Vickers Viscount
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So latetonite, you would have been flying the 754D 9Q-CVF for Trans Service Airlift. Would this have been an arms supply flight into Angola? At the moment, the fate of the aircraft is described as 'obscure'.
Sumburgh Approach
More on the Viscount flights in Scotland.
As a BEA commercial apprentice in the early 70s we were sent up North to learn the business. I have many memories of flying around the Highlands and islands standing between the pilots.
One captain told me that it was a standard procedure when training new FOs to keep flying into the hill on the, I guess, 33 approach to Sumburgh until the FO turned white and then turn to finals. We then flew the route so I could see it for myself.
I also remember a low level flight from Stornoway to Benbecula and the Captain(another one) telling me about a really nice Hotel/Restaurant. Where's that? , says I. Down there, says he with a sharp turn of the control yoke to reveal said Hotel just off the right side of the aircraft.
I would love to see one flying in the UK again
As a BEA commercial apprentice in the early 70s we were sent up North to learn the business. I have many memories of flying around the Highlands and islands standing between the pilots.
One captain told me that it was a standard procedure when training new FOs to keep flying into the hill on the, I guess, 33 approach to Sumburgh until the FO turned white and then turn to finals. We then flew the route so I could see it for myself.
I also remember a low level flight from Stornoway to Benbecula and the Captain(another one) telling me about a really nice Hotel/Restaurant. Where's that? , says I. Down there, says he with a sharp turn of the control yoke to reveal said Hotel just off the right side of the aircraft.
I would love to see one flying in the UK again
On the GB airways flights from Tangier to Gibraltar, it wasn't just on the flight deck that you stood; I remember on two occasions seeing children standing in front of their (seated) parents in the main cabin with the stewardesses compliance.
It seemed to be normal to take off from Tangier airport, then fly between the minarets of the city before setting course for Gib.
It seemed to be normal to take off from Tangier airport, then fly between the minarets of the city before setting course for Gib.
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SSD
I was interested in your comment about the Tay Viscount operating out of Seighford. Have you any idea what the connection was? I did a search and found that Boulton Paul had established some form of test flight there. There is some mention of Canberra trials but thus far nothing on the Tay Viscount.
Looking at Multimap not a lot remains of the site.
FW
I was interested in your comment about the Tay Viscount operating out of Seighford. Have you any idea what the connection was? I did a search and found that Boulton Paul had established some form of test flight there. There is some mention of Canberra trials but thus far nothing on the Tay Viscount.
Looking at Multimap not a lot remains of the site.
FW
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Fokkerwokker
I got the info from the 'Action Stations 3' book, which shows Tay Viscount VX217 at Seighford in front of its hangar. Apparently it flew from both there and Defford, investigating early fly-by-wire development (to quote the book - 'using electrical impulses to move the control surfaces').
VX217 was scrapped at Seighford in the early 60s.
The runway was 2000 feet long back then, but most is gone now. I've been in there several times in our Chipmunk, once as a bolthole from bad wx! Staffordshire Gliding Club now occupy the northern part of the site, operating off grass, but sveral hundred yards of the old runway still exists (or did when I was last there - quite a few years ago now).
SSD
I got the info from the 'Action Stations 3' book, which shows Tay Viscount VX217 at Seighford in front of its hangar. Apparently it flew from both there and Defford, investigating early fly-by-wire development (to quote the book - 'using electrical impulses to move the control surfaces').
VX217 was scrapped at Seighford in the early 60s.
The runway was 2000 feet long back then, but most is gone now. I've been in there several times in our Chipmunk, once as a bolthole from bad wx! Staffordshire Gliding Club now occupy the northern part of the site, operating off grass, but sveral hundred yards of the old runway still exists (or did when I was last there - quite a few years ago now).
SSD
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Speechless Two
The accident was on the 19 Jan 1970. The aircraft was a Viscount 701 Registration G-AMOA with 4 crew and 59 Pax. There where no fatalities. the aircraft was CAT 5 i.e. beyond repair. It was classified as a heavy landing.
Mel
The accident was on the 19 Jan 1970. The aircraft was a Viscount 701 Registration G-AMOA with 4 crew and 59 Pax. There where no fatalities. the aircraft was CAT 5 i.e. beyond repair. It was classified as a heavy landing.
Mel
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Hi from a newbie here, i remember watching Viscounts on approach to LBA on a seemingly daily basis during my youth, both my school and home were under long finals for the main runway. my only flight on a Viscount was from LHR to LBA on British Midland Viscount G-BMAT piloted by a Captain Murphey, i have heard that this aircraft has since crashed on a freight flight, does anyone know of the circumstances of this?. and also i seem to remember reading about the Skysport Viscount being up for sale a couple of years ago though (maybe in Flypast??)
hope this is of help, and cheers in advance for any replies.
Greg
XS186 ground crew
hope this is of help, and cheers in advance for any replies.
Greg
XS186 ground crew
Last edited by gregers; 10th Dec 2005 at 23:17.
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Many thanks for that Speachless two.
i will have a look good at the link as there is another aircraft that i have flownin that i have been told has had an accident. it is one of the chipmunks i flew in whilst in the air training corps. off to the caledonian chipmunk dsite to look up its civil reg.
cheers.
Greg
i will have a look good at the link as there is another aircraft that i have flownin that i have been told has had an accident. it is one of the chipmunks i flew in whilst in the air training corps. off to the caledonian chipmunk dsite to look up its civil reg.
cheers.
Greg
Sadly I also witnessed the demise of a Viscount.
Bournemouth in early '72 I think. It appeared to have landed in the undershoot of runway 08 taking off the undercarriage in the process(all three legs were in the undershoot anyway). I think it was crew training at the time, and the markings were possibly ex Lufthansa; don't remember the reggie I'm afraid.
Bournemouth in early '72 I think. It appeared to have landed in the undershoot of runway 08 taking off the undercarriage in the process(all three legs were in the undershoot anyway). I think it was crew training at the time, and the markings were possibly ex Lufthansa; don't remember the reggie I'm afraid.
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I think it was crew training at the time, and the markings were possibly ex Lufthansa; don't remember the reggie I'm afraid.
http://aviation-safety.net/database/...?id=19720128-1
I had ther pleasure of flying the Viscount for the last four years of the 60s for BKS. Now in the last months of a (nearly) 40 year career it is still the aircraft which I remember with the most affection - it was a real pleasure to fly and loved by all passengers for it's vibrationless comfort and huge windows.
We had a dozen or so aircraft in that time and apart from the V806x the only things in the same place were the throttles and HP cocks. In fact the US spec. V700D were a lot better performers and had enhanced systems than the ex - BEA machines, they had such items as automatic engine deicers that changed cycle speeds at a given temperature instead of watching the IOAT like a hawk to perform said manoeuvre. Unfortunately though the "comfort " factors like the freon air conditioning and janitrol cabin heaters were disabled as the CAA wouldn't approve them.
They had the same Dart 510 engines as the V806x that BEA had downgraded their aircraft with so being smaller and lighter climbed better and went further. Interestingly enough BKS pioneered a mod that stuck a faired lump of lead at the underside of the outboard wings which increased the ZFW, in one case it was put into the slipper tanks (also a non-approved mod by the CAA). This was later extended to the 800s by a fuel management regime that left a greater weight of fuel in the ouboard tanks.
It also has a somewhat dubious claim to having great sex appeal, there was a BEA sewardess in the 60s who swore that she had an orgasm from the vibration every time the props went into ground fine pitch on landing, if only we could all be so lucky.
Also of note was the variation of flight systems installed from "none" to the Collins FD101 ( I still have a certificate somewhere saying I had attended a training course for that one) to the Smiths Flight system as installed in it's bigger cousin the Vanguard. I even got to fly a leased early "slitty windowed" 700 - ex Aer Lingus I believe, that had a zero reader, I was supposed to do a differences course for that but one Sunday afternoon I was the only F/O around so the chief pilot sat me in the aircraft and supposedly explained the intricacies of the contraption, I never did get the hang of it in the subsequent 4 sectors"
The biggest trap was that the American aircraft had switches that were up for on and the UK ones down for on, confusion was inevitable.
Interestingly a good friend of mine, now in his mid 70s flew the last airworthy example in the US from Chino Ca. to a museum in the eastern States somewhere where it was to be repainted into it's original Capitol colours and possibly kept airworthy, I have no clue what happened to that one, I guess it is still on display somewhere. He was asked as he was the last check-airman qualified in the US having been employed by Go Air to do Rock and Roll tours around the States and Canada with such notables as Billy Joel, Barry Manilow and suchlike, His experiences there would make a good story as his "clients" included the likes of the Beasty Boys!
Very fond memories of a great aircraft, I would enjoy seeing one airborne again however I fear it is rather unlikely.
P.S. The reason that the BEA machines, including "Yogi Bear" the Gibair aircraft had no cockpit jump seat was that it was removed to put in a cockpit air conditioner. The seat was originally rearward facing for the Radio Officer who was supposed to do his W/T in the early days and in BEA service it was religiously removed on a fixed date for the summer months to be replaced come winter - of course that took no account of flying to the eastern med in the winter! When sold on to subsequent airlines the airconditioner was left permenantly in position - at least until it went u/s.
We had a dozen or so aircraft in that time and apart from the V806x the only things in the same place were the throttles and HP cocks. In fact the US spec. V700D were a lot better performers and had enhanced systems than the ex - BEA machines, they had such items as automatic engine deicers that changed cycle speeds at a given temperature instead of watching the IOAT like a hawk to perform said manoeuvre. Unfortunately though the "comfort " factors like the freon air conditioning and janitrol cabin heaters were disabled as the CAA wouldn't approve them.
They had the same Dart 510 engines as the V806x that BEA had downgraded their aircraft with so being smaller and lighter climbed better and went further. Interestingly enough BKS pioneered a mod that stuck a faired lump of lead at the underside of the outboard wings which increased the ZFW, in one case it was put into the slipper tanks (also a non-approved mod by the CAA). This was later extended to the 800s by a fuel management regime that left a greater weight of fuel in the ouboard tanks.
It also has a somewhat dubious claim to having great sex appeal, there was a BEA sewardess in the 60s who swore that she had an orgasm from the vibration every time the props went into ground fine pitch on landing, if only we could all be so lucky.
Also of note was the variation of flight systems installed from "none" to the Collins FD101 ( I still have a certificate somewhere saying I had attended a training course for that one) to the Smiths Flight system as installed in it's bigger cousin the Vanguard. I even got to fly a leased early "slitty windowed" 700 - ex Aer Lingus I believe, that had a zero reader, I was supposed to do a differences course for that but one Sunday afternoon I was the only F/O around so the chief pilot sat me in the aircraft and supposedly explained the intricacies of the contraption, I never did get the hang of it in the subsequent 4 sectors"
The biggest trap was that the American aircraft had switches that were up for on and the UK ones down for on, confusion was inevitable.
Interestingly a good friend of mine, now in his mid 70s flew the last airworthy example in the US from Chino Ca. to a museum in the eastern States somewhere where it was to be repainted into it's original Capitol colours and possibly kept airworthy, I have no clue what happened to that one, I guess it is still on display somewhere. He was asked as he was the last check-airman qualified in the US having been employed by Go Air to do Rock and Roll tours around the States and Canada with such notables as Billy Joel, Barry Manilow and suchlike, His experiences there would make a good story as his "clients" included the likes of the Beasty Boys!
Very fond memories of a great aircraft, I would enjoy seeing one airborne again however I fear it is rather unlikely.
P.S. The reason that the BEA machines, including "Yogi Bear" the Gibair aircraft had no cockpit jump seat was that it was removed to put in a cockpit air conditioner. The seat was originally rearward facing for the Radio Officer who was supposed to do his W/T in the early days and in BEA service it was religiously removed on a fixed date for the summer months to be replaced come winter - of course that took no account of flying to the eastern med in the winter! When sold on to subsequent airlines the airconditioner was left permenantly in position - at least until it went u/s.
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Interestingly a good friend of mine, now in his mid 70s flew the last airworthy example in the US from Chino Ca. to a museum in the eastern States somewhere where it was to be repainted into it's original Capitol colours and possibly kept airworthy, I have no clue what happened to that one, I guess it is still on display somewhere.
http://www.maam.org/newsletters/jan0....html#viscount
Oops, I stand corrected, thank you!
I looked at the MAAM website but could find no further news on the Viscount since the 2000 update you provided a link to, indeed the website doesn't seem to have anything more recent than 2004 on it.
Interesting that it has an APU, never met one of those before, I don't believe it was original manufacturer's equipment, we just had to have a very large GPU that pushed out large amounts of 400cps power to start the engines with, you might just get one started on the battery with much juggling of the HP cock and fuel trim switch, if you were lucky.
I looked at the MAAM website but could find no further news on the Viscount since the 2000 update you provided a link to, indeed the website doesn't seem to have anything more recent than 2004 on it.
Interesting that it has an APU, never met one of those before, I don't believe it was original manufacturer's equipment, we just had to have a very large GPU that pushed out large amounts of 400cps power to start the engines with, you might just get one started on the battery with much juggling of the HP cock and fuel trim switch, if you were lucky.
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Interesting that it has an APU, never met one of those before, I don't believe it was original manufacturer's equipment, we just had to have a very large GPU that pushed out large amounts of 400cps power to start the engines with, you might just get one started on the battery with much juggling of the HP cock and fuel trim switch, if you were lucky.
Once he got that one going, starting the others was no problem.
SSD