BOAC B707 ops in the 1960s

[oldandbald]

Certainly heard stories about the "vacuum cleaner" , a certain 720B operator (not Monarch) had an flt engineer who liked to keep the office clean until on maintenance at Luton it was pointed out that there was pockmark damage to the leading edge of the fin , I think the practice ceased.

[blind pew]

Finncapt...twas a BA/ANZ opp IIRC...had a mate who was a boy pilot on it...
One of the first expressions that my father learnt when he arrived in England B4 WW2 was "tight as a bull's arse in June"...which summed up my mate to a T...he used to take a metal detector along and spent the slip in LA beach combing - mostly for pennies and dimes...
He used to dry out his Tea bags along with another guy...how to live well on one of the best salaries in Europe.

Bird House....walls covered with soiled underwear (often with previous wearer's name in felt tip).

Portage Glacier....had one attempt and hit some nasty air so did a 180...dropped down to 100ft and went searching for bears...no sense in making the girls sick (in reality moi playing possum).
Took a flight out to Cordova and took the inter Island ferry back to watch the glacier calving from a different (and safer) perspective.

[ExSp33db1rd]

Returning a hire car in ANC one day, the owner asked if I'd be interested in an all expenses paid ship trip to Juneau to then drive one of his cars back to ANC?

It wasn't mid-winter, but it wasn't mid-summer either and I was a bit nervous of doing the trip solo, and no-one else would accompany me, so passed up the offer. Wish I'd bitten the bullet and done it, now.

Flying TYO - ANC one night, were held at F/L 290 due American being 10 minutes behind at F/L 330,and every "request" to them to maybe climb to 370 was replied to with a brief 'Nope'.

Approaching ANC the vis. was rapidly decreasing, and having passed the ILS Outer Marker it dropped below limits, but being inside the marker were were legal to continue to "have a look". Reaching our Company minima we were visual, so landed O.K. American were still outside the marker and forbidden to continue - so they had to divert to Elmondorf. We larfed.

[Fris B. Fairing]

The Vacuum Cleaner Story

Please don't tell me this is a furphy. I seem to recall that it featured in the BA air safety magazine.

[Bill Pinnock]

...threads of memory...

the closest I can offer is 1970-76 during which period I joined BOAC as a Joint Corporations cadet straight from AST Perth with 230 hours total on Cessnas, did the 707- 436 conversion at Prestwick 6 months later and started the FNL licence course in April '73.
By this time there were no "Straight Navs" but both F/Os on the crew held FNLs ( the captain was allowed to let his lapse ). There was no track structure on the N.Atlantic and nav training was conducted both there and up into the Arctic using Grid. Doppler ( limited by only a Polar Path compass system for heading reference ), Loran, Consol, and Astro were all used as available and necessary. Oh, how I miss the Flight Engineer's firm grasp on my inner thigh
approaching the end of a carefully calculated 3 star astro fix as I clung helplessly to the periscopic sextant.......
Can't help much regarding JFK as Newark was the closest I got in later years.....however, I do remember the advent of voice ID on the NY area VORs.
Air Almanacs still available for inspection by arrangement with Her Maj if you're ever passing Taunton way. Fun times...a crew that doubled as Rent-a-Crowd and a table for your dinner

[ExSp33db1rd]

..... and a table for your dinner.

As Capt. JFK - LHR, and having "given" the flying for this sector to the F/O, I decided to put the S.O./ Nav in my seat as we flew up the East Coast towards Gander - this was an early INS trip when we still carried a qualified Nav. Pilot, "just in case", tho' he had normally nothing to do - so I enjoyed my meal at a table instead of balanced on my knee, made it easier to eat the caviar, should the cabin crew have been so kind !

I then noticed that the aircraft was in a positive turn to the right, one does notice these things, and heard the F/O explaining to Gander ATC that "we have a Nav failure".

The early INS would only accept 9 waypoints, and one had to constantly leapfrog from ones passed to insert new ones into the system ahead of the aircraft.

The F/O and S/O occupying the two front seats had been so busy chatting that they had forgotten to do this, so the INS had performed as designed and upon passing waypoint 9 had set course for waypoint 1 - back towards New York !

(Expletives deleted )

[thegypsy]

Bill Pinnock

Still got that beard by any chance?

[Airclues]

Low Vis Navigation

In the 60's and 70's smoking on the flight deck (and the passenger cabin) was still allowed. One night I had to navigate a VC10 across the Atlantic with the Captain puffing at a pipe, the F/O smoking a cigar and the E/O chain smoking cigarettes. Trying to plot a position on a loran chart (you'll understand what I mean if you've ever seen a loran chart) wasn't easy in low vis conditions.

Edit;

http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=...electedIndex=0

[Meikleour]

Bill,
I have PM'd you.

[ExSp33db1rd]

Low vis Nav.

Agree, I got quite adept at navigating wearing a full face oxygen mask! The tube wouldn't reach the sextant mounting tho'
Raising the curtain that cut off light from the nav table, and opening the face level air vent, helped a bit too.

Had a Captain who decided to fly on "red only" light selection once, the switch to activate this mode being in his control, and of course the Loran chart required one to identify coloured lines, some red, which promptly became invisible of course. We had a few words about the ongoing navigation accuracy.
I won.

[beerdrinker]

And then of course is the story of the skipper who was in the habit of leaning back and dumping his used tea cup on the 707 Nav's chart. Nav got fed up and sent forward to the pilots a series of heading changes. The effect being he navigated the aircraft around said tea cup. And he logged manoeuvre on his Nav Log: " Altering course to avoid Captain' tea cup"

[Boxkite Montgolfier]

I am attempting to enlighten everybody regarding the 'hoover storey'.
The individual was an Engineering Officer whose name has been on the tip of my senile tongue for days!
Both DTW (Guess Who) and I have been ruminating about this eccentric character who also relished bringing goldfish back from Nairobi and oxygenating them within their bag whilst airbourne. He also rigged up a feeding contraption via puncre louvres!!
Another act was to open the lower hatch from within the electrics bay, having depressurised the aircraft, and peering out to confirm the wheels were down and locked despite false U/C indications on the Flight Deck.
We will linger over a gratifying amber and the name will flash up in lights!
Watch this space

I will recount some of my navigating epic voyages when I can refill the quill!

[The African Dude]

Also, as a 20 something young man, there was a certain pleasure to be enjoyed in knowing that for a few hours over the Atlantic, you were the ony b*gger who ever really knew where we all were !

Fantastic

[Boxkite Montgolfier]

Bingo!

I knew the Amber liquid would release those memory marbles.
With grateful thanks to DTW the Mystery Mechanic is/was Bob Heath

[DCDriver]

Bird House Bar, AK

A few years before it burnt down someone stole the big blue bird effigy mounted on the roof. The cops put out a States-wide alert for it's recovery and iirc it was discovered somewhere in the lower 48, whence it was returned to its rightful place.
One day we went skiing in nearby Alyeska and, unusually, some of the Japanese FA's joined us (they normally hung out with all the other airlines' japanese FA's in Benihana on 5th Ave in Anchorage). Afterwards we arranged to meet at the Bird. One of these girls asked the barmaid - the well-built one alluded to in an earlier post - whether they sold soft drinks or not. "No" came the reply. "What do you sell?" asked our Japanese girl. Whereupon the barmaid, hands on hips, displayed her enormous assets in tactical mode and stated "we sell BOOZE, lady!"
The only food available there was a basket of hard boiled eggs, labelled "boneless chicken dinners".

I was a frequent visitor to ANC in the 1980's and we had to do a very basic polar nav course before being let loose, which included a mere brush with Grid Nav. Years later I found myself operating these routes again and we had a reversionary procedure to Grid Nav if the INS's failed. As I was the only one on the fleet who had an inkling of what it entailed I was nominated the instructor! Blind leading the blind, etc.

Blind Pew - you do exaggerate.....

[Discorde]

Perhaps ExSp33db1rd and or other 707 experts can advise on another point: for the purposes of the story I'm going to need five seats in my BOAC 707 cockpit. Reading the Accident Report on G-ARWE, I note that there were five crew in the cockpit: Capt, two FOs, FE and Route Check Capt, so presumably five seats was a standard config. Was the nav station behind the jump seat?

Thanks for info.

[Boxkite Montgolfier]

In essence Flight Deck layouts were similar for both B707's and VC10's. The Nav table was essentially behind the Captain's seat and jump seat was erected in the middle. The VC10 cockpit was enormous and entertained many visitors with much entertainment particularly if navigational duties were not too onerous.
Direct London Bermuda's were conducted in daylight westbound and generally concentrated the mind although occasionally a Sun/Moon/Venus fix was most rewarding. One aspect of navigating the return BDA-LHR was an essential removal of the shades on the sextant used westbound to protect the eyes during observations. Many a lad was confounded Eastbound on the first night fix searching for stars and met by a very black night!
Blacking the eyepiece was another jape generally reserved for a new hostess's invited to peer at Venus. I stress the jokes were very much enjoyed/conducted by all crew and reciprocated all round during those happy days.

[Hobo]

Discorde Yes, on the 707 left hand side was capt/jump seat/ nav table with seat in a row and right hand side was f/O F/eng. IIRC, the jump seat was fixed fore and aft and butted up to the nav table, and it couldn't rotate but the Nav and Eng seat could rotate.

I think ??? the eng seat at least could move fore and aft...not too sure if the nav seat could...probably not as the js would be in the way. \\\\\\\\\there wasn't much spare room in the 707 cockpit.While under training as a nav, the Nav instructor used to sit on the jumpseat...where he could peer over your head at the nav table and your chart in a very intimidating way...

I don't know what others did, but the loran charts were masive when folded out, so once I had drawn our planned track on, I would use my square protractor to trim the edges/corners off and end up with a strip about 18" wide which could be used very easily. (Now I think of it, it may have been our very own ExSp33db1rd who suggested this....??

[finncapt]

Boxkite

Oh what days - it's all too PC now I imagine.

I remember a trick with cling film and dry ice!!!

Brown milk on landing anyone!!

The longest VC10 trip I did was 28 days - got turned round in Colombo!!

Also Bob Heath, dour Duncan et al - sad when they got rid of Flt Engineers.

[millerscourt]

In GF it was called Brown Cow!!