Channel Airways History
The captain of one of those 748s is, or was until recently, still instructing not far away.
I'm not sure what order they arrived in but it would have helped a lot if the second captain had been advised about the first incident. They felt it might unnerve the pilots and so kept shtum.
I'm not sure what order they arrived in but it would have helped a lot if the second captain had been advised about the first incident. They felt it might unnerve the pilots and so kept shtum.
I don't remember the "New" terminal being built, and I was working nearby until 1976. I returned to work at Hurn in 1983 and the "New" terminal was there. This was demolished around 2011 when the current terminal was built.
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i checked passengers in at Guernsey for 748 that overran at Portsmouth. Remember large party from Esher Girl Guides which meant number of children which helped low passenger weight. Putting 58 on a 748 could be rather challenging when calculating take of weight..
Psychophysiological entity
Did you ever check a full load on a DC3? I'm mindful that we used to get over 40 on them, including 3 crew. However, as the years tick by I'm wondering if I'm miss-remembering.
Right. Time for my input.
First, the Isle of Wight accident
The Captain was a friend of Arthur Whitlock who describes him in his excellent book "'Behind The Cockpit Door"' They had flown together in BKS who at the time held a contract to fly new Vauxhall cars from Luton to Belfast in Bristol Freighters. Whitlock was waiting at Luton to take over a Freighter from his friend. upon arriving at the aircraft shrubbery was discoverd adhering to the undercarriage resulting from a too low approach.
The Captain had already been restricted to freight only operations as a result of concerns about his performance. The final straw was when he ran off the runway at Belfast and he was dismissed. He was then employed by Channel.
His performance in a base check by a Channel Training Captain was observed by chance by the ministry and he failed. He was rechecked again subsequently without ministry presence and he passed the Training Captain putting the previous failure down to nerves from having the ministry on board this is in the AIB files on the accident held in the National Archives and is not in the published report.I believe the AIB were somewhat sceptical about this. The accident occured because of premature descent to try to become VMC and try to creep into Portsmouth.
A possible aggravating factor was a row which occured between the accident Captain and a Channel management Captain involving pressure being applied to have a go at Portsmouth
Also of note from the files are the slips detailing pilots off duty times and the times when they could next be called for duty. suggesting a very ad hoc approach to crewing.
Enough for tonight on this accident. More to follow tomorrow on safety, operations and finances to be quoted from other sources
First, the Isle of Wight accident
The Captain was a friend of Arthur Whitlock who describes him in his excellent book "'Behind The Cockpit Door"' They had flown together in BKS who at the time held a contract to fly new Vauxhall cars from Luton to Belfast in Bristol Freighters. Whitlock was waiting at Luton to take over a Freighter from his friend. upon arriving at the aircraft shrubbery was discoverd adhering to the undercarriage resulting from a too low approach.
The Captain had already been restricted to freight only operations as a result of concerns about his performance. The final straw was when he ran off the runway at Belfast and he was dismissed. He was then employed by Channel.
His performance in a base check by a Channel Training Captain was observed by chance by the ministry and he failed. He was rechecked again subsequently without ministry presence and he passed the Training Captain putting the previous failure down to nerves from having the ministry on board this is in the AIB files on the accident held in the National Archives and is not in the published report.I believe the AIB were somewhat sceptical about this. The accident occured because of premature descent to try to become VMC and try to creep into Portsmouth.
A possible aggravating factor was a row which occured between the accident Captain and a Channel management Captain involving pressure being applied to have a go at Portsmouth
Also of note from the files are the slips detailing pilots off duty times and the times when they could next be called for duty. suggesting a very ad hoc approach to crewing.
Enough for tonight on this accident. More to follow tomorrow on safety, operations and finances to be quoted from other sources
I seem to remember that Channel put 42 on a Dak - when the standard was 28 - & 54 on the Viking - standard being 36. So, 50% increase on those two. We shuddered at the prospect of 132 on the DC4 !
Psychophysiological entity
That picture was in a newspaper which was posted to me in Texas.
Last edited by Loose rivets; 23rd Jul 2023 at 22:14.
And if you search for Channel Airways in Google images that particular photo is always there for everyone to see. Its certainly not a rare photo. That photo along with many other similar examples of the former Channel Airways are easily accessible online. Many Channel Airways articles available online plus of course it has it's own Wikipedia page.
Psychophysiological entity
I wrote a longish thread about joining Channel but removed it to edit to make it more about Channel and less my trials of meeting their requirements.
Just as an aside, that Viking position was higher than the A10 that flew across my bows on the A140, one beautiful summer's morning when I had to be at Norwich by 06.00.
I know the pilot had the devil in him when he buzzed me and could conceivably have seen my gold braid as he went by and wondered if that was a good thing or not. No, made my day. I wouldn't tell on him. I was probably the only other car for tens of miles, sometimes getting to NWI from Colchester without seeing another vehicle.
Oh, while I'm rambling. On one such morning, just the same and on a long sweeping left hand bend, a lone lorry came in the other direction. At that instant, there was huge bang from the engine bay of my Mk10 Jag which did NOT have rack and pinion steering. The belt had broken and left me with steering load that might have taken a person of modest build. There were no other cars until the NWI circular road.
Just as an aside, that Viking position was higher than the A10 that flew across my bows on the A140, one beautiful summer's morning when I had to be at Norwich by 06.00.
I know the pilot had the devil in him when he buzzed me and could conceivably have seen my gold braid as he went by and wondered if that was a good thing or not. No, made my day. I wouldn't tell on him. I was probably the only other car for tens of miles, sometimes getting to NWI from Colchester without seeing another vehicle.
Oh, while I'm rambling. On one such morning, just the same and on a long sweeping left hand bend, a lone lorry came in the other direction. At that instant, there was huge bang from the engine bay of my Mk10 Jag which did NOT have rack and pinion steering. The belt had broken and left me with steering load that might have taken a person of modest build. There were no other cars until the NWI circular road.
On my (rifle) range course at St Athan, the RAF Regt instructor told us that at one of the ranges at Catterick he'd seen a pair of them heading straight towards the firing point so he fired a red verey at them.
'One of them must have seen it' he said, 'I saw it bounce off his canopy'!
