutely vital to land on the touchdown point so most arrivals positive, a few definitely on the firm side and the odd one a (totally unintentional) greaser. All required full use of retarding devices to stop before the end.

Take-off on a hot summer day with a full load of pax was interesting - the houses took a long time to get smaller. I have a happy memory of one occasion positioning back to the mainland empty and for some reason there was demineralised water in the tank. So it was a wet take-off, straight into a V2+10 climb. Not often you see a One-Eleven go up like that. Just one word from the tower controller - "Im-pressive!".

Other Aeroplanes= Aviation: BAC 1-11= Flying.

[Charlie Foxtrot India]

I used to sit on St Ouen's beach under that cliff in the late eighties and watch them depart overhead, sometimes only just! You could still hear them about fifteen minutes later....one of the things that inspired me to learn to fly.

[canberra]

its not a 1-11 but heres a tale about a v impressive 737 take off. september 84 ex lionheart at gutersloh, empty ac departing back to uk, he was airborne in less than 2000' and went up like a lightning! i think he was trying to show off in front of the harrier mates.

[millerscourt]

If you think it was interesting in a 111 then we used to go there on rare visits in B767-200

[A300Man]

767's of who? Britannia? And, excuse my ignorance, but what is the reference to "Lionheart" Canberra? Is that an airlines callsign? If so, which? I can't trace.

Regarding the one-eleven, what a beautiful machine to take as a passenger too. It was like "real flying" indeed.

Remember taking countless flights in the one-eleven, the last was a British World flight operated on long term lease for Sabena, out of Glasgow in 1994 (?)

The aircraft departed Glasgow at 06:40 in the morning, and touched down in Edinburgh 15 minutes later to take on more pax prior to continuing to Brussels. Only, on one particular day, I was the ONLY passenger on the aircraft when it departed Glasgow, sitting in row 1.

We arrived in Edinburgh, and you've guessed it, no other passengers joined. An entire 1-11 to myself. Sheer sheer bliss!!!


1985 - a Dan-Air flight DA2178 from MAN to AGP in G-BCWA. Experienced terrible turbulence over the Pyrenees. resulted in several pax and crew vomiting all over the not so plush seats. But the machine battled on and roared through it all. What a nice aircraft.

[gofer]

Agree about it being a nice plane, but it still cost be one of my nine lives as a PAX.

We suffered a Tyre blow out on rotation with the debris finding its way straight into the Starboard engine - with the sudden and severly consequential effects to power & fans. Fully loaded to the gills of course (the plane silly - not me). First time I've taken off from MLH/BSL/EAP in the Hochwald direction and seen the Bruderholzspittal from the 4th floor from outside.

The Burderholzspittal for those who don't know it is a large 7 story hospital on the top of a small hill almost in line with the runway - never did understand the sense of building it there except as a target.

Was told that we not the first 1-11 to try ingesting a tyre that way, it would seem that at least a dozen cases had happened before. BA were most impressive - after we passed over the hill and next to the hospital and dumped a large amount of burnable ballast that was no longer going to be needed. 90 mins. after returning to our point of departure a 'standby spare' 737 left LHR to save us and deliver a replacement engine at the same time.

Loved the comment from the driver after parking, to the effect of; well we practice that in the sim but that is the first time its happend to me for real, and let anybody tell you otherwise - its a heck of a lot tougher than in the sim.:cool:

[canberra]

exercise lionheart 1984. this was the largest british exercise eva ber held in germany. plan was to have an even bigger one in 90, but of course the wall came down and saddam invaded kuwait. the ex used ba bcal and brittania airvraft on charter to mod, just like we would in war. i can remember seeing 2 ba jumbos and a tristar on the asp along with a brittania 767.

[Tiger]

Wycombe

I was a kid trying to get home from JER on the day you talking about, with the Tristar visit.

The aircraft took all the stands one side on the control tower side, and the airport did not have the equipment for removing the baggage.

However, I have to correct you. The Tristar did not clear the back log of flights, and I left the next morning on a Trident.