Air Bridge Carriers
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I may be wrong but when the Falklands war was on the MOD did charter a number of cargo companies to move supplies .Tradewinds heavy lift and I Believe Airbridge was involved as well was this true.
Lotus 1, They sure were involved, I was working for them at Luton at the time and we did carry some 'interesting' cargo. Wasn't flown to Falklands though but transhipped elsewhere to eventually reach the required destination.
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G-APEM in Belfast during base training with Captain Mike Grace, a real gentleman.
F8F65B44-5916-42D4-A201-2AF571B1B724.jpeg
65DE975D-5D4A-4578-A82A-38E5DD6AFB27.jpeg
Don’t know why this is inverted??? Also don’t know how to delete it, so I’ll leave it there.
F8F65B44-5916-42D4-A201-2AF571B1B724.jpeg
65DE975D-5D4A-4578-A82A-38E5DD6AFB27.jpeg
Don’t know why this is inverted??? Also don’t know how to delete it, so I’ll leave it there.
Last edited by Stan Woolley; 2nd Apr 2018 at 17:25.
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Air Bridge Carriers
Yep, I remember the ABC Merchantmen visiting Gibraltar during my time there from 1980-83. Lovely aeroplane which, in my opinion, should have been developed into a maritime patrol platform in competition to the P-3 Orion. The similarities in spec are extraordinary!
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My eldest brother saw G apes at Las palmas said it was a great surprise could have been 86 He was on the ramp spoke to crew believe captain was a gentleman by the name of Kellard He was a very pleasant gentleman.
The book about ABC is also directly available from Dick Gilbert at Skyline Aviation Books
We used to get a LOT (I mean every night)of ABC aircraft at Liverpool (SPEKE) Airport in the 70s, I think there was an Argosy based there "they did the paper flights to Ireland" There was a Captain "I think his name was Mike Sprule who used to fly with his BLACK LABRADOR DOG named SALLY ???
A Merchantman aircraft features as one of the characters in the novel 'The Damocles Plot' by Julien Evans. Here's a couple of excerpts:
Tonight the autopilot was behaving itself (it frequently didn't). Zulu Charlie rode out the turbulence well enough, the flight deck 'nodding' in the way peculiar to Merchantmen freighters. Converted from Vanguard passenger airliners in the early seventies, the Merchantmen had had their floors strengthened to withstand loading with cargo pallets, but a side effect was that the modified fuselage structure was more rigid. In rough air the floor bounced like a diving board.
'Glideslope.'
'Check,' responded Park. 'Gear down, approach flap. Final checks.'
Zulu Charlie intercepted the glideslope and both pilots heard the altitude lock disengage.
'Land flap,' called the copilot.
Jagger moved the lever, watching the gauge. It was slightly blurred. Must go to the optician tomorrow.
'Land flap you have,' he said. 'Checks complete.'
For a propeller-driven aircraft the Merchantman was quite a mover. Its four Rolls Royce Tyne turboprop engines dragged the sixty ton freighter through the air at three hundred and thirty-five knots, almost four hundred miles per hour. At full blast each engine turned its propeller with the power of five thousand horses. Even when throttled back in the cruise the huge props spun fast enough for the blade tips to nudge the speed of sound. In the time it took for Sarah to say, 'There goes Santiago. Next track is two two zero', the aircraft had put another half mile behind it.
Tonight the autopilot was behaving itself (it frequently didn't). Zulu Charlie rode out the turbulence well enough, the flight deck 'nodding' in the way peculiar to Merchantmen freighters. Converted from Vanguard passenger airliners in the early seventies, the Merchantmen had had their floors strengthened to withstand loading with cargo pallets, but a side effect was that the modified fuselage structure was more rigid. In rough air the floor bounced like a diving board.
'Glideslope.'
'Check,' responded Park. 'Gear down, approach flap. Final checks.'
Zulu Charlie intercepted the glideslope and both pilots heard the altitude lock disengage.
'Land flap,' called the copilot.
Jagger moved the lever, watching the gauge. It was slightly blurred. Must go to the optician tomorrow.
'Land flap you have,' he said. 'Checks complete.'
For a propeller-driven aircraft the Merchantman was quite a mover. Its four Rolls Royce Tyne turboprop engines dragged the sixty ton freighter through the air at three hundred and thirty-five knots, almost four hundred miles per hour. At full blast each engine turned its propeller with the power of five thousand horses. Even when throttled back in the cruise the huge props spun fast enough for the blade tips to nudge the speed of sound. In the time it took for Sarah to say, 'There goes Santiago. Next track is two two zero', the aircraft had put another half mile behind it.
