The VC 10

[Dan Winterland]

"I transferred to the 747-100 next, there were design aspects I thought came off the VC10- I think some of the designers ended up at Boeing as British development wound down in the 60s."

You are correct. I went from the VC10 to the 747 as well and had the same idea. I knew one of the VC10 design team who became a curator at Brooklands. He confirmed that when some of the design team were let go from Vickers (BAC), they went to Seattle. The electrical system on the 747 is a direct lift from the VC10, except that on the 747, busbars sync was 1 to 2 and 3 to 4 whereas on the 10 it was 1 to 3 and 2 to 4.

[diddy1234]

So are Boeing thieving b***** or did Vickers (BAC) just do a good design that Boeing has followed ?

I cant help think that Boeing stole the lime-light after they had seen the DeHavilland Trident then went on to make the 727 and as they say the rest is history ..........

[philbky]

In the case of the Trident, a Boeing team was invited around the Hatfield facility and were shown the Medway powered Trident project that BEA abandoned and the inferior Spey powered Trident which was pretty much complete.

It was a no brainer for the lads from Seattle who went away and came up with the 727.

[Rainboe]

So are Boeing thieving b***** or did Vickers (BAC) just do a good design that Boeing has followed ?

I'd look at it as Boeing had the emminent good sense to grab the best designers in the world and give them jobs! Couple their influence (having been brought up on Spits, Mossies, Comets, Vulcans etc), and combine it with the hard headed and realistic American economic approach, and you produce a brilliant financial winner like the 747 100/200, which after its further iteration to the -400 became THE world beater (and outstandingly good looking to boot!) for 30 years.

As for the Trident. Yes. A political committee aeroplane, a throwback to the days when central government politicians ran EVERYTHING 'for the good of the economy'. Did a great job! Blue Streak, TSR2, Phantom, P1127, Belfast, Trident....culminating in the ....Nimrod Early Warning! We made some good ones, but when they were bad..............

[diddy1234]

philbky, why were the Boeing team invited around DeHavillands ?

Maybe I don't understand, but it would appear that yet again the British economy gives technological ideas and developments to America for nothing !

Takes for example the jet engine, miles 52 and radar, so what did Britain gain by giving away technology ?

As for Staff released from Vickers, I can understand the staff moving to Seattle to work on the 747, Our industry was dying / sorry amalgamating.

The sales market was always going to be bigger in America (and forward thinking in terms of different markets).

[BEagle]

Rainboe wrote:

A wonderful time. BOAC had a wonderful young attractive cabin crew.

Including this lovely lady:



Roz Hanby. Who can still fit into her cabin crew uniform even today!!

[Rainboe]

Yes, we all remember Roz! A lovely personality lady. Somehow under Ayling, the personal (and human) touch like that became anathema whilst that bizarre country solicitor worked out a succession of bizarre ideas of running one of the world's major airlines into one of the world's not-quite major airlines. Whatever became of Roz? She carried the job off well and still had a big spark of fun.

[BEagle]

A couple of years ago she was the school nurse at a junior school in Salisbury - see: http://www.leaden-hall.com/internati...ationalday.pdf


My god-daughter attended that school - I don't know whether Nurse Roz was there at the time, wish I had though!

Back to the VC10 - I trust that Boeing didn't copy the crazy load distribution of the VC10K with all attitude systems connected to the no.s 1 & 3 busbars, due to the HDU creating massive load spikes on the no.s 2 & 4 busbars when started (whoever certificated a 'direct on line start' of a polyphase AC motor??)......

'They' said you would never have a double bus fail of the no.s 1 & 3... 'They' were wrong as it happened to me on an Air Test of ZA141 (a.k.a. 'The Lizard') which had been lovingly preserved in open storage at St Athan and was then urgently needed for one of nuLabor's 'bring a bottle' wars.

Lots of fail flags and pretty red lights, no attitude systems, quite a few PCUs failing and the cabin slowly rising.....

We'd just shut down no. 3 engine as art of the schedule, the no. 1 gennie system couldn't take the load and went off line - but not cleanly enough, so with a slowly decaying voltage on the no.s 1 & 3 busbars, the SSB thought 'bugger that' and went crossline as the no. 1 gennie finally GCR'd itself. As did the other BTB for the no. 2 and no. 4 busbars. After a few minutes explaining to ATC that we might infringe an airway as we weren't able to turn, we restarted no. 3 engine and recovered everything as the 1 & 3 BTB was happy to tie the no.s 1 & 3 busbars.

And then we went home! The cause was corrosion in the no. 1 alternator regulation system, thanks to months of Welsh weather.

Good job I hadn't dropped the ELRAT; when I tested it a few days later it filled the aircraft with smoke because its regulation system had also become corroded during its period in storage. Just to make things more interesting, the rear smoke detector was later found to be faulty after we'd dumped the jet into the hands of the maintainers.

Fun days though!

[Jhieminga]

Originally Posted by diddy1234

philbky, why were the Boeing team invited around DeHavillands ?

After the crash of the BAC 1-11 prototype due to deep stall Vickers/BAC were quite concerned that other designers would unknowingly get themselves in the same situation with a T-tailed airliner. Because of this they shared a lot of information with both American and other British companies, including visits of designers and test pilots to American firms. Perhaps this Boeing visit to DeHavillands was somehow a part of this program, if so then the purpose of this visit was safety, to prevent another deep stall accident with a T-tailed airliner.

[diddy1234]

Jhieminga, That would explain why other aircraft (DC-9, 727 etc) never had the same development problems !

If the western countries were sharing information like this for reasons of safety then why were there never deep stall issues with the Russian Ilyushin Il-62 ?

Experiencing deep stall for any one would be terrifying !

[tornadoken]

#33, Dysag: screwing up the A340-600 wing, trying to do it on the cheap by keeping a lot of the 1990 design inside. It was far too heavy
Unfair, I suggest. Airbus Industrie has a Committee/consensus approach to decision-making. BAe., a UK plc, raised much of the money on market terms to launch A330/340-200 wing design in June,1987, to a Spec. accepted by the team, inc. DASA (a for-profit business) and Aerospatiale (a State welfare/"National Interest" employer). In February,1998 BAe., a UK plc, raised much...terms to launch A340-500/600 wing to a Spec...inc (from 2000: EADS, a for-profit business with State Directors in a subordinate role). If anyone screwed up, it was the team. But it cost us, UK taxpayer, £123Mn. in Launch Aid contribution merely for the adapted, 1987-derived -600 wing: whatever would have been the cost, and Certification timescale, for an all-new wing? Unrecoverable, I submit, from the niche target market. AI chose a sub-optimal design over no design. See: 777SP, L.1011-500, MD11.

[philbky]

Boeing Hatfield visit

That visit was years later and to a different manufacturere - BAC rather than Hawker Siddeley controlled Hatfield.

There are similarities however as Boeing had fostered a relationship with de Havilland in the wake of the Comet fuselage problems and de Havilland had correctly shared its knowledge gained through the disasters with the wider aviation world.

Boeing had offered the B720 to airlines in the US but most indicated that they wanted something smaller, with good short field performance but with range. Douglas had signed an agreement with Sud Aviation to market the Caravelle in the US and it may well have been that Boeing were looking for a similar deal on the Trident as they perceived the aircraft to be well ahead of their project (it was) and were concerned that it would breach the US market because, at the time, Eastern, American and TWA were all interested in a 3 engine layout and a high performance wing.

Boeing had done a great deal of work on various wing possibilities and expressed interest in the Trident wing. They were shown the two distinctly different Trident designs and, rightly, decided that the T tail, three engined layout with Medway engines and originally specified wing was the way to follow.

Having either failed to reach a marketing agreement re the Trident (or decided not to in the light of what they had been shown) they went away and continued discussions with the US carriers and in June 1959 commenced work on the design that was announced in December 1960 as the 727.

Meanwhile the much bastardised and hobbled committee/BEA produced Trident 1 first flew on January 9 1962 and failed to attract any US interest. Boeing flew the 727 on February 9 1963 having caught up, partly due to being able to use a number of common parts from the 707/720 and a great deal of expertise in assembling large airliners quickly gained from those and the KC135 programmes.

[WHBM]

Originally Posted by diddy1234

If the western countries were sharing information like this for reasons of safety then why were there never deep stall issues with the Russian Ilyushin Il-62 ?

The Russians did unfortunately experience a deep stall with a Pulkovo Airlines Tu154 only a couple of years ago, over Ukraine, trying to climb up over a thunderstorm in the cruise. Classic deep stall result, coming down to the ground in an uncontrollable wings-level attitude. It's basic physics.

Meanwhile the UK experiences led to a requirement to fit stick pushers on T-tail aircraft, but the 727 was never so fitted so I wonder how much of the "sharing safety" atually happened. When the first UK-registered 727s came secondhand to Dan-Air, many years after their introduction, they had to be expensively modified to fit such a device.

[philbky]

Other aircraft that have had deep stall accidents are the TU-134, the Trident 1 and the Canadair CL600 but the phenomenon was first linked to T tail aircraft with the crash of HP Victor B Mk2 XL159 on March 23 1962 at Stubton in Lincolnshire.

The unresolved cause of the first 727 crash in Chicago on 16.08.65 has been cited as a possible deep stall accident and the crash at Salt Lake City on 11.11.65, whilst not a deep stall, was partly attributed to the response of the T tail design to a high sink rate and sluggish engine response.

[tornadoken]

Flight, 16/12/60: "first details of the Boeing 727. This aircraft is in all major respects a carbon copy of the D.H.121 Trident. Last February (having bought DH, 17/12/59, HSAL's) Sir Roy Dobson and Sir Aubrey Burke visited Boeing to discuss, among other things, collaboration on the D.H.121. Boeing were interested, and four senior DH engineers, including the chief designer Mr C. T.Wilkins and chief technician Mr. D. R. Newman, went to Seattle also. Boeing engineers later visited Hatfield, and other exchanges followed.
(Roger Bacon) would not blame DH for feeling...disenchanted with the "collaboration" that has resulted. I do not know whether they feel sore or not: I think they have been in the game long enough to have few illusions left to be shattered. But I think I know one thing : henceforth, whenever the Minister exhorts DH—or anyone else in our industry—to collaborate with a foreign industry, he will be reminded of what happened when we tried it with the Trident."

That is the origin of the perception that Boeing lifted the Trident. As philbky says, Medway/727 was in hand by mid-59, as a logical adaptation of 707/720. For the owners of Renton and Wichita, a Hatfield shop visit would add nothing to corporate knowledge; the ex-DH Lofting Office would at that time have little to delight them. HSAL's intent was collaboration, to win US customers - lessons from Comet 3/PAA were that the pond was a very effective moat. One writer (can't now find it) has implied that the Knights' deal-making foundered.

[philbky]

Thanks Tornadoken for digging out those quotes.

As ever with events not open to too much public scrutiny at the time and are now around 50 years ago, there are some unresolved matters.

According to a senior manager who I met at Hatfield in the very early 1970s, Boeing were talking to de Havilland (and thought they would eventually be dealing with Airco - the company set up to build the Trident prior to the forced marriages which set up BAC and HS) around the time they were starting work on the initial 727 design in early 1959. These talks were about a similar deal to that between Sud Aviation and Douglas which was initialed at that time and was public knowledge (the final deal was eventually signed in February 1960 and included an agreement for Douglas to build the proposed Caravelle 7).

He went on to state that Boeing thought they were talking about the Medway engined aircraft but when they arrived at Hatfield they were shocked to see how much the BEA changes to the design of the Trident had weakened the saleability - which became apparent to the industry when BEA eventually unveiled its order and spec on August 8 1959.

If that is true, the visit of Dobson and Burke in February 1960 was a futile exercise and the Boeing return visits were probably just to see how the Trident was coming along - perhaps with half an eye on the autoland potential and any other gleanings about what was basically a ground breaking planform.

Whatever else, Boeing's view of the BEA spec confirmed their belief in the Medway engined sized aircraft - a belief that history vindicated.

Whilst the Comet 3 had not sold in the US the Britannia would have had some success but for the problems with the Proteus and the Viscount certainly dented Convair 440 sales, so the Atlantic was not totally unbreachable.

[Golf Charlie Charlie]

Not sure about this, but I have read (I think on pprune actually) that the first deep stalls go as far back as the Javelin, which suffered one or two such events further back, ie. in the 1950s.

[tornadoken]

pb: I like that: it's better than the implication that Burke/Dobson mishandled a negotiation, or that Boeing intended/and HSAL succumbed to deception - lifting UK "secrets". Cast our minds back to the way we were as 1959 unfolded. BEAC's passengers had only gained access to any real money in 1958 - previously, currency controls had been rigid, to serve businessmen hunting exports. We were then granted £50 p.person p.a - transactions entered in your passport. All BEAC's routes were a) monopoly protected - poor souls like Dan could only fly where BEAC chose not to go, like Lux; and b) revenue-pooled with the reciprocal carrier, say AF. Cosy cartel, no competition, in service, frequency or fare. So, Spey-size would do fine, even seen as capacity-at-risk.

Now, compare and contrast with US domestic: capacity/frequency is King. Clearly, Medway-size. So Pratt invented JT8D just at Boeing Board 727 Project Launch. RR could not/would not credibly do Spey+Medway concurrently, so settled for the safely-funded BEAC job...and were evermore disdainful of UK civil aeronauts, "worshipping at the American shrine", yearning for, in March,1968 winning a US baseline (L.1011).

[tornadoken]

On "th....ing b....ds"

When BUA launched BAC 1-11, May,1961, Flight carried ads by Sud, a photo of a small boy, mouth agape, eyes staring in horror at an aircraft model; the caption was: "Oohh! ils ont copies Caravelle!" (= "carbon copy").
Laws of dynamics dictate: compatible input = compatible output. So: if you want a bizjet with low airstairs, you get rear-power/T-tail. Not the same as copying Learjet. See 2 wives: one, screech, scratch; t'other warmly responsive, low maintenance. Same exterior dictated by fashion.

[CNH]

I remember hearing Dick Stratton (ex-Saunders Roe) talking about the SR53. Apparently a Javelin went into a deep stall and crashed on the Isle of Wight in the late 50s. Maurice Brennan, the SR53 designer, was held up in the resultant traffic jam, and went into the Cowes works the next day saying they had to put an anti-stall device on the SR53. If they were flying the SR53 then this dates it to 1957-59. As far as I can remember, this was some sort of pyrotechnic designed to lift the tail in the event of such a stall.