Trident help
aceatco, retired
Join Date: Sep 2002
Location: one airshow or another
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I've posted off-forum to SSD.
I spoke to Desmond Penrose last Friday about this. Desmond did much of the test flying on Tridents with 'JC' - John Cunningham. He said to come down quickly in a Trident, you put the outer two 'motors' in reverse, drop a stage of flap and drop the gear, all the gear, and it would come down at 12,000fpm. When I asked if there was ever a procedure for lowering the mains only as a speed brake, he said he had never heard of it. I asked if it were possibly done on just the 1E and he said he doubted if DH would have done a mod for just one series, and it would have been a feature of the Trident which he had never heard of. So there, the thot plickens.
He added when probing the deep stall they would come down at 18,000ft, which was quite exciting as they use to start at 18,000ft!!
I wish people like that would write all this stuff down.
I spoke to Desmond Penrose last Friday about this. Desmond did much of the test flying on Tridents with 'JC' - John Cunningham. He said to come down quickly in a Trident, you put the outer two 'motors' in reverse, drop a stage of flap and drop the gear, all the gear, and it would come down at 12,000fpm. When I asked if there was ever a procedure for lowering the mains only as a speed brake, he said he had never heard of it. I asked if it were possibly done on just the 1E and he said he doubted if DH would have done a mod for just one series, and it would have been a feature of the Trident which he had never heard of. So there, the thot plickens.
He added when probing the deep stall they would come down at 18,000ft, which was quite exciting as they use to start at 18,000ft!!
I wish people like that would write all this stuff down.
Gnome de PPRuNe
Join Date: Jan 2002
Location: Too close to Croydon for comfort
Age: 60
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Neither is mine Vintage ATCO, but strange stutterings from within the grey matter do seem to recall BEA acquiring Northeast (the UK one!) and Channel Airways (?) both of whom operated Tridents... 1Es?
As far as I am aware it was the 1C that had the option of dropping the main gear, for use as an airbrake, not the 1E.
The option was apparently dropped quite early in the Trident's life. According to the book - Classic Civil Aircraft 5 - Hawker Siddeley Trident, by Max Kingsley-Jones, there was a rumour that someone had tried to land with the nose gear retracted. How true that rumour is, I don't know.
Unfortunately I only have a flight manual for a 2E (G-AZXM), which had the usual speedbrakes. I also have a load of maintenance manuals for Trident 1s, 2s and 3s, but alas not one that covers flying controls, so I can't confirm.
BTW for any Trident fan, the above book by Max Kingsley-Jones, ISBN 0 7110 2132 5, is an excellent read.
The option was apparently dropped quite early in the Trident's life. According to the book - Classic Civil Aircraft 5 - Hawker Siddeley Trident, by Max Kingsley-Jones, there was a rumour that someone had tried to land with the nose gear retracted. How true that rumour is, I don't know.
Unfortunately I only have a flight manual for a 2E (G-AZXM), which had the usual speedbrakes. I also have a load of maintenance manuals for Trident 1s, 2s and 3s, but alas not one that covers flying controls, so I can't confirm.
BTW for any Trident fan, the above book by Max Kingsley-Jones, ISBN 0 7110 2132 5, is an excellent read.
When looking through some old engineers lecture notes on the Trident, there was a diagram of the central pedestral, with the switch and warning light, for quote.......
'main landing gear lowered as an additional airbrake'
'main landing gear lowered as an additional airbrake'
