Questions about landing having run out of fuel

[Douglas_Hay]

Hi, I am reading 'In Plain Sight: The Life and Lies of Jimmy Savile' by Dan Davies. Davies recounts how Savile told him:

[‘I came across here, 50 feet from where we are now, in the back seat of a Buccaneer with the Police Air Arm. We just missed the Grand Hotel; took two windows out. We were supposed to refuel in the air but the tanker couldn’t take off. So we ran out of fuel. I’m sitting strapped into this bloody amazing thing.’

He explained the jet had to divert to RAF Honiton. ‘They told us they would put the arrester wires out and we’d see if we could pull those bloody great concrete blocks out of the ground. We hit the ground at 350 miles per hour, because we had no fuel left, and the thing caught on the arrester wire, and the next minute you’re standing still.’]

War Thunder says Buccaneer landings should be made at below 249mph.

I presume Savile/Davies meant the Fleet Air Arm, part of the Royal Navy. Why would running out of fuel mean you had to land faster than normal? Because the flaps wouldn't work? Presumably the (wheel) brakes wouldn't work either, increasing the need for the arrester wires - is that right? Thanks.

[gums]

Salute!

Have you ever flown a sailplane or glider?

I am not sure you have to land faster than normal if in an unintentional glider! Having done it myself one day after being shot up, it was not that big of a deal. Especially if you had practiced it a bit. I had the pleasure of being close to a field and could spiral down, but no speed brakes or hydraulics...just fly best AoA, maybe slip a bit if too high without gaining speed and aim for a third way down the runway. Piece of cake. Also a good story for commercial folks if you Google "Gimli Glider". Quite a feat, IMHO.

I can unnerstan faster touchdown if no flaps or whatever, but I can tellya that I lost a lotta speed in the flare and was glad I had aimed long.

Anyway, a good question and we may have a few of His Majesty's best that have done it in the RAF crowd that dominates here.

Gums sends...

[Ninthace]

Do you land faster than normal or do you approach faster than normal? At a rough estimate. 99% of the landings I have done have been without fuel. In each case the approach was equal to or above cruise, depending on conditions, but the battle.between gravity and lift was usually lost around the stalling speed, and in ideal circumstances, with the minimum of distance between the wheel and the ground..

[ShyTorque]

I’ve not flown one but I do know that the the Bucaneer had “blown” control surfaces. Air from the engine compressors was directed over them to allow better control to lower the landing speed (bearing in mind that the aircraft was designed to land on carriers). Having said that, I think the landing speed quoted is an exaggeration!

[SASless]

Seems like a pretty strong Tail Hook to withstand snagging a cable at 350MPH!

[Timelord]

A Buccaneer with no fuel would not glide very far! I suspect there is rather a lot of, let’s be kind, “ journalistic licence” in there.
Police Air Arm = Fleet Air Arm
Ran out of fuel = Had to land earlier than planned.
Honiton = Honnington
Took the cable as a demonstration.

If any of it happened at all!

[chevvron]

A Buccaneer with no fuel would not glide very far! I suspect there is rather a lot of, let’s be kind, “ journalistic licence” in there.
Police Air Arm = Fleet Air Arm
Ran out of fuel = Had to land earlier than planned.
Honiton = Honnington
Took the cable as a demonstration.

If any of it happened at all!
HONINGTON!

[Timelord]

HONINGTON!

Quite right, sorry.

[CAEBr]

If any of it happened at all! ]

​​​​​​​ In Plain Sight: The Life and Lies of Jimmy Savile

​​​​​​​Says it all .......

[walbut]

I used to live in Holme on Spalding Moor, quite close to the HSA airfield where I occasionally worked on detachment from Brough. I remember one Friday afternoon, probably in the 1970's, there was a Buccaneer being flown very enthusiastically at low level around the airfield, which was unusual since 'the works' normally finished at lunchtime on Friday. The word in the office on the following Monday was that Jimmy Saville had been in the back seat and it was an RN display pilot, so maybe he did once fly in a Buccaneer.
I am pretty sure no Buccaneer was ever landed after running out of fuel. I think one did run out of fuel during an air test from Aldergrove as a result of the fuel jettison valves failing open after testing the system, but that one crashed and was written off.

[Douglas_Hay]

Salute!

Have you ever flown a sailplane or glider?

I am not sure you have to land faster than normal if in an unintentional glider! Having done it myself one day after being shot up, it was not that big of a deal. Especially if you had practiced it a bit. I had the pleasure of being close to a field and could spiral down, but no speed brakes or hydraulics...just fly best AoA, maybe slip a bit if too high without gaining speed and aim for a third way down the runway. Piece of cake. Also a good story for commercial folks if you Google "Gimli Glider". Quite a feat, IMHO.

I can unnerstan faster touchdown if no flaps or whatever, but I can tellya that I lost a lotta speed in the flare and was glad I had aimed long.

Anyway, a good question and we may have a few of His Majesty's best that have done it in the RAF crowd that dominates here.

Gums sends...

Hi! Yes I have copiloted a glider but I didn't land it.

Thanks for all the replies. There is an RAF Honington but it's maybe 150 miles away from Scarborough, where the quoted conversation happened. I wonder if there used to be an RAF Honiton somewhere near Scarborough. When you search for it some results come up, some of them old. The Navy flew the Buccaneer from 62 til 78 and the RAF flew them from 69 till 94. I've asked the RAF if there used to be an RAF Honiton. If there wasn't one near Scarborough this could have happened at another RAF base and he mixed up the names. Just trying to get to the bottom of this anecdote.

[xenolith]

Many years ago, didn't a Puma pilot land very quietly on a parade square in Portugal having run out of fuel? When I say quietly, I believe that the navigator crewman made some noise about it. ;)

[BEagle]

There was no 'manual reversion' in the Bucc, so if it ran out of fuel in the air, it would crash.

A Bucc did not need blow on for all landings; unblown landings in the appropriate configuration were quite routine.

It is quite possible that some form of GS HYD failure required a RHAG engagement and it would have made obvious sense to divert to RAF Honington when it was a Buccaneer station.

I cannot recall the datum speeds for specific Bucc configurations as it's around 46 years since I last flew one. But there's no way even a heavy unblown landing would have been at the speeds quoted.

[Stormonttrooper]

I used to live in Holme on Spalding Moor, quite close to the HSA airfield where I occasionally worked on detachment from Brough. I remember one Friday afternoon, probably in the 1970's, there was a Buccaneer being flown very enthusiastically at low level around the airfield, which was unusual since 'the works' normally finished at lunchtime on Friday. The word in the office on the following Monday was that Jimmy Saville had been in the back seat and it was an RN display pilot, so maybe he did once fly in a Buccaneer.
I am pretty sure no Buccaneer was ever landed after running out of fuel. I think one did run out of fuel during an air test from Aldergrove as a result of the fuel jettison valves failing open after testing the system, but that one crashed and was written off.


The aircraft took off from the royal naval facilities at Sydenham Belfast ,now Belfast city airportIt went out and they tested the fuel dump over the houses of East Belfast and it failedLuckily enough a office building caught it after the pilots ejected
The faulty valve was presented to the company and is still on display at the front reception

https://aviation-safety.net/wikibase/55097

[ShyTorque]

Many years ago, didn't a Puma pilot land very quietly on a parade square in Portugal having run out of fuel? When I say quietly, I believe that the navigator crewman made some noise about it. ;)

Such as: “Land now or I’ll kill you with this fire axe!” ?

[walbut]

Its a long time since I last looked at a Buccaneer fuel system schematic diagram but my ageing memory seems to think there were two jettison vales in series so a single valve failing open could not result in loss of all the fuel - but I may be wrong.

[SpazSinbad]

Probably a little out of date however fuel diagram from: [no HPA/no fuel text]
https://www.docdroid.com/DzWc4jy/blackburn-buccaneer-m148-provisional-pilots-notes-pdf (11Mb free)
[b]M.148 Buccaneer
PAGES of FUEL Text is there at front of PDF but too tiresome to make into readable text from PDF page. There is some 'landing advice' BLOWN or UNBLOWN - graphic follows.

https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/1473x990/buccaneerm148fuelsystemdiagram_222dd34fceb6ac83fafd3be86a28e abb3d7cf214.gif

https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/2000x1282/approach_landing_blackburn_buccaneer_m148_provisional_pilots _notes_a1150793dc9450dd3129179a274bb29da79e3a3d.gif

[Douglas_Hay]

Some top responses here. I'm not allowed to like posts because I don't have enough of my own presumably.

I was assuming that 'RAF Honiton' would have to be close to Scarborough, as they ran out of fuel over or close to Scarborough. But he doesn't say they ran out of fuel over or close to Scarborough, he just mentions flying over Scarborough and running out of fuel one after the other. Maybe they ran out of fuel far from Scarborough. Upon reflection he probably did mean RAF Honington, which was home to Buccaneers from 69 to 80, although you could still land one there even if none were based there.

[Ninthace]

Landing at Honiton certainly would not have gone unremarked and would have made a mess of the Hight Street.

[chevvron]

Some top responses here. I'm not allowed to like posts because I don't have enough of my own presumably.

I was assuming that 'RAF Honiton' would have to be close to Scarborough, as they ran out of fuel over or close to Scarborough. But he doesn't say they ran out of fuel over or close to Scarborough, he just mentions flying over Scarborough and running out of fuel one after the other. Maybe they ran out of fuel far from Scarborough. Upon reflection he probably did mean RAF Honington, which was home to Buccaneers from 69 to 80, although you could still land one there even if none were based there.
Nearest RAF airfield to Scarborough would have been Leconfield which closed in 1977.

[Timelord]

If they had literally “run out of fuel” in a Buccaneer the landing would have been courtesy of Martin Baker I can assure you. Common usage was “we ran out of fuel so we had to land at x” meaning “we had less fuel than anticipated so had to make an unplanned landing at x”

[Mogwi]

Landing at Honiton certainly would not have gone unremarked and would have made a mess of the Hight Street.

Could have worked on the by-pass!😈

Mog

[Ninthace]

Could have worked on the by-pass!😈

Mog
Was it built then? It is a fair fetch from Scarborough for something with the glide characteristics akin to a simonized brick.

[walbut]

Spaz, That's a very old fuel system schematic, from the days when there were 8 individual tanks rather than 4 pairs of masters and slaves. I think that probably only applied to some of the early development batch aircraft. Even so, failure of a single jettison valve to close should only lose half the fuel in the aircraft at most. I suspect there is more to the cause of the accident than is apparent from the summary reports.

In the 1970's we modified a Buccaneer to carry out Foxhunter radar trials and fitted a fuel recirculation system which took fuel from the jettison lines through a heat exchanger and back into the refuel gallery to cool the radar. I think the aircraft was XX897 and we knew it as the RRE Buccaneer. I did all the calculations on flow rates, pressure drops and temperature effects and a colleague of mine, Eric Lewis defined the fuel system mods and controls. Our boss at the time was a chap called Ray Gadd who had been a Halifax gunner during WW2 and was shot down returning from a raid on Germany. They ran out of accessible fuel, i.e. there was still sufficient fuel in the aircraft to reach the UK but it was not accessible to the engines that were still running. As a result the whole crew parachuted into the channel and were captured and spent the rest of the war as POW. (the actor Denholm Elliott was also part of the crew) Ray had been involved in Buccaneer flight systems design from day 1 and as a result of his experience in the Halifax, was fiercely protective of the fuel system redundancy and fault tolerance. Eric and I spent a very long time in discussions with Ray before we persuaded him that he could sign off the mod on behalf of Mechanical Systems. Mike Brooke describes his experiences operating XX897 in his book Trials and Errors.

[Dunhovrin]

Many years ago, didn't a Puma pilot land very quietly on a parade square in Portugal having run out of fuel? When I say quietly, I believe that the navigator crewman made some noise about it. ;)
Was that when the attendees on the square were treated not only to the unexpected arrival of a Puma but also the epilogue featuring chasies across the square with said crash axe?

[SpazSinbad]

Buccaneer Strike [AIR PICTORIAL 1980] Report and photos by MALCOLM ENGLISH
“...Having previously switched the radar set back to standby, my final task before we joined the Honington circuit was to select the bomb-bay fuel transfer switch ''off''.

Approaching Honington in arrow formation, we "broke'' over the airfield to join the downwind leg of the circuit for our landing. On ''downwind'' [S/Ldr] Bob [Joy] [No.208 Sqdn RAF Honington] lowered the undercarriage, selected tailplane and wing ''blow" and the wing flaps, aileron droop and tailplane flaps. As we turned on to approach, Bob used airbrakes to reduce our airspeed while holding our angle of attack at 20 units. I could clearly hear the audio signal from the airstream direction detector system (ADD) as we flew down the approach path.

Befitting his No. 809 Squadron (ex H.M.S. Ark Royal) experience, Bob carried out a no-flare touch-down, at 1720 hours, which was surprisingly less violent than I had anticipated. As Bob lowered the nosewheel on to the runway, the Buccaneer adopted a nose-down attitude which felt strange after flying for so long in a nominally level attitude....”
http://www.naval8-208-association.com/BuccArticles%20Air%20Pictorial%201980.pdf (5Mb)

[BEagle]

It should be noted that 20 units ADD does not mean 20° AoA!

[Geriaviator]

I would hesitate to believe any utterance of the late and unlamented Savile, but Buccaneers don't glide very well. Bucc on test flight from RNAY Sydenham ran out of fuel when downwind as a result of fuel dump valve sticking open after test over Irish Sea. Pilot was my friend Lt Cdr Giles Blundell who told me that he had hopes of making it into the grassy areas of Orangefield Park half a mile beyond but when the nose pitched up observer Ricky Allen ejected, closely followed by Giles, finally the Bucc which performed a vertical landing atop the front wall of an office no more than 250m beyond. Fortunately no fuel=no fire and nobody was injured except Giles, whose elbow was shattered when his chute slid off a rooftop, and Ricky had serious back injuries.

[212man]

I would hesitate to believe any utterance of the late and unlamented Savile, but Buccaneers don't glide very well. Bucc on test flight from RNAY Sydenham ran out of fuel when downwind as a result of fuel dump valve sticking open after test over Irish Sea. Pilot was my friend Lt Cdr Giles Blundell who told me that he had hopes of making it into the grassy areas of Orangefield Park half a mile beyond but when the nose pitched up observer Ricky Allen ejected, closely followed by Giles, finally the Bucc which performed a vertical landing atop the front wall of an office no more than 250m beyond. Fortunately no fuel=no fire and nobody was injured except Giles, whose elbow was shattered when his chute slid off a rooftop, and Ricky had serious back injuries.
https://aviation-safety.net/wikibase/55097

Well, I've learned something - the term RNAY (Royal Navy Air Yard) - when was this replaced by RNAS?

[diginagain]

Nearest RAF airfield to Scarborough would have been Leconfield which closed in 1977.
Driffield was closer, but closed about the same time. Carnaby would have been a contender but for the lines of Lada products on the tarnac.

[DuncanDoenitz]

https://aviation-safety.net/wikibase/55097

Well, I've learned something - the term RNAY (Royal Navy Air Yard) - when was this replaced by RNAS?

RNAY = maintenance base. RNAS = operational station. (cf "dockyard" and "port").

Regardless of the flying qualities of the Banana Jet, I think it should be obvious by now that the ramblings of Jimmy Saville, as quoted by Davies, are a mix of misunderstanding, delusion, fabrication and self-aggrandisement.

It may be worthwhile adding some context for our colonial correspondents who may not be fully familiar with Mr Saville. In his lifetime he was a radio and TV personality, DJ and philanthropist who devoted his off-duty hours to unpaid charity and voluntary work in hospitals and children's homes. He fronted a long-running TV show which granted wishes to young people and his madcap personality endeared him to the public. He was widely regarded as a national treasure and his apparent generosity was repaid in spades by the public; presumably accounting for his Buccaneer experience.

In the weeks following his death it quickly became apparent that he was actually a predatory serial-paedophile who used his position of trust to abuse vulnerable young people who were under the legal or de-facto guardianship of hospitals, media organisations and children's homes. The extent to which these organisations were transfixed by his Svengali-like persona, and granted him almost unbridled access, has been a cause for much subsequent soul-searching, and reviews of their governance.

[Video Mixdown]

Spaz, That's a very old fuel system schematic, from the days when there were 8 individual tanks rather than 4 pairs of masters and slaves. I think that probably only applied to some of the early development batch aircraft. Even so, failure of a single jettison valve to close should only lose half the fuel in the aircraft at most. I suspect there is more to the cause of the accident than is apparent from the summary reports.

In the 1970's we modified a Buccaneer to carry out Foxhunter radar trials and fitted a fuel recirculation system which took fuel from the jettison lines through a heat exchanger and back into the refuel gallery to cool the radar. I think the aircraft was XX897 and we knew it as the RRE Buccaneer. I did all the calculations on flow rates, pressure drops and temperature effects and a colleague of mine, Eric Lewis defined the fuel system mods and controls. Our boss at the time was a chap called Ray Gadd who had been a Halifax gunner during WW2 and was shot down returning from a raid on Germany. They ran out of accessible fuel, i.e. there was still sufficient fuel in the aircraft to reach the UK but it was not accessible to the engines that were still running. As a result the whole crew parachuted into the channel and were captured and spent the rest of the war as POW. (the actor Denholm Elliott was also part of the crew) Ray had been involved in Buccaneer flight systems design from day 1 and as a result of his experience in the Halifax, was fiercely protective of the fuel system redundancy and fault tolerance. Eric and I spent a very long time in discussions with Ray before we persuaded him that he could sign off the mod on behalf of Mechanical Systems. Mike Brooke describes his experiences operating XX897 in his book Trials and Errors.
I’d like to congratulate you on a wonderful post. I was neither aircrew nor engineer and the finer points of aircraft fuel systems are lost on me, but your post is so well written that I feel I’ve been both informed and entertained. PPRuNe gold!

[walbut]

I’d like to congratulate you on a wonderful post. I was neither aircrew nor engineer and the finer points of aircraft fuel systems are lost on me, but your post is so well written that I feel I’ve been both informed and entertained. PPRuNe gold!
Gosh, I am almost lost for words, thanks very much Video Mixdown.
Most of my posts on here are just musings from a lifetime of working as a systems engineer on military aircraft. I am slowly writing my memoirs of 42 years in Systems Engineering at Brough and the odd detachment elsewhere - shall I put your name down for a copy?
PS I still think there is more to the XV339 accident than a single jettison valve failure.