I had to renew my acquaintance with the Beverley when travelling several times between Sharjah and Bahrain......I still nurse the trauma of sitting in the boom as its Irish-accented Captain made 3 attempts to get the beast off the Bahrain runway before hitting the RESA; trundling back after the 2 failed attempts with the words "insanity consists of repeating a failed action in the hope that it won't fail again" running through our minds, as we listened to his gung-ho optimism that "we'll get off sooner or later".

I'm not sure which was worse; that experience or jumping from the Beverley boom; it was just like the trap on a gallows, except that you had to step into the void. Maybe they opened the hatch with the first in the stick standing on it, just like a real gallows. I wouldn't know; I was cowering at the back of the queue, fretting that I would catch my chin on the far side of the hatch as I descended through it.

Thanks...very interesting...

o,nb - Can't understand your problem lifting off Sharjah - even in 'Charlie, steam roller, oiled sand runway' days Sharjah was no problem.
As to 'boom' jumping. the doors opened inwards, so no possibility of inadvertent departure. However, there was a danger - as we experienced in K'sar ... but that's another (sad) story.

Here is a photo of both of the villains taken in 1958!


https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....de96385c8.jpeg

The sad loss of the CoPilot is well known. I was exploring XB259 ( after I saw it land with the brakes on) at Farnborough in the late 60's,, walked up inside the tail boom , opened a door..........and stepped out in to space.
Luckily I grabbed enough to pull back.
IIRC Was not the Elsan right up in the tail boom beyond the para hatches ?

It was Bahrain, with an even better runway than Sharjah, I suppose the problem was simply weight and temperature, and maybe lack of wind?

The Sharjah runway might have been OK for a Beverley, but as an RAF pal (Bimbo to his friends) and I discovered the hard way, was only just adequate to get a Prentice off the ground with 2 up at midday. Mind you, his was not an elfin figure, and the engine was on terminal life support.

Another abiding Beverley memory I have is a Beverley landing to inaugurate a new "crushed rock" runway at Beihan, (1961/2 ?) It was not an outstanding success, something about the layer of crushed rock wasn't deep enough and/or compacted enough. That evening, after the bigwigs had flown away in a Beaver (the Beverley was stuck, as i recall it) the RAF officer in charge of the 5004th Airfield Construction Squadron detachment, which had been there for well over a year, went totally doolally, to use the technical term, and had to be repatriated to recover.

Sharjah brings back memories. I first landed on the sand runway with a Twin Pioneer in 1959. My last landing at Old Sharjah, on the tarmac runawy, was with a civil Britannia in 1975. My other claim to fame was that I landed the first aircraft on the new runway in Dubai when I put down a Twin Pioneer on the first 500 yards laid when they were building the new airport in 1960. This was arranged by the IAL Satco at Sharjah, who was also in charge of Dubai at that time.

The Co-Pilot was 'ours' and Andy Andrus and I held and comforted him while waiting for the medics.
Your experience with the door is odd. The only exit from the boom was via the freight bay 'climbing bars or through the floor hatch - two doours hinged to open inwards. Our Co's demise was due to the Movements crew opening the doors and placing the boom-loading ladder beneath it (not attached) while the Co was behind the Elsans, checking the internal controls, pre-flight. It was about 4 o'clock, so dark night and he exited the toilet door backwards - into nothing. The inevitable 'Murphy's Law' input was that this parfticular airframe was the only one which had not been fitted with the door-connected floor pins which would have prevented him opening the toilet door and avoiding what followed

On subject of runway surfacing, anyone remember the baked gypsum of Khormaksar in the early 50s? Roads were in same material though upgrading started just before we left in 1953. The formwork was extra deep and as the concrete was starting to set it was flooded with (precious) water for a few days to prevent it from cracking under Aden's ferocious sun.

[QUOTE=Cornish Jack;11379238]The Co-Pilot was 'ours' and Andy Andrus and I held and comforted him while waiting for the medics.
Your experience with the door is odd. The only exit from the boom was via the freight bay 'climbing bars or through the floor hatch - two doours hinged to open inwards./QUOTE]

Indeed, I climbed up in to the boom from the freight deck and walked aft. The stepping in to space"" episode was where the two doors were opened upward revealing a straight drop to the floor below. That Beverley never actually served in squadron service in the RAF so might hav been an oddity.

Old Not Bold:
Does this ring a bell?
https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....55e79af8a8.jpg

Ah, it brings tears to my eyes; now resting in some aeronautical cemetery in South Africa, as far as I know. We has some fun together, me and that under-powered old banger (bought for £700 covered in bird **** in a hangar at Sywell, engine with less than 100 hours left to a major overhaul), as well as some very scary moments when I thought that I really had pushed my luck too far and would shortly shuffle off.

... and memories of many hours spent in the rear seat of similar airframes beating a regular flight-path around E Anglia. Regarding power, there was strong evidence to suggest that, even with the radio training fit , one such had completed a loop !

TG507 of 51 Squadron, first flight after a Major, the prop spinners were painted in the Union Jack colours by a female painter and doper called Teresa ??
Flown by the mad
https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....6fa6b88993.jpg
New Zealander (can't remember his name at the moment) pilot and the photo. courtesy of one T**y M****y.
Incidentally this was the only flight with these spinners as the Groupie had a sense of humour failure and made them be repainted red!

Hastings/Hermes
 

Considering the Hastings seems to have been quite successful, why did the HP Hermes fall so flat? Granted, rebalancing the machine to allow adding a nose leg was a change but they both used the same production jigs and had good engines. Also granted BOAC did have an aversion to home-grown machines.

There must have been a weight and balance issue as there were no seats in the rear ten foot of open cabin. Seen at KIDL (KJFK) in fifties when a Skyways (I think) Hermes overnighted. Got to ride in cockpit on taxi over to our hangar. Roughly mid-fifties.

If the CoG moved forward because of a nose gear, why then no pax in the rear? That move the CoG even more forward and could result in CoG out of range.

As a youngster I remember the BOAC Hermes and Argonauts staging through Khormaksar, Aden, in the early 50s. I was told that the Hermes was more comfortable (quieter in particular) while the Argonaut was faster and had longer range. We loved its four Merlin engines but passengers didn't, they were shattered by the racket from the Merlins which replaced P&W radials in which the turbocharger and low exhaust damped down much of the noise. Of course the graceful TWA Constellations in their silver and red livery were the queens of the route. Hard to say how it might have ended up but from the mid50s there was no contest with the jets.

The dear old Hastings took us home to Lyneham, four Hercules with gaps in the rear doors beside me were raucous enough!

Plenty of toilets.


https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....19da3d28ca.jpg

One reason for the Hermes lack of success that I have seen quoted was the Hercules 763 engine. It seems that, initially at least, it was prone to failure due to the sleeve value seizing, and the fact that it had vibration problems in the Economical Cruise RPM range.

This vibration problem resulted in a higher than optimum cruise speed with an increase in fuel consumption, or a reduced cruise speed with a marked tail down attitude.

Some pilots also complained that operating out of hot and high airfields it was not very keen to leave the ground. One quote I have seen was that it;

‘dragged it’s tail on take off like a dog with worms!’

But I think basically we had an aircraft industry building aeroplanes in clapped out factories as a result of there being no money after the war, using wartime technology, and with a market that was essentially BOAC. That is sales that would be numbered in 10’s not hundreds. It was never going to sell in a mass market like the US, so with limited numbers being produced, why would the emerging continental carriers buy it. You buy American and you have engineering support all over the globe from ground crews used to the American Airframes?

Would you have bought Hermes or Tudor, when you could have a DC 7 or Connie, especially when you were struggling for hard currency and general Marshall was shipping dollars to Continental Europe in vast amounts?

Mind you wonderful piccie of TG507!

Wasn't there an agreement, when the US entered the war, that the US would supply the transport aircraft for the UK who would just produce combat types?
That would have slowed the design of UK transport planes for the post war market.