BEA; the privilege
Thread Starter
Gordonmac nothing like our generation of social revolution and questioning the bull…
we had a few including a jock who would have a glass of wine with his RE2, fill his hip flask from the first class bay, fiddle with the girls on the jump seat on take off and fly the ils at 365 knots..
Had a few in Toblerone country but mainly ex Luftwaffe starfighter and Swiss french hunter guys…need for speed and speed they did including power off from top of descent until shutting the HP cocks.
One of the former scared the proverbial out of me when I suggested putting the seat belts sign on…turbulence? ..cruise ..he stuffed the stick fully forward then back..big grin with me white as a sheet and sweating..das ist turbulenz alan.
Ironically he lost his license a few months later and was put in charge of safety and reading the FDRs.
Back to your guys..was it a special trick to abort when hitting a puddle? ;-(
Sadly I was influenced a bit by these guys and when I eventually got my command I tweaked the boundaries but was restrained by the FDRs. I used to ask for a visual on our evening flight into Lisbon from 60 nm out…stay high downwind because of night flying training circuits and intercept the glide well inside the OM from above getting established by 500ft..saved a a good 10 mins from doing the procedure..but my naughtiest was trying an emergency descent into FCO where I got 16,700 fpm…not popular with the CC ..chickened out but certainly could have got a good 20,000fpm which made trident 11,000fpm with reverse, main gear and brakes look tame.
we had a few including a jock who would have a glass of wine with his RE2, fill his hip flask from the first class bay, fiddle with the girls on the jump seat on take off and fly the ils at 365 knots..
Had a few in Toblerone country but mainly ex Luftwaffe starfighter and Swiss french hunter guys…need for speed and speed they did including power off from top of descent until shutting the HP cocks.
One of the former scared the proverbial out of me when I suggested putting the seat belts sign on…turbulence? ..cruise ..he stuffed the stick fully forward then back..big grin with me white as a sheet and sweating..das ist turbulenz alan.
Ironically he lost his license a few months later and was put in charge of safety and reading the FDRs.
Back to your guys..was it a special trick to abort when hitting a puddle? ;-(
Sadly I was influenced a bit by these guys and when I eventually got my command I tweaked the boundaries but was restrained by the FDRs. I used to ask for a visual on our evening flight into Lisbon from 60 nm out…stay high downwind because of night flying training circuits and intercept the glide well inside the OM from above getting established by 500ft..saved a a good 10 mins from doing the procedure..but my naughtiest was trying an emergency descent into FCO where I got 16,700 fpm…not popular with the CC ..chickened out but certainly could have got a good 20,000fpm which made trident 11,000fpm with reverse, main gear and brakes look tame.
Last edited by blind pew; 1st Apr 2023 at 08:13. Reason: Bull
Ah yes. I think he hit the puddle, stopped accelerating (was a big, long puddle) and decided to steer off to the left,ground-looping, rather than slide off the end into the village. In the following incident review, F/O was asked to recount all details from the very start. He replied; "Well, passing the Swindon junction, I realised with all the traffick ahead, I was going to be late...........", NE Ops Director interrupted ;" Er, yes, I didn't want y ou to go back quite that far "
I only did 1000hrs on the Gripper, all p2 and a fair bit of P1/s and remained very timid & complicant. I mean, very high going into NCL, my leg, Skip asked me why not go for reverse. I I told him I was really scared that it might not come out of reverse. I loved the gentle but masterful " I have " .
Fabbo days indeed.
I only did 1000hrs on the Gripper, all p2 and a fair bit of P1/s and remained very timid & complicant. I mean, very high going into NCL, my leg, Skip asked me why not go for reverse. I I told him I was really scared that it might not come out of reverse. I loved the gentle but masterful " I have " .
Fabbo days indeed.
Thread Starter
Loved the humour…and sarcasm..whilst I did 6 years I probably didn’t do that much more than you what with P3 and the blokes who were too scared to let me fly with the excuse “I’ve been in the office all week or the aircraft needs an auto land”..well at least during my first few years..then there was the fixation of getting in Sh*t or bust regardless of how high and fast..Scottish and London never seemed to be able to communicate so we always used to use Reverse on descent into jock land sometimes to around 3 grand, that and Gib so was never worried about using it.
As to the FO start from the beginning..a mate was late…10 mins late was on time in BEA ..but he was half an hour plus flying with a flight manager so he smeared his face with oil leaking from his banger and went out to the aircraft to face a rollocking pretending to be oblivious to the oil and proceeded to explain his life history of breaking down on the M4 when Sir interrupted him..told him to sit in first class, have a coffee and when the standby copilot had finished the checks join me in the cockpit..not only as P2 but got the sector out of london..rare bird especially from a manager..
Nearly finished john Farleys book..Jesus I’m lucky to be here what with spinning above stratus and below the london TMA without a parachute let alone entering one at 1,000ft in a glider.
As to the FO start from the beginning..a mate was late…10 mins late was on time in BEA ..but he was half an hour plus flying with a flight manager so he smeared his face with oil leaking from his banger and went out to the aircraft to face a rollocking pretending to be oblivious to the oil and proceeded to explain his life history of breaking down on the M4 when Sir interrupted him..told him to sit in first class, have a coffee and when the standby copilot had finished the checks join me in the cockpit..not only as P2 but got the sector out of london..rare bird especially from a manager..
Nearly finished john Farleys book..Jesus I’m lucky to be here what with spinning above stratus and below the london TMA without a parachute let alone entering one at 1,000ft in a glider.
