BEA / BOAC Training 1960's - 1970's
 

COURSE LENGTH
How long was the Hamble course and what was the failure rate? Where were the training centres?

JET TRANSITION
Did Trainees fly circuits in the actual a/c - how long? I Have heard stories of trainees using the VC-10 in training.

STREAMING
As I understand, SO 707/VC-10 was the classic BOAC route (And SO Trident for BEA) ? Would being put on the Heron or Viscount/Vanguard seem bad at the time?

TIME TO COMMAND
How long as SO, and FO before SFO (Did they always have those?) and Captain on average?

ROLES
How did the SO differ from the FO? DId the SO perform F/E duties (or Navigator on the 707/747).

COMPANY TRANSITION
How easy to move between BEA and BOAC?

Many thanks if anybody knows the answers!

Not a lot but i can remember in the early 70's, the 707 and VC-10's crew training at RAE Bedford (Thurleigh) on Saturdays,also they used Shannon alot for training.

flash8

I will answer as it relates to BOAC and leave the BEA answers to somebody else.

The Hamble course was 18 months. BOAC/BEA also trained pilots at Perth and Oxford although the course was shorter (1 year?).

The failure rate at Hamble was about 30%, although much smaller at Perth and Oxford. 48 started on my Hamble course and 32 finished.

Pilots joining BOAC went on to either the 707 or VC10.

After simulator training, up to two weeks of aircraft base training were completed which included about 40 landings.

Pilots had to complete a full Flight Navigators course and obtain the red licence. One of the co-pilots would have to navigate on Nav sectors whether they were SO, FO or SFO.

Two years were spent as SO (one stripe) followed by a further eight years as FO (two stripes). SFO (three stripes) came after ten years in the company. Time to command varied between nine years and twenty years (unfortunately twenty in my case).

It was not easy to transfer to BEA until the merger when it slowly became possible.

In 1969 BOAC produced an excellent film showing the training of a BOAC pilot, from starting the course at Hamble to completing his line training. There are some excellent shots of the VC10 during his base training at Shannon.

Hope this helps

Dave

Guys, many thanks, Capt. Airclues, the failure rate at Hamble was about 30% seems that the course must have been tough.

As a self-improver - how did these fare with entry into BOAC/BEA back then? Was the mood prejudicial towards such oiks (I firmly place myself in this category!) ?

Talking about prejudice, previous inquiries revealed that some BOAC captains refused to socialize down route with the F/E's on the basis of class! Now thats one for the history books.

All answers are greatly appreciated. My curiosity about the "olde days" knows no bounds I'm afraid.

I have been witness [late at night] to a number of pilots crawling/unable to stand across a polished wooden floor, on their way to more booze at the bar.........who all claimed that only Hamble produced real pilots, the other halls of commercial piloting being decidedly inferior!

And the bitching over seniority!!!! :rolleyes:

BTW Did any women graduate from Hamble? They must have gone through h*ll......

Female pilots are so much more fun to fly with - ego problems don't exist do they?

flash8

The Hamble course was no tougher than either the Perth or Oxford course. However the BEA/BOAC management were able to influence the Hamble graduation numbers to fit their needs. The other schools, being private establishments were not as easily influenced. There were several excellent pilots who were 'chopped' from my course, and many of them went on to have successful careers in other airlines.

Although the colleges supplied the bulk of the pilots for a while, there was also recruitement from other sources such as the military and 'self-improvers'. The only difference was that anyone joining with an ATPL was given two years seniority on joining.

The vast majority of captains were very sociable and I never saw any snobbery with FE's. Most of them were ex WW11 pilots with several rows of medal ribbons. They had some great stories to tell after a couple of beers in the bar.

aviate1138

Sad!

Best Wishes

Dave

"Female pilots are so much more fun to fly with - ego problems don't exist do they?"

:ooh:

One wonders what the reaction of today's ba beancounters would be to the concept of training their own pilots on an 18-month course!

http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a3...rnet/zxzxz.jpg

..............and the 40 touch & go's for base training! Nowdays they even complain about the cost of 2 hours in the sim for ZFT.

I went through Hamble in the mid 60s on one of the early 18 month courses prior to that the course had been 2 years. Also at the time they ran a 1 year course for university graduates. 38 started the course 21 graduated
After graduation from Hamble I joined BEA and did a conversion onto my first type with the usual chalk and talk technical course. (not many teaching aids and no procedure trainer) A full ARB written exam followed.
The simulator course was 60 hours followed by 10hrs of aircraft time involving upper air work ( stalling, high speed run, relighting and dutch rolling) and circuit bashing (all engines engine out in day and night and flapless landings) Then 40 sectors of line training.

Capt Alfie Plastow
 

Hi all,

Just found this site today whilst searching for some info for my G/F Joanne Plastow who's dad was Alfie Plastow

There is alot that we both don't know about Jo's parents and any info would be helpful

I am very interested myself as he sounded quite a guy and wish I could have met him

From what I know he flew Wellingtons in the 2nd world war, but for what squadron we don't know

After the war he flew Tri-stars for BEA, where he met Joannes mother who was one of the first seven air stewardess's

He went on to teach with fight simulators, maybe at Heston we don't know. Alfie died around 20yrs ago and Jo's mother sum 35 yrs ago

Alfie had 2 families and provided for both of them both before and after he died, like I say quite a guy

Regards

I recall hearing from a retired TWA Connie Captain about a transit stop he made at Shannon in the early 1950's. He was much amused to see a BOAC crew enjoying breakfast in the airport restaurant, except for their Captain, who was sitting in imperious isolation at his own table. From his description, I think it may have been Capt.O.P.Jones, one of the legendary BOAC "Barons" of the 1940's and 1950's.

Was this the same chap who later tarnished his record by landing his Stratocruiser short at Goose Bay in the mid-1950's?

There's a lot of nonsense spoken by individuals about the alleged snobbishness at BOAC. I came through Hamble in 1969 and started flying in BOAC on VC10s. I never saw any of the alleged behaviour though lots of people talk about it! There was more drinkingin those days, and t must have been difficult for some of the old ex-war Captains in their 50s seeing this flood of 20/21 year old bright and bushy young pilots being thrust upon them! I recall a lot of help and advice and a gentle introduction to the wide world!

We had a 1/3 failure rate. One course that was undesired lost 8 out of 11. Wonderful years, superb unlimited training and 'enjoy yourself at Shannon'. Not like that anymore!

As a newly joined F/E with BOAC in 1968 I never experienced any problems with Captains and/or the pilot group. We were just four people enjoying both the jobs we were doing and the chance it gave us to see the world. In fact I always found the older members of the crew, Captains included, always willing to show us youngsters around or at least advise on what to go and see, mind you in some of the less desirable places of the world I now realize I might have done better to ignore some of their advise :)

I remember it all with great fondness

Good afternoon
 

Really interesting how was flight training in 1960s/1970s in comparison with modern.
How many ATPL theory exams were, same subjects or different ?
It was possible to move for example with UK CAA licence to another european state?
Thanks!

Air law 1 & 2, nav plot and theory, engines, aerodynamics, radio theory, practical including Morse at 12 words per minute, liberal studies where you kept stumm as you had signed the official secrets act and there was active recruitment at British universities. Met 1 and 2...possibly performance although think that was done in the corporation's.mental calcs which many feared as they did with the link trainer and a polish? Instructor.
student unions bar where those who could afford it practised heavy drinking so that they were up to speed before they joined the corporations.
225 hours including 70 on the baron of which 20? Was solo.
corrections to previous posts..BEA did put guys onto the vanguard first..we had to fly three pilot aircraft first and were trained up as some of the old boys couldn't fly an instrument approach on the trident.
. 2 years SO, two years AFO, four years FO then SFO when you got onto Dan Air FO salary ..20 years to command. Was worse than pay to fly nowadays.
Lord king changed everything and got rid of most of the dross in management.
Transfer wasn't easy and I was on the first group..I had a lot to learn about professionalism and was qualified P1 on a heavy jet when 28.
wasn't that easy to transfer countries..I did to CH who desperately needed experienced pilots of high standard and basically pulled the strings in the luftampt but we still has to do one of the ATPL exams.
Their training both ground and in the air made BA look like amateurs, which was partly due to taking in a mix of training captain's from around the world on mega salaries and a core of single seat jet jockies predominately both Swiss and Luftwaffe.

Flash, you may find this documentary, made around 1970, interesting.
(ignore the first 35 seconds)

During a visit to England in the early 1980's I met Captain David Beaty who wrote a book on flight safety called The Naked Pilot. David was a former wartime bomber pilot who joined BOAC after leaving the RAF. He also wrote a book called Call me Captain,based upon his time in BOAC. I stand to be corrected as it was a long time ago. He lived in Sussex or Kent then. At the time I was a 737 captain with a South Pacific operator as well as being a former RAAF pilot.

David kindly invited my wife and I into his cottage for a cuppa and chat. I mentioned how much I had enjoyed his book. The Naked Pilot was all about pilot error incidents and accidents. David said he had experienced great reluctance by many of the captains he had interviewed for his book, to admit they had made mistakes.

I suggested to him that if he ever got around to writing a sequel to The Naked Pilot, it would be worthwhile his interviewing airline first officers as they would have been immediate witnesses to their captain's mistakes.
I must have inadvertently crossed a line in the sand of British Class, because as soon as I suggested First Officers as a source of information, David rose to his feet, thanked me curtly for my time and gave my wife and I the metaphorical bum's rush out of the door. We drove away, shaking our heads in bewilderment.

I joined BOAC in 1962, having been on the first course at Hamble - it was a two year course in those days. I then had to do a flight navigator's course and operated on Britannia 312s as a straight nav for two years before converting to VC10s as a pilot/navigator in 1964. As others have mentioned on this thread, the co-pilots, regardless of seniority, alternated between the right hand seat and the nav table on a fairly equitable basis. And they did so until INS was retro-fitted in the early 1970s.

I found the vast majority of captains to be very helpful to young blokes like me. However, there was a small minority, consisting of some of the old 'Atlantic Barons' (as they were called) and a few very odd types who were very odd indeed and very autocratic - but they were the minority. I can remember many more times being given very good advice and help during route flying and during bar-room chat. And also hearing many wonderful stories of the old days of flying boats and such like.

It is a great shame that it was the few odd-balls who were much talked about and who gave the rest a bad name.

Seems an odd reaction, considering he was evidently well into the frailties of interpersonal relationships in the cockpit. I wonder what he thought of the introduction of CRM courses in the 1980s.

Beaty's early novel, "The Heart of the Storm", was evidently based on his post-war experiences with BSAA and graphically describes the pressures associated with long-haul ops at medium altitudes in bad weather over the mid-Atlantic with limited navigational aids and fuel.

Back on topic, I think the reason the BOAC/BEA cadet courses at Perth and Oxford were shorter than at Hamble may have been that the ATPL ground studies were not covered. Presumably the chaps I remember at Scone (Perth) in 1966/7 went to Hamble later to get their deferred ATPLs? The standard CPL/IR course at Perth was supposed to be about a year, although bad wx typically caused delays of a month or two - sometimes at the IR stage.

Some of the "Atlantic barons" mentioned by Bergerie 1 seem to have taken retirement jobs (aged 50) in the independents. I flew with one of them on Herons and Daks. A bit pompous. Having been used to flying on IFR flight-plans, he was completely lost when flying off-airways at low altitude, thinking that an ATC clearance ensured separation. (I'd probably be just as bad now!) Fortunately, he left us after a year or so for a job on B720s with newly-formed Monarch, which would have been more of his cup of tea.

Deferred ATPL
 

That only started with the third or fourth course that started in 1970..prior to that we had to do the whole lot bar air law again.
in BEA there was a small chop rate on initial type course on the non Hamble guys around my time whereas the Hamble guys got through.. part of it was the higher chop rate at Hamble and the older age of the university graduates who generally didn't go through Hamble.
I will add, which I believe is relevent, is that BEA believed everyone could be a captain on any aircraft with the result that we had a few blokes you wouldn't trust to fly you family with.
I met a pilot in postmans park in the city a couple of years ago having recognised his flight bag..when I mentioned my genisis his reply " another Hamble mafia" wrt many of the management jobs that our lot got. Not always the best place for some of us..

Chris Scott,
I was on one of the BEA/BOAC graduate courses at Oxford in 1970. We did indeed cover the full ATPL but did not get any credit for it. If you recall, one had to have a certain minimum hours to apply to sit the exams which came after about two years on the line. One could then be a SCPL ie. able to command an aircraft up to about Viscount size but more importantly enabling one to progress to full F/O. The full ATPL was issued with more flying time and NO practIcall test!
My course ran a 20% chop rate and many on the course were exUAS hence 100+ hours previous experience. No graduates failed airline conversion despite blind pews assertions as to our dottering older age!

Base training on Vanguards was extensive probably due to the many deficiencies of the sim. I truly believe that the older style of training produced a more confident pilot however money versus risk will always trump. I feel sorry for the new modern captain who may have to learn that simulator fidelity is not always good!!
But, as they say - for me, the war is over.

And what would their reaction be to the amount of base training. After the two weeks and forty landings mentioned in my post number 3 we were issued with a "landing card" which allowed you to fly a sector by day only, when flying with a training captain. It took a further three visits to either Shannon or Bedford to be issued with an unrestricted landing card. Add to that the cost of training all of your pilots to navigate (the full Flight Navigators Licence) and taking them off line during the nav training.

The beancounters must have had heart attacks.

meiklieour
 

perhaps you would remember one of your lot who got chopped and joined Cambrian iirc got a command and jumped several years up the seniority list..although it could have just been the FO date which is what the common seniority was based on and took us 4 years.
I was lucky transferring onto the VC10 as I got from the outset a full landing card and P1 in my license. I cocked up my final check whilst flying or rather spending most of the trip on the karsi with salmonella poisoning and after waiting more than a month for the local public health authorities to give me clearance to go back to work I was given an aircraft out of base to go and have an hours circuit bashing at Stansted. Unfortunately the ex hamster instructor wasnt a lot of cop as he didnt realise my problem..the iron duck trimming system trimmed the stick into the neutral, central position unlike anything else I had flown. Eventually twigged doing a night approach into Beirut on a chop flight. never looked back after that

Blind Pew,
If "by one of my lot" you mean one out of 350 graduate entry cadets - then, no I do not remember him!
what I do remember is the shameful manoeuvring by BALPA over the creation of the common seniority list in order to place everyone from the old BOAC list above my course - ironic since my course had been allotted to BOAC and then stood down and placed with BEA.
After leaving the corporations I flew with many of the exBOAC old guard. And enjoyed their company!

I find this very hard to believe. I have in front of me the entire BA/BCAL joint seniority list which was produced on 8th January 1988. If you PM me the DOJ of your course, I will see if any BOAC pilots went ahead of your course. The list is 39 pages long so I haven't checked it all, but from what I can see it was done on date of joining for the BEA/BOAC pilots.

EDIT;

Meikleor

From your other posts I assume that your course joined in 1971. I have checked the list for 1971 and the seniority was done strictly on date of joining. If you want to give me your email address (by PM) I can scan and send you the pages. It is sad if you've been labouring under a misapprehension for all these years.

Airclues Meikleour is correct although you have the wrong dates.
 

It was the joint seniority list made at the creation of BA in 76?
My course which joined around the time the vanguard made a smoking hole near Ghent was the first course after the last Hamble/Oxford/Perth cadet joined BOAC, which was supposed to be the demarcation line for cross bidding. Unfortunately our BALPA rep was as desperate as a lot of others to leave BEA which had a dreadful accident rate and changed the date by two years so that he got onto the jumbo. There was a proviso that no BEA copilot would be senior to any BOAC pilot..iirc wrt to bid lists.
The guy did me a favour as I got the iron duck.
It wasn't unknown of BALPA REPs as we had a famous scumbag who sold us out after papa India and the next day joined management ..known by the bomber boys as that #### ####ing..inventor of the silent cockpit.
I had two of my course mates, one chopped and the second ex court line, victims of BALPA and the Dan Air merger which was to be done on seniority but at the last minute was done on those on the bus. One lost one won.

blind pew

You are talking about the temporary implementation period for bidding onto the 747. Once that period ended it was a free bid using their joint BA seniority. I trained many of these (captains and co-pilots) and they joined the fleet with their BA seniority based on DOJ. The list that I have was sent to everybody when we merged with BCAL. However the ex BEA and ex BOAC pilots are mixed and their position is based purely on DOJ.

actually bidding on all fleets
 

remember the list going up ..48 pilots from BEA to be allowed to go to BOAC. vacancies 747, 707 and VC10..I bid for all three although I really only wanted a yank ship to get overseas as BEA looked down their noses at BOAC. I figured it couldn't be as bad as us as we had lost eight aircraft in my six years ..BOAC NIL although a few close shaves including a banana plantation at night.
Everyone had the same thought.
There had been a bid list for droop snoop but the amount of conversion failures, lack of flying and that it was apparently known as the masons fleet put paid to even applying.
With the threat of the duck being grounded towards the end of 78 and sending us back to the flat earth society I set about applying to uncle Tom et al. took the first one..nearly quit that one for CX and then offered sultan of oman but it's bad enough being Johnnie foreigner in Europe and as for the ex pat scene..

YLpilot
 

What was the difference between BOAC & BEA and what company was more preferable for students.

Everything but nothing for students
 

Route network,aircraft, rosters time into rhs, time to command,pay, handling, concessions, time away,reserve duty having an engineer and in my time respect and professionalism.
.
After landing drinks different too; champers cocktail to be consumed after shutdown or brown milk whilst taxying.

Crumpet was the same and down the route antics just as naughty.

Course no different and only around graduation did you discover whether you got your wish. My course was offered Court line with a gratuity of £600 and no need to pay £1000 back towards training costs; which was a massive financial incentive then although when Court went bust one of my mates ended up working on a farm. Those that took it initially were viewed with suspicion but soon proved themselves and were far better off in many ways although they lost the quodos of being able to say that they were a Nigel at dinner parties (mixed blessing).

As I understood Hamble was much more preferable to study, or after graduation from Oxford & Perth also it was possible to work for BOAC or BEA.

Why and when European, American, etc. flight training become so compressed such as 18-24 months ?
I learned my PPL in Latvia, so most of my flight instructors were trained in soviet civil aviation schools, where training was a litle bit shorter, than 3 years
and flight time before graduation was only 100 hours.

It was all "new" at the time YL
 

Hamble was airwork services training until 1960 and prior to that the base of the ATA during the war who ferried the aircraft. The corporations realised that they needed differently trained pilots than those available from the military who had a diabolical accident rate and the 700 hour improver route.
It wasn't just flying training but also training young gentlemen managers as the responsibilities of airline captains (and their skills) were very different to today. Oxford and Perth were commercial operations which took on the overspill and as such didn't have the same level of financial commitment as Hamble. Their graduates were just as good imho although as Hamble catered for mostly grammar school boys I have the feeling that we were hungrier and more malleable which is what an employer wants. We put up with more of the bull****. But in the 70s BEA was haemorrhaging pilots.
100 hours! The Lane inquiry criticised our 225 hours as being too low. Nowadays 160 hours and no twin solo is deemed acceptable ( which doesn't include spinning). Of course we have a level of automatics, serviceability and information that was unheard of 50 years ago but when you look at Air France 447 you can see how horribly wrong it can go when you dont have crew with the required professionalism.

In good old times ATPL exams also were as a Multiple Choice Questions ?
Many Thanks

Definitely no multiple choice exams in the '70s ATPLs. All essay type answers or calculations shown type answers.

Standards
 

Twenty years after I graduated from Hamble I decided I would get a FAA ATP.
I had the FAA question answer book air freighted over and read through it whilst doing a 5 day short haul rotation then flew over to Vegas with my family. The book covered flight dispatcher, helicopter, jet and piston aircraft but didn't differentiate between syllabus. Pass mark was 70% and I got 96% which shows how high Hambles standard was. Eight days after arriving I had a multi engine FAA ATP.

British aviation training always was great & superior
___
In `70s in Great Britain also was possible to learn ATPL via modular or integrated path ?
It was also recognisable in other european countries ?

Thank You, Sir

May I ask
 

There were any system prior to JAA or EASA in Europe in 1960s -1970s for recognition of pilots licences, or UK CAA CPL was valid only in Britain, French in France, German in Germany & etc. ?

Swiss
 

Don't know the answer bar with the Swiss who needed special permission to recruit foreigners. The luftampt accepted SCPL and Atpl subject to a swissair course that included air law which opened my eyes as different to the UK law. (Germany and Switzerland mixed VFR and IFR traffic in controlled airspace which the Brits didn't nor did my old opos know).
At the time 23% of Swissair pilots were foreigners, mainly German and Dutch.
Crossair established their base in Basel Mulhause which was in three countries amd enabled to recruit worldwide including Russians which led to one total loss through misreading the artificial horizon (they indicated in a different sense).