BEA Vickers Vanguard
The 90027 part number prefix suddenly sucked me right back to the early '80s when I worked in a bay overhauling Merchantman landing gears. 90026 = NLG, 90052 = MLG. Meanwhile I can't remember what I did last week. 
Apropos of the Vanguard - Merchantman conversions, one of the Air Bridge old-timers told me that all the floorbeams were lowered by two inches as part of the modification. Anyone else chip in on that?
Apropos of the Vanguard - Merchantman conversions, one of the Air Bridge old-timers told me that all the floorbeams were lowered by two inches as part of the modification. Anyone else chip in on that?
The 90027 part number prefix suddenly sucked me right back to the early '80s when I worked in a bay overhauling Merchantman landing gears. 90026 = NLG, 90052 = MLG. Meanwhile I can't remember what I did last week.
Apropos of the Vanguard - Merchantman conversions, one of the Air Bridge old-timers told me that all the floorbeams were lowered by two inches as part of the modification. Anyone else chip in on that?
Apropos of the Vanguard - Merchantman conversions, one of the Air Bridge old-timers told me that all the floorbeams were lowered by two inches as part of the modification. Anyone else chip in on that?
Join Date: Aug 2020
Location: Cheshire
Posts: 199
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
"Sits on Tail"
Early 70's MAN. A slight ground shudder outside the general aviation apron / BEA cargo centre. I went out of the office, to find a Merchantman with its nose facing skyward, and the tail sitting firmly on the ground. A netted loaded pallet had been pushed though the front loading door, and pushed back through the a/c. Without the foresight of a "Tail stay" to keep the a/c firmly on the ground, the loaders required an immediate change of underwear After a damage assessment, it was decided that a volunteer crew should be sought to flight the a/c at lower than normal flight level to LHR for repair. I remember a "Mega crane" being hired, with a sling being fitted to the front of the a/c in order that the nose wheel didn't come down with a bang. Did we learn from this ? as the Americans say "Hell No" The same thing happened again a week or so later, with a further Merchantman sitting on it tail on the domestic pier apron ( due to LHR diversions ). This time I think some kindly employee had removed the tail stay to use on another Merchantman..
I remember a similar problem when working at FRA with the TU134, Aeroflot would bring a loadmaster with them on the a/c and have the cargo delivered to a/c for their instruction on loading. I think the TU154 had a similar problem ?
Lance Shippey
Early 70's MAN. A slight ground shudder outside the general aviation apron / BEA cargo centre. I went out of the office, to find a Merchantman with its nose facing skyward, and the tail sitting firmly on the ground. A netted loaded pallet had been pushed though the front loading door, and pushed back through the a/c. Without the foresight of a "Tail stay" to keep the a/c firmly on the ground, the loaders required an immediate change of underwear After a damage assessment, it was decided that a volunteer crew should be sought to flight the a/c at lower than normal flight level to LHR for repair. I remember a "Mega crane" being hired, with a sling being fitted to the front of the a/c in order that the nose wheel didn't come down with a bang. Did we learn from this ? as the Americans say "Hell No" The same thing happened again a week or so later, with a further Merchantman sitting on it tail on the domestic pier apron ( due to LHR diversions ). This time I think some kindly employee had removed the tail stay to use on another Merchantman..
I remember a similar problem when working at FRA with the TU134, Aeroflot would bring a loadmaster with them on the a/c and have the cargo delivered to a/c for their instruction on loading. I think the TU154 had a similar problem ?
Lance Shippey
The 90027 Sht 2339 is the Vickers part number, 900 being the Vanguard prefix, and W905 is the BEA parent workshop designation.
Richard
Re the lowered Merchantman floor, I've just found this Pprune Vanguard thread from 2009, entaxei's post #76. I does sound like a lot of work but it must have been worthwhile modification.
Vanguard
Quote:
I worked on the hangers for a number of years on production control, including on the Vanguard conversion, re Merchantman floor height - yes they were lowered to accommodate the size of the std containers then being used, we also had to modify the fuse structure to take the door frames and additional loading. Each conversion lasted some weeks, it was a full stripdown.
Vanguard
Quote:
I worked on the hangers for a number of years on production control, including on the Vanguard conversion, re Merchantman floor height - yes they were lowered to accommodate the size of the std containers then being used, we also had to modify the fuse structure to take the door frames and additional loading. Each conversion lasted some weeks, it was a full stripdown.
... one of the Air Bridge old-timers told me that all the floorbeams were lowered by two inches as part of the modification.
... lowering the floor beams would have been impossible as they have to attach to the fuselage sides exactly on the joint line between the upper and lower bubbles, placing them anywhere else just wouldn't work.
I have a distant memory of doing a run-up (on all 4) on a cold night-shift at LHR around 1975 following an engine change on a Merchantman (a good exercise in putting one's faith in brakes and chocks 
).
If the main deck floor had been lowered during the conversion, presumably that would have resulted in there being a step up into the flight deck. I don't recollect there being one (I'd probably have tripped up over it), but I may be mistaken about that.
).If the main deck floor had been lowered during the conversion, presumably that would have resulted in there being a step up into the flight deck. I don't recollect there being one (I'd probably have tripped up over it), but I may be mistaken about that.
The last time I worked on a Merchantman was about 35 years ago and I can't remember the floor structural layout but I imagine a solution to lowering beams might be to keep the existing attachment layout on the fuselage double-bubble frames but the beams themselves would have their top flanges 2" lower.
A very wide and shallow 'U' shape with the vertical flanges being attached to the frames if you like. (____________) instead of the conventional (--------------------)
Of course it might be nothing like that!
A very wide and shallow 'U' shape with the vertical flanges being attached to the frames if you like. (____________) instead of the conventional (--------------------)
Of course it might be nothing like that!
Had an Electra on it's tail at Bournemouth, the nose wheel off the ground on a freighter BAC 1-11 and an A300. The last two rescued by rapid movement of people.
P.S. It wasn't me doing the loading.
P.S. It wasn't me doing the loading.
RAF VC10s at Brize have done it several times
In Feb 1972 G-APED and 'EF were temporarily based in Malta for circuit training for pilots converting onto the Vanguard/Merchantman. While at Luqa one of the Tynes on one of these aircraft dumped all its engine oil through a failed seal on its prop hub. I took this pic during the prop change (possibly repair rather than replacement - it looks like a prop hub lying on the trolley).
A description of Merchantman ops can be found in the book 'The Damocles Plot'.
Besides the cargo door and ball-bearing cabin floor another tech difference on the Merch was the pressurisation system, supplied only by a compressor on eng 3, rather than 2 and 3 on the Vanguard, presumably to reduce maintenance costs or fuel burn or both. So an inflight shut down of eng 3 would also require donning O2 masks.
On arrival on stand it was standard practice to shut down engines 1, 2, and 3 but leave 4 running until the cargo door had been opened by one of the pilots, presumably to reduce loads on the battery before the GPU was plugged in.
On arrival on stand it was standard practice to shut down engines 1, 2, and 3 but leave 4 running until the cargo door had been opened by one of the pilots, presumably to reduce loads on the battery before the GPU was plugged in.
Unlike a jet engine test - particularly the Comet at LHR just a few years before you, which suddenly lunged forward as Viscount chocks had been incorrectly used on it, striking the hangar doors in front of it and bringing them down on the tail of G-ARPI which happened to be inside. Poor old Papa India, not its first mishap (it also was the aircraft which lost its tail in the Ambassador accident), and not its last, being of course the subsequent Staines accident aircraft. I believe an initial investigation was to thoroughly check its multiple repairs to be sure that they had nothing to do with the accident.
Meanwhile, at the same time I was at university in Edinburgh. This was before the current main runway was opened, when 12/30 was the main runway. Crosswind to the prevailing wind and not too long. The airport authority and BA said that Tridents were impossible on it, and the Vanguard had only a limited life left, which was a principal justification in the early 1970s for the new runway. However, once approved Tridents were slowly filtered in, and had fully taken over well before the new runway opened. I think the last BA passenger Vanguard flight was in summer 1974, actually only just from BEA into the BA era by a matter of weeks (did the passenger aircraft even ever get BA titles ?). Anyway, up at Edinburgh Castle in the city centre, about 6 or 7 miles from the airport, you could quite readily hear on a summer evening a Vanguard at the airport, particularly manoeuvring on the ramp. It was the only such aircraft you could hear. Once I was out there, at the old terminal on the eastern side. A Vanguard came in and swung round, no airbridges then, and the noise inside the terminal building was quite deafening. Just what was it about them, engines or the square-bladed De Havilland props (I suspect the latter). For anyone who remembers its contemporary the Britannia (Dowty props), the noise difference was extraordinary.