RAF VC-10 in-flight reverse thrust use.

[treadigraph]

Feet off brakes!!!

That sounds very much like a phrase the late Ken Fitzroy used when describing his time on RAF Britannias!

[Fareastdriver]

A cache of ex Japanese chemical weapons were found on an island in the Solomon Islands. Uncle Sam dispatched a disposal team, about ten of them, in a C5. This C5 was now the largest man made object in the country and occupied most of the International parking ramp.

Job finished, everybody climbed in and they called for pushback.

Pushback? They didn't have anything big enough to pushback a C5; in fact they couldn't pushback anything.

Big confab with Washington: No. they could not use reverse thrust to back out and anyway it would have demolished the terminal building so an alternative was worked out.

A C17 flew in from Hawaii; offloading a massive aircraft tractor on the apron. Now nothing could get in or out.

Lots of aircraft shuffling by this tractor as it positioned its C17 and C5 so that they pointed towards the exit.

The C5 went first; the tractor loaded back into its C17 and off they went.

[Bergerie1]

In BOAC/BA we used to teach new VC10 captains, when doing their command courses, how to do three point turns on the runway. Feet under the rudder pedals, flight engineer on an extended headset lead looking out of a pax door, and reverse motion being stopped by applying forward thrust only, never the brakes. It worked like a charm. Reverse thrust could also be used to back out after taking a wrong turning on a taxiway, but not advised on the ramp due to handling equipment, etc.