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I've flown all those VC10's when they looked like that!!
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And I've flown 'WHU and all her sister ships when they were in that colour scheme!
As an aside the 707-436's did fly to LAX in the mid '60's (before my time) via where I know not. SFO was served via JFk en route to SYD - one of my first under suspicion trips. I flew some LAX trips in the 70's and we normally went via Winnipeg - sometimes via Calgary or Edmonton. Homeward bound was via Ottowa or Montreal but I think that was due to a cabin crew dispute!! |
There were British Airtours doing 707-336B trips to LAX into the mid-1980s. Were you BA mainstream 707 guys also handling the Airtours flights from Gatwick, or did they have their own crews (I'm conscious this might be a Tin Hat Needed type question !). I got offered a seats on an ABC charter on one. I presume these had the ability to go nonstop.
Slightly off-topic as the two BOAC 707-336Bs for the "Russiaway" service to Tokyo didn't get delivered until 1971, after the first 747s. There have been a couple of threads on here in the past about the oddball navigation procedures needed on those early Siberian flights |
arem
The 436s probably went to Lax via Jfk and then Hnl, Nandi, to Syd which became a VC10 route in the seventies, I did several. I recall the 707s having a service eastbound to Tokyo which then went to Hnl and Sfo and return westbound via Hnl and Tokyo. I think there was a tech stop in Midway or somewhere else. I don't remeber BOAC flying to Sfo from Lhr in those days. The Airtours 707s had a service Mauritius to Perth which sometimes had to tech stop in Cocos if I remember correctly. WHBM The airtours 707 crews were BEA crews and separate to BOAC 707 crews - a lot came off the BEA comets. Some good parties in Le Chaland in those days. |
In 1968 the 531 went via SFO HNL - I know cos I flew it on one occasion, I don't think at that time we even served LAX - that didn't happen until the 531 rerouted through LAX.
I seem to recall that the 436 to LAX went through YUL most of the time. The tech stop if required on the HNL-HND was normally Wake Island from what I Understood from others who did it. Never did it that way only HND-HNL as part of a 9 day RTW. |
finncapt: In the late '70s BEAirtours had a "damp lease" arrangement with Air Mauritius for one aircraft. 12 days, mostly at Le Chaland with 5 working days!
Ah, memories............. (yorkshire accent coming up) if you told thm youngsters today they wouldn't believe yes!!! |
Never did it that way only HND-HNL as part of a 9 day RTW |
Don't know if any of you former crew recognise any onetime colleagues here - "BOAC Boeing 707 1964".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=82_J8PCCFFs |
Troppo in Fanny Bay
Yes the 707 cargo trip was something different more like being in a David Attenborough wildlife documentary.
Plenty of creepies in Fanny Bay, the guy in the room next to me was bitten by a spider whilst half-asleep and flown to Singapore for treatment, but wasn't able to identify the critter from hospital photos. Before he left Darwin he kindly shared with me 'it was brown and hairy and ran under the door' After that trip I always unpacked my case very carefully. Swimming was discouraged the local advice being 'don't worry about the Sharks the Crocs get them!' All that and a Skipper who wanted to know if I could make scrambled eggs? Phew, good job I'd had three years at a catering college. Great memories! |
BEA Airtours 707's. My memory suggests that Airtours did their own thing, and had no reference to the BOAC operation, and I recall that there was an Airtours accident of some sort, and we in BOAC "tut-tutted" about how we'd taken good care of our 707's for so many years then given them to BEA, who promptly bent one ! Good old inter-company rivalry.
My log book shows that I flew a 707-436 trip London/New York/San Francisco/Honolulu/San Francisco/New York in September 1962 and in May 1963 flew a Montreal/Winnipeg/New York trip, which suggests that we handed over / took over at Winnipeg, but I don't know where the aircraft went / came from to transit WPG. On Aug 10th 1961 I flew a London/Toronto/LosAngeles/London trip, and in the same era I also recorded 707-436 trips New York/Los Angeles/Detroit/London and London/Montreal/LosAngeles/London. I was 'posted' to Honolulu in 1961 to fly 707-436 services on the SanFrancisco/Honolulu/Tokyo/Honolulu/SanFrancisco/ sectors. I flew a Tokyo/Wake Island/Honolulu service on 4th September 1961. We also used a "reflight planning in the air" gambit, to "stretch" the fuel. Flight Plans required fuel for departure to destination, say London to New York, plus an alternate plus a "contingency" fuel, 10% comes to mind, but don't shoot me down, it is over 50 years ago now ! If that amount of fuel was unavailable then one could flight plan from -say- London to Gander, with Boston as the alternate plus a lower 10% value, then approaching Gander one could re-flight plan Gander-Boston with New York as alternate, and in this case the 10% overall "contingency" would be considerably less than the 10% contingency from London to New York required at the start, so you might well have that lower amount available at the time one did the "re-flight planning". If not, then one just landed at the nearest suitable airport as a tech. stop for more fuel. A friend in a VC-10 flew past Boston and on to New York, where he was given a 45 min. hold, due traffic, not weather. Had he held for 45 minutes he would have used his contingency fuel and ended up with less than the minimum required on tanks on arrival at New York ( can't remember the requirment ) and could have been in the poo with New York ATC, so .... he flew back for 45 minutes to Boston, where the weather had deteriorated and was now below limits. Had he stayed over New York he could easily have landed, but risked being cited, instead he had nowhere to go, but had done everything "legally". ATC got him down on a USAF base somewhere. Sometimes The Law Is An Ass. |
The BEA Airtours accident at Prestwick:-
http://www.aaib.gov.uk/cms_resources...8%20G-APFK.pdf |
Like the Trident thread on this part of the forum that was around recently I have really enjoyed this thread.
There are a couple of books out at present called Out of The Blue (I & Ii) telling military tales of daring do....I think with a contribution to charity. I wish you ex BOAC and BEA guys would do the same. I think it would be very popular indeed. If I had the time I'd try and set one up and edit it, but no chance with current commitments. Anyway.....please.......keep up the great work. |
I wish you ex BOAC and BEA guys would do the same. I think it would be very popular indeed. Also, Glamour in the Skies, Stewardess tales by Libbie Escolme-Schmidt - whom I remember flying with as Libby Escolme. |
Kollsman Sky Compass
For WHBM Post 114 etc,
The 707-436 had the Kelvin Hughes Sextant. The 707-336 had the Kollsman Sextant and for Polar Nav, also carried the Kollsman Sky Compass – for when there were no stars. Descriptions below. http://i1271.photobucket.com/albums/...g?t=1420668094 http://i1271.photobucket.com/albums/...g?t=1420668092http://i1271.photobucket.com/albums/...g?t=1420667828 There were only about 20 BOAC Approved Stars, plus Sun Moon Venus. Anything else in God's Firmament was wholly unapproved for BOAC Navigation and would get you an interview with the Nav Office God. Black Art indeed. LFH |
Thank you very much Lordflasheart for that research, and that made me dig in the attic for my original reference, which is (for those who have it) Propliner magazine No 29 (winter 1986), article “Over the Top of the World – SAS”, all about their pioneering DC7C Trans-Arctic flights, which includes a lengthy section “The Problems of Polar Navigation”.
This describes ‘three main obstacles being the existence of the Magnetic North Pole, the Polar Twilight, and the disappearance of direction at the Pole’. SAS were indeed pioneer users of the Polarised Sky Compass developed by the Kollsman Instrument Company (still in business, I see, in New Hampshire, although the products have moved way on). Magnetic North was handled by the Polar Path Gyro, which was a Bendix product, also applicable on transatlantic flights to New York, and “everywhere-south” issue at the Pole by a Polar Grid Chart, which was an RCAF concept. |
There were only about 20 BOAC Approved Stars, plus Sun Moon Venus. |
A periscopic sextant had a very restricted field of view. Thus, the approved stars were those that could be easily identified by colour and/or in a pattern that could be seen within this field of view. I am not sure whether they were 'BOAC approved' or those that were included in AP3270, the Sight Reduction Tables for Navigation Vol1, Selected Stars. Astro nav is all such a long time ago!!
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I knew many 'BOAC Stars' most were not approved!
Half Pint, Fletch the Letch, Moon Man, Abe Licoln, Tommy Colgate, The Vile Eid, 007 etc.:ok: |
For some reason 57 stars sticks in my mind and they were the ones in AP3270.
I remember some 12 BOAC stars, which were easily recognisable in a periscope sextant, and, ideally, one of these would be shot first as a gross error check. This wasn't always the best method as it was/is preferable to shoot the "least angle to track" star first and the "greatest angle to track star" last. (Thinking about it, edited to say I may have got that the wrong way round - it's obvious when you're doing it.) This would minimise the error in running the postion line along track at the assumed ground speed. If my memory is correct, the first shot star's position line needed running by 8 minutes of groundspeed and the second by 4 minutes. When the fix had been obtained it told you where you were, as about a minimum of 4minutes, previously. So one could say with navigation "you never know where you are, only where you were". |
Originally Posted by ExSp33db1rd
(Post 8815752)
Some have, "Behind the Cockpit Door" by Arthur Whitlock for one, and an ex-Hamble trained, recently retired BA skipper, has recently published Part One of his memoirs, name not immediately to mind - like where are the car keys - but someone else might know before I start digging around.
Also, Glamour in the Skies, Stewardess tales by Libbie Escolme-Schmidt - whom I remember flying with as Libby Escolme. His book is a great read! |
finncapt - I agree with all of that Astro folklore, or at least my old memory does !
I recall choosing recognisable stars over those giving the best "cut", better to have a slightly off centre fix than one totally incorrect due to using the 'wrong' star. vctenderness - Half Pint was the C/Stwd. on my final route check for promotion, taxying out I stopped and asked for Half Pint to come to the flight deck and asked him to sit in the jump seat. Why ? he asked. So I know what the Bl**dy Hell you're doing, I replied. He roared with laughter and buckled in. The Training Captain wondered what he had let himself in for. Half Pint got his own back, when I got off at LHR my jacket sleeves had been stitched up at the cuff end, and the innards of a (clean ! ) Tampax had been stitched around the peak of my cap to simulate the gold braid of a Captains' hat !! Happy Days. P.s. It was Half Pint who told Dudley Moore to get his hair cut - see my post on another thread ! jhieminga - thanks, that's it. ( I said retired, maybe not yet ? ) |
This has been great thread with many fond memories invoked even though I was not a BOAC crewmember.
Was wondering how you transitioned from the nav position to whatever came next in the 707-336B/C? My experience was that we went from the Navs to dual Bendix Doppler backed up by an EDO 600 Loran A unit which the pilots were qualified to use. Almost every pilot had previous nav experience much as would seem to be the case at BOAC. As the airline kept adding crewmembers the lack of previous nav experience would come into play. I left the airline but I believe the Doppler and Loran was kept until the 707's were phased out. I know the Carousel lV was fitted in some airplanes as a trial in anticipation of the 747 entering service but for some reason I don't think it was a normal operational configuration? So, did BOAC/BA keep the navs in place until the INS was fitted and certified in the 707, or did they go another route? If so what time period this eventually happen? |
All Navs were pilots so once all the 707's and I guess VC-10's were fully INS equipped we just transitioned to a 3 man operation - thankfully!
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So, did BOAC/BA keep the navs in place until the INS was fitted and certified in the 707, or did they go another route? If so what time period this eventually happen? I think some of the older F/O's escaped the Nav. stint, but certainly all pilots, be they experienced RAF pilots or basic 2 year National Service conscripts, taken on during the 50's and 60's were engaged as pilots, but employed as navigators. I kept my post as a Nav Instructor until I was promoted Captain in 1974, tho' I had been also re-trained as a 707 pilot in 1962. We filled the dual role, 2 F/O's on each flight, and they would decide themselves who operated which sector as co-pilot or navigator on the longer, multi sector trips, unless one was needed in the Nav. Instructor role. The 747 was delivered with a sextant mount in the roof of the flight deck, but never used, it then featured on an emergency check list as a smoke removal port ! Training as a navigator I found the atmosphere on the flight deck a little tense at times, the navigators were training us to take away their livelihoods, tho' to be fair I was never treated with anything less than a genuine interest in passing on their knowledge, great chaps, but the Flight Engineers had seen the Radio Operators go, then Nav's were going, and they reckoned that they were next. True, but it took more than 20 years to achieve, and I recall on one double F/Eng. flight the Snr. Eng. telling his junior colleague that the pilots had forgotten to record the take-off time - Don't tell them, he said ! One navigator told me that I'd never make a navigator until I'd been over Berlin with the shells coming through the cockpit as I tried to sort out the actual wind velocity using the drift sight. I never had to, but I had the same sort of feeling towards some of my students as they wrestled with the sextant - but they don't have to now ! I believe that someone not too long ago tried to copy Lindberghs solo flight across the Atlantic, using original methods, which included Astro, for which a Flt. Nav, licence was required but that no one in the FAA knew how, or was qualified, to conduct an airborne Flt. Nav. test ! They should have asked me ! .......a dual Bendix Doppler backed up by an EDO 600 Loran A unit |
Thanks for the reply. As for Doppler's performance over land or water I can only report that it worked for me fairly well over both surfaces and other than "drop outs" over a smooth sea I don't recall any serious issues. I seem to recall it working better on the N Atlantic than the Pacific due to rougher seas. Regardless it was approved for leaving the nav at home.
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Exsp33db1rd
Thanks for the fantastic Halfie story. Here's another one: I was a little sprogg working the back galley of a VC10. Half Pint was Chief Steward. During the main meal service he walked through the cabin asking the passengers if all was well. One pax said ' well my entree was not very hot'. Halfie appeared in the galley and asked why the meals weren't hot enough. I said they had been cooked for the required time. He pulled himself up to his full four foot six held one finger up in front of my face and said: " use your f*****g fermometer". I remember it so well so many, many years later. :) |
Originally Posted by arem
(Post 8821100)
All Navs were pilots so once all the 707's and I guess VC-10's were fully INS equipped we just transitioned to a 3 man operation - thankfully!
I do recall that when Pan Am started the first US service to China, which routed via Tokyo, they did not feel their crews had sufficient navigation support across the new territory, and engaged freelance navigators on the sector onward from Japan, who were doubtless familiar with the territory and supplied their own charts etc. I believe their Lockheed Tristar 500 was the aircraft first used; did that have any astral navigation fitout ? Presumably not as the aircraft did not have a formal Nav station. |
Nor did the DC10 have any sextant port. The story I heard regarding the port on the 747 was that Pan Am did not have complete confidence in the Carousel INS as the certification process evolved so this was their worst case back up solution.
Doubt if Pa Am allowed any "free lance" navs on the flight deck but Chinese navigators may have been onboard to monitor during the initial flights. Probably looking for any intelligence points of interest in lieu of any meaningful nav assistance. |
Originally Posted by Spooky 2
(Post 8821657)
Doubt if Pan Am allowed any "free lance" navs on the flight deck.
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I believe that someone not too long ago tried to copy Lindberghs solo flight across the Atlantic, using original methods, which included Astro Lindbergh's book was an inspiration for me. I'd been a plane-spotter as a kid (living near to the 28L OM) but it was after reading the SoSL as a 19-year-old that I decided 'I have to learn to fly'. The book won a Pulitzer prize in 1952. It was disappointing years later to discover that CL had unsavoury political views. But every few years I put my misgivings to one side and re-read SoSL. That book launched me on a career in aviation (Leeds UAS 1967) which is not yet concluded. |
Discorde - thank you for the correction, but I recall reading that the pilot trying to copy him still needed a Flt. Nav qualification to set off across the Atlantic, even if Lindbergh didn't, and that there was no one qualified to issue that. Can't recall detail now, maybe it was just an Urban Myth at the time ?
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Regarding the navigational equipment on Charles Lindbergh's Ryan NYP -
A Drift Meter is not very effective without a compass. Lindbergh's primary navigational aid, (other than looking through the periscope and side windows), was an Earth Inductor Compass, driven by an anemometer mounted on top of the fuselage behind the cockpit. Quite accurate. Yes!...an electrically driven cockpit navigational aid in the 1920s! http://i1047.photobucket.com/albums/...b1da16f3f3.jpg |
............ as well as the massive ventral fin (don't over rotate on take-off): The early PanAm 707's didn't have that ventral fin, and I recall a PanAm pilot thanking us one day in New York Customs Hall as we awaited our bags. He reckoned each take off was a breath holding cheap thrill, there being a speed range at which, should an engine quit on take-off, there was insufficient rudder control and authority to keep it straight and on the runway until the larger, ventral, surface and added hydraulic assistance was fitted. I think that there was the occasional tail scrape, can't quote, never happened to me. just sayin' |
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The ventral fin was fitted when the B707-100 had the fan engines fitted to make them B707-120 series. They also made the aircraft "geometry limited" as a bonus reducing some margins for the Vr and Vlo speeds. It had nothing to do with the British ARB. There are many other sins to be laid at their door but not this.
It wasn't just the RR Conways which required the ventral fin and rudder power boost, actually the RR engines were little more than a side show given the few that actually flew. It was the P&W JT3D which went from ~12,000lb to ~17,000lb per engine which gave this mod its impetus. The glove panels screwed to the B707-100 wings to reprofile them for the higher power JT3D-3B engines and hence higher cruise speeds were a PITA for the apprentices who had to screw them onto the wings. Every screw had to be measured lest you screw an over length one in and break the fuel tank seal with resultant tank entry etc, etc. |
Beauty defined.
http://i1047.photobucket.com/albums/...0f1dea847b.jpg |
The ventral fin was fitted when the B707-100 had the fan engines fitted to make them B707-120 series. They also made the aircraft "geometry limited" as a bonus reducing some margins for the Vr and Vlo speeds. It had nothing to do with the British ARB. There are many other sins to be laid at their door but not this. http://www.pprune.org/tech-log/36273...fin-story.html There are pictures on net of 320 series aircraft, including the P&W fan engined 320B series, both with and without the ventral fin. Wikipedia is not a source but the pictures there, including one of last commercially operated 707, illustrate the point pretty well. |
Thanks for the details and corrections, chaps, Urban Myths do seem to be easier to recall than mathematical facts when One Is A Certain Age !
Interesting tho'. I also recall a certain 707 Training Captain testing a students' ability to deal with a runaway stabiliser, he ran the trim "aircraft nose down" and the aircraft obeyed with alacrity. The student promptly called "Runaway Stabiliser" then physically stopped the trim wheel by hand and called for the console switches to be cut off, and the circuit breaker on the overhead panel to be pulled. All completed expeditiously and correctly as per the check list procedure. Trouble was - the waters off the South Coast were rapidly growing bigger in the windscreen, so the drill was reversed, except .... whilst attempting to pull out of the now rapid dive the G force was such that the F/Eng. couldn't get his hand up high enough to re-set the circuit breaker on the overhead panel. Eventually, with Captain and co-pilot both pulling back, and the F/eng. assisting by holding both control columns with one hand on each side, and bracing his feet on the bottom of the instrument panel in some manner, (I was told) they pulled out close enough to the surface of the sea to enure that the check list was amended to remove the command to pull the circuit breaker. It's easy to say that they should have relieved the G force by pushing further forward, altitude was in short supply - and you weren't there ! |
This is about the best story of the evolution I've come across
Because only a relatively small number of the 707s would be built with the Conway, provision was made for a replacement engine to be flown out on a scheduled passenger flight to an airplane grounded with engine problems at a distant airport, enabling the latter airplane to return to its home base in London. This was achieved through the use of a special streamlined pod and pylori that could be quickly attached to the wing inboard of the number 2 (port inner) engine. Boeing’s Brien Wygle and FAA (Federal Aviation Agency) pilot Sliff flew the pod certification flight with N31241 (G-APFB) on November 10, 1959; G—APFH was flown with a pod on its delivery flight to Prestwick, Scotland, in july 1960. On February 12, 1960, the Model 707-400 Series was awarded FAA certification; however, a protracted and contentious delay arose from the differing certification requirements of the FAA and the British Air Registration Board (ARB). The ARB's concerns were the potential for stall during takeoff through an excessive angle of rotation—which had caused two Comet 1 crashes—and the 707’s Dutch roll characteristics, that had led to three training accidents in 1959, with fatal results in the case of American Airlines and Braniff international Airways (Airways, October 2009). Accordingly, the ARB required a demonstration of the aircraft's ability to unstick at a nose—high attitude, at various speeds. Nowadays a normal part of the flight testing for any new type, VMU (velocity maximum unstick) takeoffs were conducted at Edwards Air Force Base, California, during November 1959, using BOAC’s first 707. These tests showed that the 707 would only unstick after the nose was lowered. A modification resulting from these tests saw a 39in (lm)-deep ventral tail fin added to alleviate the possibility of a premature rotation—and also improve the airplane’s longitudinal stability. The low-speed stability fix took much longer, and included an addition of 35in (89cm) to the top of the vertical stabilizer and duplication of the yaw damper, during the takeoff/climb and approach/landing phases. To counter additional engine thrust, a modification of the rudder control system—allowing the rudder to be fully powered throughout its whole range of movement (not only the first 15 degrees) - had already been incorporated on the Dash 300 and Dash 400 models. Thus G—APFB was modified at the Boeing plant, and after a final series of test flights by the ARB’s chief test pilot David P Davies (of Handling the Big Jets fame)—who had personally insisted on the changes—British certification was awarded on April 28, 1960. Ivor Lusty,the airline’s plant representative at Renton, ‘accepted' G-APFD in an 'informal ceremony' on April27, and following transfer of title (the official delivery) the next day, the 707 was flown nonstop to London, arriving on April 29. Captain T B (Tom) Stoney, BOAC's 707 flight manager, was in command for the 4,900mi (7,885km), 9hr 44min flight. The taller vertical stabilizer became a standard feature of the entire 707/720/KC-135 series. All 707-300/-400 series also had the ventral fin, as well as Dash 100s with Pratt & Whitney JT3C turbojets and 15 low gross weight Dash 300Bs (with the ]T3D turbofan), which had a 17 flaps takeoff setting. Because they had a full set of leading edge flaps, 14 flaps for takeoff, a '’series’ yaw damper, improved stall warning (stick shaker) operation, and aerodynamic upgrades to the wing, the Dash 300B ’Advanced’ and ’Advanced-Heavy', and -300C did not require the ventral fin. A smaller (13in/33cm) ventral fin was fitted to Dash 100Bs (with turbofans) and 720s to prevent damage in over-rotation, as the stick shaker did not activate early enough. Boeing supplied retrofit kits without charge to operators that had already had taken delivery of 707s, an action that helped cement the manufacturers reputation in airline circles. |
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