LHR nostalgia

[RedhillPhil]

Originally Posted by chevvron

You're thinkng of the Caravelle by Sud Aviation; they did copy the Comet design for the front end of that(and by the way, did you know they originally tested the design on a Horsa glider to see if it worked?)

No, I'm definitely thinking of the Comet. Sleek and pointy a the front but upright and round at the rear( I'm referring to the tail and tailplanes). The Caravelle was sleek and pointy at the front and sleek and swept at the rear.

[pax britanica]

I dont think Sud Aviation copied the Comet nose design as much as they used exactly same design with DH agreement since it was a proven design why change it.

As for the poor old DP it would have looked Ok without that ludicrous bulge cum fin at the back. The outboard fins are pretty cool looking actually . It certainly looked lot better than a York which looked like it had an old greenhouse grafted onto the front for cockpit windows

[eckhard]

Strictly speaking, it's a Breguet Br.763 Universel, popularly known as the Deux Ponts (plural) - French for "double-decker" (literally, "two bridges").

Yes, "pont" certainly can mean "bridge", however; in this context it means, literally, "two decks". If you ever travelled on a Brittany Ferry, you would remember the decks being referred to as "ponts".

"Pont" can also mean the axle of a car.

You "faire le pont" if you take a holiday on a Friday following a national holiday on the Thursday, i.e. take a long weekend. Ditto for taking Monday off before a national holiday on a Tuesday.

[WHBM]

Originally Posted by pax britanica

I dont think Sud Aviation copied the Comet nose design as much as they used exactly same design with DH agreement since it was a proven design why change it.

As for the poor old DP it would have looked Ok without that ludicrous bulge cum fin at the back.

The original Caravelle nose design was not only with DH "agreement", it was a design subcontract to DH, and the first couple of Caravelle noses were actually built at Hatfield and shipped over.

This lasted through the production of the Caravelle III and VI-N. The VI-R was developed for the United Airlines order, with thrust reversers, where the FAA had a fit about the prospect of braking parachutes blowing around US airports (I wonder if the likes of Varig, who ran the earlier versions to JFK etc, ever dared to deploy them there). The FAA also took against the nose design, on the grounds of insufficient visibility for the flight crew, so the VI-R, and subsequent models, had a restyled nose with much larger windows and also changes to the contours a bit.

The ventral fin on the Deux-Ponts, like many such on aircraft, was not there on the prototype until it was discovered that the fin/rudder gave insufficient authority under engine failures, etc, so it was added to address this. It does of course also add to drag. A perpetual feature of designs in the 1930s-50s was developing the prototype with an inadequate tailplane, and having to make production changes to address this.

[BEagle]

Which reminds me of the archetypal 'Bloggs to QFI' question:

"Sir, why does the F-15 have twin fins?"
"Glad you asked me that - it's (waffle waffle) to improve lateral stability (waffle waffle) in the transonic region...(coloured pens...white board) - any questions?"

"Sir, is that also why the Shackleton has twin fins?"
"Err....bugger."

[chevvron]

Originally Posted by Allan Lupton

A voice from the (Hatfield) back row says "They didn't - but we did!"

Sorry badly written on my part; by 'they' I meant De Havillands not Sud!

[Buster15]

On the point of Heathrow nostalgia I remember when I was 10, we had been living in NY as my father had been a service rep on the Bristol Britanna with BOAC. The NY Idlewild airport was so modern especially the TWA building. In 1961, we flew back to the UK on a 707 and landed at Heathrow.
The difference was incredible as the passanger arrival was a TENT. I was too young to understand why but still remember the massive difference between Idlewild and Heathrow.

[Hussar 54]

Talking of the Deux Ponts reminded me of a post in the VC10 thread about seven or eight years ago...

Anyone have any background about who / what / when / etc ?

Double-deck VC10 - foldout page 1

[Jhieminga]

Hussar 54, if you stay on my site and go one level 'UP', you will find the answers to some of your questions: The Double-Deck Super VC10

[pax britanica]

WHBM

I used the word agreement about DHs role in Caravelle nose as I wasnt sure of the exact arrangement-what I meant was it was not a copy but a rational decision .

Thanks for the info on the DP tailplane layout, wasnt it the Tudor that grew hideously ugly and tall fin after the prototype had flown a few times.

I thought the Caravelle had a piston era fin too- a swept back version would have looked cooler.

Back in the I always wondered why Caravelles with two Avons seemed to sound louder than Comets with four. They certainly made a racket if you were a schoolboy in the tiny school house in Stanwell just a few hundred yards from 28L 10R

[Wander00]

OK, have to ask, any pictures of the Horsa with the Comet nose......

[l.garey]

Horsa with Comet nose: top picture in this link

http://crimso.msk.ru/Images6/AI/AI55-12/29-1.jpg

Found in a (mainly modelling) Key thread https://forum.keypublishing.com/show...d-Horsa-series
See posts 2 and 6 on that thread.

Laurence

[chevvron]

I had an 'Eagle' annual dated about 1958 and there was a photo in there taken on the ground showing how they fitted it (on hinges)

[Mr Oleo Strut]

So they've recently found a memory stick in the gutter with all the current LHR secrets on it including emergency access points, evacuation plans, tunnels, and all in plain-text. Beggars belief but reminds me that in the 60s after all the evening birds had flown you could have walked a small army across the airport and nobody would have turned a hair.

I remember a bit of a scandal when some workers found that people were sleeping in some of the communication tunnels and all of a sudden properly lockable doors were fitted. I also remember that pumps operated 24/7 to keep the main access tunnels dry and I assume that that still carries on. Funny old place, not the same without Queen's Building or the old Terminal 2. Now I wonder if the additional runway is in jeopardy (again!).

[chevvron]

Originally Posted by Mr Oleo Strut

So they've recently found a memory stick in the gutter with all the current LHR secrets on it including emergency access points, evacuation plans, tunnels, and all in plain-text. Beggars belief but reminds me that in the 60s after all the evening birds had flown you could have walked a small army across the airport and nobody would have turned a hair.

I remember a bit of a scandal when some workers found that people were sleeping in some of the communication tunnels and all of a sudden properly lockable doors were fitted. I also remember that pumps operated 24/7 to keep the main access tunnels dry and I assume that that still carries on. Funny old place, not the same without Queen's Building or the old Terminal 2. Now I wonder if the additional runway is in jeopardy (again!).

Even bigger scandal that day just after dawn when they found a Chipmunk (nicked from Denham?) parked.

[Hussar 54]

Hussar 54, if you stay on my site and go one level 'UP', you will find the answers to some of your questions

Yes....Thank You....I've read all the pages quite a few times over the past few years as I'm still fascinated by something of which I was totally unaware until almost 45 years later.

It's just that since then, I've always wondered how serious this project was.

Was there really any serious interest from possible / potential customers, or was the project already too far ' behind ' the twin aisle offerings which were already being developed by Boeing, Lockheed and McD D to have found a place in the market ?

Back to the Heathrow interest, I didn't get to Heathrow very often but always did and still do remember what an absolute delight it was to see a few VC10s - the only ones I'd seen before my first visit were on my occasional visits to JNB. And Many Thanks for your VC10 site, by the way.

[HZ123]

Let us not forget that there was an incomplete tunnel adjacent to the main tunnel upon entry to the CTA that went towards Hatton Cross. I believe that in the late 60's it was accessible somewhere around TBE?

[A30yoyo]

Originally Posted by Buster15

On the point of Heathrow nostalgia I remember when I was 10, we had been living in NY as my father had been a service rep on the Bristol Britanna with BOAC. The NY Idlewild airport was so modern especially the TWA building. In 1961, we flew back to the UK on a 707 and landed at Heathrow.
The difference was incredible as the passanger arrival was a TENT. I was too young to understand why but still remember the massive difference between Idlewild and Heathrow.

Well they had replaced the tents with prefabricated concrete sheds by about 1947 but it sounds like you and your father were some of the last to pass through the austere old Northside before the centrsl area T3 opened in 1961

[Jhieminga]

Originally Posted by Hussar 54

Was there really any serious interest from possible / potential customers, or was the project already too far ' behind ' the twin aisle offerings which were already being developed by Boeing, Lockheed and McD D to have found a place in the market ?

I think it was a bit of both. There was certainly interest in a larger VC10, as evidenced by the initial specification for the Super VC10. From Vickers' point of view, they had a large design staff and it is important to keep a department like this busy to avoid having to lay off people. So when they ran into problems selling the VC10 they tried their best to come up with as many variants as possible in the hope that this would attract a new order. As we know by now, this did not happen unfortunately.

From BOAC's point of view, they certainly looked at larger capacity airliners but remember that this was a point in time when there was no 747/DC-10/Tristar in sight yet. Taking on such a double-deck behemoth was a huge risk and obviously they were not happy enough at that point to order any from Vickers. I think that although the thoughts about the wide-body types that would eventually fly were already well advanced in Seattle and the other design departments in the US, it was too soon for the UK to commit to such a large project.

[Four Wings]

Originally Posted by HZ123

Let us not forget that there was an incomplete tunnel adjacent to the main tunnel upon entry to the CTA that went towards Hatton Cross. I believe that in the late 60's it was accessible somewhere around TBE?

Do you mean the cargo tunnel? I used to drive through it in 1973 when visiting Shell's aviation fuelling terminal (I worked for Shell Aviation Division at the time, with the grand title of Head of Operations Economics).