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G-ARPI - The Trident Tragedy: 40 years ago today

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G-ARPI - The Trident Tragedy: 40 years ago today

Old 24th Nov 2013, 17:09
  #141 (permalink)  
 
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tribalism

enjoyed reading your post Chris and to some extents you have hit the nail on the head but the story is more complicated.
First I was due to start at Hamble in 1968 but the bean counters cancelled my course and when it was reinstated I wasn't informed...they couldn't make up their minds on the pilot requirements...

We were terribly privileged ..no wars and at a time of huge social change which had really started with the ex servicemen who had mutinied after the end of the war when the authorities decided to leave them to rot whilst raw materials were shipped back. Add to that the treatment of our non white military and the Irish.(and women).

I was fortunate to get into grammar school..4% of the population achieved 2 A levels...which got me into Hamble although on my course we had a couple of guys with O levels from secondary Mod.

I grew up with the Mods and Rockers wars in Southend and the extent of the corruption in the police force was only just becoming generally known.
(as we now know the extent of pedophilia and rape was yet to surface).
My wife went on a band the bomb march...her mother still doesn't know..and attended a Welsh extremist party...full of nutters...then it was Bebe and Mary Quant.
The RAF were loosing more than two aircraft a week.
Hamble was fantastic...especially as the instructors were all ex-fighters...they didn't get into the airline because that was sewn up by the bomber boys.
But we had the philosophy of chop a third to get higher standard...which nearly included me.

There wasn't a choice of Corporation because BOAC had stopped recruiting although some of my mates went to Courtline and generally have had a more rewarding career than the BA guys...stand by for incoming Al.

I must qualify what I am going to write next...some is my own experience ...some is from Balpa and some from senior management...(some of which I only discovered recently).

BEA had a career structure in LHR of seniority dictating the fleet with the exception of management bypassing everything.

AJ had a typical BEA career...vanguards ..Trident..Tristar (with a bespoke Trident cockpit - one of the reasons they were given to the RAF)...BCal DC10 ..early command and BEA ftm who went onto the 747. The 747 was the way to get a huge pension..crystalising.....around 150 grand index linked for some.
Unlike AJ I spent my career either going onto a brand new aircraft, or a new training system or in the case of the Trident a war zone. We actually had trainers fly up to Prestwick...do a detail and fly back to LHR...

The first hit of tribalism was when a captain said "he's a fkg sergeant pilot".

Then three years on "Fkg masons"...and when I was researching my book ..many times...followed by "fkg guild"...which happens to be true.

I was flying in the Pyrenees when I had a conversation with an ex world champion who said "public school boys" ...which wasn't the problem as most were very competent and gentlemen.

What I read very recently is that BEA management had a fear of the government giving the company to BOAC...and asking an ex FM he stated that this went back to 1948!...This would tie in with my experiences.
The strange part was that in BOAC this mentality didn't exist...we just looked upon others..even the charter boys ;-) as professionals...

The effect of this was a culture of everything in BOAC is rubbish...possibly to prevent an amalgamation ..it used up a huge amount of unnecessary energy which lead IMHO to the horrendous accident rate.
The energy could have been used for flight safety.
Look at the Munich disaster (Stan Key was the rep)...two accident reports in similar circumstances had been sent to BEA but were not promulgated to the crews. The Trident disaster was the same thing...except there were three.
The vanguard over ghent was a problem known for two years and ignored.

The BOAC boys did a fantastic job turning the culture around but many of them were ex Hamble and younger.
Not that the bomber boys were all bad ...I flew with some wonderful captains who were older than my father and treated me like a mate...I learnt a lot.

In BEA we had to have a short back and sides...and our Vol 5 said we had to salute training captains...we looked like ex Cons...whilst BOAC had long hair like the Stones...there are some good videos of the time..

Then there was our diction....I'm from Sarfen...I had to smartly change it as did "Northerners" ...best wind up was an ex public school mate of mine who wound up a T3 captain who had an affected accent...probably ex borstal...and spoke with cockney vernacular..
The other copilot basically called the captain a CT...all BEA.

I was shocked by the story but you have to consider the animosity after PI especially as the lengths management went to hang the crew out to dry.

It is a pity that the AAIB wasn't allowed to thoroughly investigate the accident and it was a public inquiry..I think history could have been changed.

The VC 10 was the best part of my career but it cost me friends...as I left the tribe...but who ...in their right mind ...wouldn't have swopped shuttle back up, drinking a pint of heavy, eating curry and chips in Sockihall? street without cabin crew and discussing how much draft pay Sid had earned to drinking a Singapore Sling in the old Raffles with some real honeys...add that to most of the old Empire...I am sure you experienced the life in Bcal..

When I was leaving for SR a BEA skipper phoned me up and said "Ace you are a CT if you go to SR...my neighbour is a captain..and he said so".
It took me five years to find out the truth...ex bomber command...just like some of the guys in BEA and the Atlantic Barons...if you read Reg on gaining a RAF brevet you will see a similar problem with anti semantism.
This guy insulted all of the Swiss...not unlike the English with the Africans, Irish and women...and so some of them took revenge on moi...
It wasn't all one sided as we had many laughs and the crumpet was better than the Debs in BEA.

Monitored approach.

It was probably developed because of lack of handling skills...indeed there was a rumour about putting the captain on the P3 position..apparently as the Russsians did.

IMHO it was half [email protected] the captain did the throttles...and we were not allowed to use manual throttle except if an engine failed when it was obligatory.
So you really never knew what was going in with windshear and one of my mates had a tail strike because of the skipper's poor throttle handling.
On my VC 10 course I had great fun as we had a North East guy who flew the opposite of BEA and a BEA guy who had swallowed his ops manual...light the blue touch paper.
BOAC philosophy was one guy flies the aircraft (including throttles) and the other monitors him....same in SR.

What AJ probably knew was the great FTM of our era did most of his Tristar conversion with the AP plugged in...says it all...he was also the guy who authorised our 1179 when the BofT refused - see PI report.
The last five years have been very interesting...not only after I discovered PPrune but from openly talking about our era and understanding how the industry has evolved.
But it is still fundamentally flawed as I believe we need far more transparency... all FDRs need reading, full time CVR, complete FOI...after all we owe it to our passengers....and to ourselves as pilots are the first to die and the first to be blamed.

I was involved in mountain gliding and aerobatics...occasionally both together ...which is a shining example...but paragliding isn't because the advertising revenues pay for the magazines and so we fly some terrible kit...
But boy have I had some fun....45 years flying, 15 years teaching joe blogs off the street to fly...visited 1/2 the known world..and a modest pension ;-)

Last edited by blind pew; 24th Nov 2013 at 18:17.
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Old 29th Nov 2013, 11:56
  #142 (permalink)  
 
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The greener side...

blind pew,

Thanks. Am tempted to obtain your memoir - particularly after AJ's recommendation - but, if it's as cryptic as your post, I'm afraid the juiciest chunks of it would go right over my head...

You and any other readers have no doubt detected some degree of bias and cynicism in my own post, and to be honest I never knew much of what was going on in the Corporations. We had gradually to accept that, apart from gifting us the Lagos route in 1971 (without which we would not have survived 1973/4), the government was only prepared to allow its much-vaunted "second force" scheduled carrier to compete with yours to a handful of destinations - and always from the sideline hub of Gatwick.

The creation of a second-force independent airline to compete against BEA and BOAC was the brainchild of the Edwards Committee, reporting to the Labour (Wilson) govt in 1969. IIRC, it recommended BUA and Caledonian as merger candidates, and in 1970 the newly-elected Tory (Heath) govt vetoed the possible takeover of BUA by BOAC, so Adam Thomson's (charter) Caledonian purchased the financially-ailing (schedule) BUA. Operations and engineering-wise, however, it could be argued that the BUA management ruled the roost - mainly because of its broader technical expertise, and experience in scheduled services. There was a good deal of tribalism between the two parties; the most evident area being the contempt that the Caledonian B707 fleet had for the VC10 operation and economics. But the moderating bottom line was always that the public and the government didn't owe us a livelihood... We nearly went to the wall in 1974.

There's irony in the fact that independent airlines seemed to do better under Labour than the Conservatives. In the early Eighties, we (and Laker) invested a lot of money in Anglo-European Airbuses in the hope of gaining more short-to-medium-haul routes. Our own A310 order was reduced to two when that didn't materialise, and they became instantly redundant when PC Yvonne Fletcher was murdered outside the Libyan embassy in 1984 - just as I was going off to Toulouse for my conversion course. (Undaunted, we became a launch customer for the A320 project!) Adam Thomson, R.I.P., was a benign, Scottish, socialist entrepreneur. Unlike your Lord King and - a little later - Richard Branson, he never attracted the support of Margaret Thatcher. His prediction that BCAL would not survive unless permitted access to Heathrow proved to be correct. Branson was soon to be permitted precisely that.

Well, that got some of it off my chest... Steering towards the on-topic, we did have a few stuffed shirts, if not primadonnas, in the left-hand seat, and there was more than a whiff of the Lodge factor - not that I could lay claim to have been affected. Yes, I've heard captains being dismissed in conversation as ex-flight-sergeants. We were far from perfect. But once I was in the mainline, I never felt inhibited to speak up - certainly not in an aeroplane. Perhaps we were also fortunate only to lose one passenger in our 17 years, and our operation was so much smaller than yours.

As for haircuts, blind pew, do you really think that being permitted to have long hair "like the Stones" was an indication of an enlightened flight-ops management? If so, ours would have failed dismally. One of my contemporaries, who was on the 1-11, used to wear a short-haired wig to hide his locks. Our VC10 chief training captain threatened me with dismissal from the fleet when I turned up for one of my line-training sectors with a modest amount of hair touching my shirt collar. I thought he was joking. When I tried light-heartedly to discuss it with the F/E en-route, he made it clear that - although the CTC/FTM had a reputation for a fairly bombastic approach to his authority - the admonishment was right and proper: "Long hair looks ridiculous when you're wearing a cap." (which we always did in public on the ground - unlike many of my BA colleagues in later years). I've never liked hats, but I believed in discipline and standardisation - and took the shilling.

On a less-trivial note, quote:
"In SR..I learnt how to throw a jet around with ease..no FD...manual throttle...final configuration at 400ft...speed stabilised later."

I'm surprised to see you advocating that, particularly on a jet (except the manual throttle bit, which was normally my preference when visual). Once bumped into an ex-BA guy in a bar in Geneva in the 1990s. I think I expressed a favourable impression of the company. He immediately embarked on a completely unsolicited rant against the safety of the operation, and particularly its obsession with fuel and time-saving on approach and landing. All total news to me, and I wondered if he was a crank with a grievance.

"A proper salary and all the bits that went with the best airline in Europe.
And of course a first class modern quasi military training establishment."

Inferring that you're a bit of a free spirit, I'm wondering what you liked about the quasi-military training establishment?
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Old 29th Nov 2013, 12:59
  #143 (permalink)  
 
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hats

Chris you can always have a look at my blog..trustthepilot.blog.com
its free but the format means it's a*se about face.
As it happens the last finished post contains a reference to the destruction of my BEA hat and a great days work....this bit isn't included.

In Swissair we had the cabin crew and gays take over the uniform design with the result that the pilots only had to wear a hat which was modeled on a soviet military cap with a peak that would have suited a steam locomotive driver in winter. The worst part was a canary yellow trench coat...with sleeves that would have fitted a thalidomide victim and a cut that enabled one to smuggle another person through security. I NEVER wore mine and gave it to my mother for gardening in a south of france winter with the mistral blowing. She never wore it either...on todays dosh it would have cost around 1500 quid.
The italians nicknamed us "the tennis balls".

As to my colleague...ex BA and SR - I could guess but there wasn't a fuel saving mentality except with regard to doing a slick approach and if that meant closing the throttles at TOD and not touching them until 500ft so be it.
Certainly VNE down to 4000ft wasn't exactly fuel efficient (nor VNE by 3000ft)
SR had done glide approaches and landings on the DC9 until we joined.

Re the military...different types to those in what became BA. First of all all of the Swiss males were in it (and some women). It was more of a democratic service than ours. Virtually all of the Swiss either flew choppers or jets in the mountains - and we are talking big mountains and bad weather.
28% of us were foreigners and most of those were ex military fighters as well.
Yes we had the dreaded secrecy stuff and one day I might post some more of what happened but our handling and maintenance was second to none.

What was good was that every flight data recorder was checked...I was called up a couple of times ...once over a complaint received through diplomatic channels...and only after they had thoroughly investigated it...but as I flew by the book.. which was openly written...never had any problems.

I'll PM u.
alan

Last edited by blind pew; 29th Nov 2013 at 16:42.
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Old 29th Nov 2013, 14:00
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Readers of Blind Pew's regular diatribes on BEA should know that his views on his brief exposure to the airline bear little resemblance to anything I came across in thirty years' experience and should be taken with a very large helping of sodium chloride.
Those of us who led relatively peaceful lives in aviation can only marvel at the endless variety of drama which coloured his own career. I'm sure his colleagues must have been immensely grateful that they were blessed with his advice.
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Old 29th Nov 2013, 15:19
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Scotbill..The 8 airliner loses and 248 dead in my six years is possibly reflected in my diatribe or would you consider this normal collateral damage in a happy ship?
Whilst we all have a selective memory and often a different perspective we all have the right to say it as we saw it.
I doubt very much whether you have an inclinking what it was like to join during an industrial war, be partly trained and be in a company that lost four aircraft in roughly the first year.
The Sunday papers of the time said it all.

There were a few that stood up to be counted the majority kept stumm...which catagory were you in?

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Old 29th Nov 2013, 18:10
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Actively involved in the industrial atmosphere of the time so can do without your condescension.
This bitterness which has seared your soul has exposed you to numerous criticisms on other forums which apparently do nothing to curb your constant attacks on an airline which was always in the forefront of innovation in a very conservative world.
Interestingly some of those criticisms have come from your own contemporaries who apparently found the working environment more pleasant and fulfilling than you did.
However, I recognise you are unwilling to abandon your self-appointed status as an expert on all matters BEA so I will leave the discussion with a reminder of the government health warning in my previous post.
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Old 30th Nov 2013, 04:29
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None are so blind as those who will no see?

Scotbill do you put the horrendous accident rate down to Innovation or is it a figment of my imagination?

And what innovation?

The French beat us at autoland and they had Turbo-clair.
The Trident and Tri-Star we messed up.
Shuttle we copied from Eastern.
Highlands was flogged off.

So that leaves the monitored approach as performed by BEA!

On a personal note did you ever get to use your own throttles and try the alternative version...and if so how did you cope?
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Old 30th Nov 2013, 11:44
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All I can remember is that BEA were a dreadful airline to fly with................
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Old 30th Nov 2013, 11:51
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Blind pew:

Your long running campaign against the perceived injustices done to you by BEA flight ops. managers is verging on paranoia. You seem to forget that other people on these fora may also have inside information on the accidents/incidents that you quote.

Listing your hit list:

a) Vanguard - design change ref. corrosion protection going from 951 to 952 spec. BEA flight managers responsible............
b) PI agreed! However you are not the only one to lose a friend there.
c) Nicosia training accident - as I recall being flown by a CY crew - friend on board - no injuries.
d) FH at HER this was not "written off" as you claim.
e) PIK training accident - I knew all the crew members. I am sure that your research will have revealed the adverse bank/ Vmca issues that were subsequently found and issued as a bulletin.
f) T3 over ZAG - close friend killed on this. Flight ops. influence - no way.
g) T1E if I recall although owned(taken over by BEA) was still operating as an independent company. BEA flight ops. input.....?

Your book reminds me a lot of a character in BEA who went by the nickname of "Nargs". Perhaps this will mean something to others on here?

My ex-SR friends tell me that you also had "issues" with management there so perhaps there is a common theme running through here?
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Old 30th Nov 2013, 15:48
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Meikleour - I wish you hadn't reminded me of 'Nargs'. You've put me off my dinner.
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Old 30th Nov 2013, 17:20
  #151 (permalink)  
 
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BEA Monitored Approaches in decent wx

Sorry to interrupt, guys, but I still haven't had an answer to my question:

So what happened on the copilot's leg in half-decent weather? Was there not a complete role-reversal?

Not sure if any airline currently allows copilots to do landings when the wx is worse than Cat I, so I'm not thinking of that. When I started doing monitored approaches in 1988 as a captain on A320s in BA, we tried to arrange the tour's flying to enable the F/O to get half the landings where possible. Ergo, the captains did half the descents and approaches up to the point when the F/O was visual.
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Old 30th Nov 2013, 19:12
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So what happened on the copilot's leg in half-decent weather? Was there not a complete role-reversal?
Yes there was - even in not-so-decent weather. Can't remember the F/O limits for weather but it was important for first officers to gain experience in taking over close to decision height - particularly in the X-wind case when it was necessary to resist the temptation to align the aircraft prematurely with the runway.
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Old 30th Nov 2013, 19:27
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F/O limit was 600m RVR or better (CAT 1). Anything less was a P1 landing.

...............if my memory serves.

And, yes, in better weather, P1 would fly the approach with the aim of P2 landing off the approach. Captains, therefore, had the same practice as P2s at flying the approach. In the late 70s/early 80s most of the captains were certainly up to that, in terms of ability. Not so much so in the early 70s.

PS - I seem to recall that P2's x-wind limit was 2/3 the aircraft limit. Not sure though - anyone remember?
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Old 30th Nov 2013, 19:44
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Meiklour
Re a read the report
Re c like aerlingus BEA had a large financial Holding in CY and flight ops imput.
Re D..info from ex boac flt mngr...anyway they fiddled the paperwork and endangered everyone on board and whoever they flew over.
Re e read the report
Same f...lookout..we used to use the tatty screens or newspapers in cruise to stop the glare...and why bother looking out with closing speed of 1100knots.
G part of BEA...but I would give you this one as don't know any more.

You missed the viscount...all dead ..flew into a cloud with a hard centre..At their home base...

Are you trying to say "jolly hard luck chaps"?

Of course Nargs is in my book but I have disguised him out of sympathy..incidentally he hasn't changed as I had a conversation with a gentleman who asked me is it true he has a pension of "loads of money"...as nargs had boasted how much to him..leopard spots.

Now your mate in SR.

Would that be the bloke who didn't pay Price Waterhouse when he skipped the country so they inflated my bill?
Or the bloke who was sacked by BOAC off the 707?
Or the bloke who dossed down with me, was flying on anti depressants and fell asleep on his annual route check?
Or the bloke who was done by customs?
Or probably the bloke who went into management but was living in the UK...which of course they found out...who dressed like Nigel Mansell..including hair cut and moustache...he was sacked out of management but not before he Made an example of me after I filed a report about an eastern block president's mafia type gorillas wearing automatic pistols on my aircraft?

One of the above three put me on the UK customs watch list..

Then there was the guy who during my very long command training rotated before V1 to see what I would do....eventually given pension after he spent two years in treatment.

I got on well with most of most of our management bar one who screwed me over Passover pay...about £20000 on today's money...but I didn't need the money and you never take on the Swiss whatever your nationality.

you can tell your "mate" that they gave me a loss of licence pension based on the very top of the scale...thank you very much...now that will piss the tossa off...as several of the above used to dry their tea bags out and get another cuppa out of them.

I would say that one of the senior management did say to me that it was a mistake to take Brits which they never repeated.

Probably because only three of us ex BA bothered to learn Swiss German and didn't treat them like hired help.

Sorry if I am a bit hard but it's nice of you not to write a hysterical post.

Harry..I used to ask our Brit pax why they flew with us...gave up quite quickly especially after the "are you kidding?" reply.

The loads made it difficult to fly to LHR unless we had a jump seat so some of the guys used BA but we were stopped after two of the above guys opened up their own packed lunch in business class and the adjacent business pax said "I want one of them!"..it was the time of chuck a plastic box at the pax.
Then BA ZRH would only accept us if they had spare catering or we sat in the cockpit...
For me it was great as their were a lot of my ex Trident opos on the 737 and I was made most welcome.

Last edited by blind pew; 30th Nov 2013 at 19:56.
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Old 1st Dec 2013, 13:49
  #155 (permalink)  
 
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Blind pew:

Yet again you respond to rational arguments with hearsay!

The HER report is still available with the AAIB yet you attempt to refute this with hearsay from "your retired mate"

The PIK report is also available and interestingly the subsequent Vmca data that was released afterwards by the CAA did not feature in the BOAC manuals which had been used for 15+ years beforehand!

I find your reference to "lack of lookout" on the ZAG crash as offensive to the crew involved and would appear to be another "figment" of your fertile imagination. My recollection of the report was that the DC9 climbed in a blindspot of the T3.

By your own admission you found SR to be an excellent airline - so I am rather puzzled by why you held so many of your former contemporaries in such contempt! Surely they were selected, as you were, for the same exemplary talents and high characters?
Incidently "my mate" was not one individual but several who told me how SR worked on the inside.

Regarding poor old "Nargs" - his stories were always hugely entertaining but utterly preposterous. Sadly however, I feel he truly believed them!

You seemed to have had the unfortunate experience of having to fly with very many incompetent crew whose lives were only saved by your own expert intervention!

Don't you see the connection?
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Old 1st Dec 2013, 19:06
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As I said read the reports...properly...HER came directly form the BOAC fleet Manager.
Zagreb ...read report.
PWK ..reread experience of FO..and how the chop carried out...again discussed with above.

SR many of us we're "different"..
I happen to have an ex BEA hostess who turned down BOAC and being on the face of BEA's advertising campaign...speaks four languages ...studied English at Uni...a mad driver and altogether naughty girl...
I am very lucky but many thought that a bloke out of sarfend didn't deserve that and four of my course mates would often turn up when I was away...not unlike the incestuous nature of Cyprus Airways...ask your mate who was standing behind Sam when he pranged at nicky....we were on Cathy selection at tower bridge together..

Add to that I spent all of my salary on enjoying ourselves...we rented a four bedroom ..,four level house where we had some great parties...went skiing most days off...bought a sailing cruiser ..1980...brand new car...when some of your mates were living in Swissiar's village in Kloten...subsidised for the migrant workers who cleaned the toilets at the airport...

Worst of all and those who night stopped on the 737 would understand was their local...The Londoner pub..where the waitress would put the till receipts in a schnapps glass in the middle of the table when she brought each round. Half of the receipts would be secreted behind the radiator before she cashed up. So they got pissed at her expense......pure greed..
When I got my pension it rubbed their noses in it especially as most had to pay for old mummy and had a new mummy...
Whilst three good mates contacted me after my accident I only heard from the others when SR went tits up as they wanted my help in tax avoidance...told them to get stuffed...sour grapes...

As to Nargs..I shared transport with him a couple of times...whilst he had a bad reputation underneath he was a kind bloke as at the time he was organising a charity event for Reading? Round table....
We had a lot of crew in SR who did similar things...

I effectively took control in flight twice with captains and once with a FO in SR... I refused to fly with one captain in BEA...
A couple of times in extreme circumstances it was a joint effort..
I didn't bend any heavy metal either...unlike two of my BEA mates ...one during the good old monitored approach...

So where are these "facts" coming from...Wikipedia?
Or some sad old bastard on the golf course?
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Old 1st Dec 2013, 22:40
  #157 (permalink)  
 
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Zagreb ...read report.
The Trident's heading was 115° and the DC-9's 353°, both had been maintained for several minutes immediately preceding the collision.
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Old 2nd Dec 2013, 06:55
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Meikliour To quote from the report.

3.3.3 non - compliance with regulations on continuous listening to the appropriate radio frequency of ATC and non-performance of look-out duty from the cockpits of either aircraft...
3.2.10 is also relevant re the T3 crew

As I said read the report as dave has..


My book is an autobiography set in post war England when our Empire was no more. A period of class war, racism and a social revolution viewed by a naive Essex boy who dared to speak up and suffered the consequences..

It is not a Technical history but more an exposure on a system which was forced to change and did because of Thatcher,King and some clever blokes from the opposition (BOAC).

Whilst you and your Jock mate dislike it and me intensely I spent a lot of time doing the research because a reviewer said without an extensive bibliography no one would believe it.

For those of you reading this thread who did not go through RAF (or Hamble) selection in the 60s it was about recruiting politically naive young men who would fly a suicide mission on V bombers to unleash a nuculear Armageddon without questioning their masters. The ideal traits include "assertiveness"...which is why CRM was introduced to stop the bullying in the cockpit.

Last edited by blind pew; 2nd Dec 2013 at 07:39. Reason: Re read conclusions and added an additional ref.
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Old 3rd Dec 2013, 09:25
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National Geographic are telling the story of Papa India:-


Watch Air Crash Investigation Videos Online - National Geographic Channel - UK
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Old 28th Dec 2013, 13:15
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What became of First Officer Flavell who had the argument with Key in the BEA Crew Room shortly before the ill fated flight? Did he give evidence at the enquiry?
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