BOAC B707 ops in the 1960s
 

I am researching background for a novel set in the mid-1960s. One of the (probable) characters will be a BOAC B707 captain. Some questions:

Did BOAC employ dedicated navigators in the mid-1960s or were nav duties carried out by pilots with Flight Navigator Licences?

Was LORAN the primary nav aid with astro as back-up, or the opposite? Did the B707 feature a periscopic sextant for star shots? If so, how did it operate?

On the North Atlantic was the current NAT system in use, with available tracks varying daily? Was longitudinal separation by Mach No the standard procedure? How many miles was lateral separation?

Did crews routinely contact the fixed-location weather ships for position reporting or weather info or use them for nav guidance (ADF bearings)?

Were supernumerary or cruise pilots usually included in the flight crew?

Did operation into JFK differ much from current procedures?

Where was BOAC's Crew Report location?

Thanks for info.

Did BOAC employ dedicated navigators in the mid-1960s No or were nav duties carried out by pilots with Flight Navigator Licences yes?

Was LORAN the primary nav aid with astro as back-up yes , or the opposite? Did the B707 feature a periscopic sextant for star shots? yes If so, how did it operate? held in position by suction from diff cabin pressure-worked electrically.

On the North Atlantic was the current NAT system in use, with available tracks varying daily yes ? Was longitudinal separation by Mach No the standard procedure yes ? How many miles was lateral separation IIRC 60nm (?)

Did crews routinely contact the fixed-location weather ships for position reporting no or weather info no or use them for nav guidance (ADF bearings) sometimes ?

Were supernumerary or cruise pilots usually included in the flight crew no?

Did operation into JFK differ much from current procedures not materially?

Where was BOAC's Crew Report location South end of Terminal 3?

Get hold of a book called 'The water jump' by David Beaty. Its all there.

Thanks Hobo. How often were LORAN and or astro fixes required? Was there a separate nav station in the flight deck?

Gwyn Mulletts' book "with My Head In The Clouds" also makes mention of navigational procedures at the time. He was on the VC10 but it's all very relevant in an excellent read.

Fixes were required every twenty minutes. There was a separate nav station. On the 707 it faced sideways whereas on the VC10 it faced to the rear behind the captain.
The periscopic sextant was pushed through a mounting at the rear of the flight deck. A two minute 'shot' was taken of the star, This was done by keeping the star in a bubble using rocker switches on the side of the sextant. There were drums on the side of the sextant which would give the average reading over the two minutes.
Operations into JFK were different in the mid 60's as Terminal 7 had not yet been opened so we operated into what was then known as the International Terminal.
As far as I remember, the lateral separation was 120nm (perhaps an ATCO could confirm). On a bad night for Loran we were sometimes 20nm off track when we came into VOR coverage. I think that 60nm came in later but am happy to be corrected.
The nav would sometimes call one of the weather ships for a chat. They would always give us a bearing and distance as well as their position. On one occasion a weather ship asked us for our position. Apparently the sea was so rough that they had been unable to get an accurate fix.

I can confirm the answers given by Hobo and Airclues.

I joined BOAC in 1958 as a pilot, but was required to train for the Flight Navigator Licence, this started with 9 months classroom work to gain the Flt. Nav. exams, then flying training took place on the Boeing 377 "Stratocruiser" on West African Routes, and then I moved to the Britannia 312 flight, where I eventually gained my Flt. Nav. Licence tho' some went to the Brit. 102 and the Comet which were operating at the same time. Although initially rostered for the Brit. 312 East African routes, I eventually "graduated" to the Atlantic, flying to the USA and Canada, and the Caribbean.

In 1961 I was posted to the 707 fleet, to become P.3 /Nav. BALPA had negotiated an agreement that there should be 3 pilots on every flight deck, and BOAC decided to amalgamate the new Second Officer/P3 position with that of the Navigator, and being unwilling to re-train the older 'straight' navs. as pilots, my group were told that our move to co-pilot would be delayed, and eventually combined into navigation duties as well.

On joining the 707 fleet I was initially sent to Honolulu for 3 months ( times were hard ! ) to be navigator on the San Francisco/Honolulu/Tokyo v.v. sectors, and on return to UK was then sent for co-pilot training, after which I operated every flight as either the P.3./Nav. or the co-pilot (P.2) We normally decided between ourselves who would navigate "out" and who "home", and I almost never flew a trip solely as either one or the other after that.

During my time on the 707 I was appointed a Navigation Instructor and as well as introducing new young pilots to the Dark Art of navigation, in this role I was often rostered as one of the 2 navigators carried on the Polar Route to Anchorage, the Nav. Instr. being solely occupied in making frequent course checks with the sextant to assess the drift error and precession of the aircraft compasses before they were switched out of North seeking mode into Gyro Heading mode for the transit of the Polar Regions. It was during this time that I became proficient at Grid Navigation across the Pole.

I finally made my last flight as a Navigator in 1974, and was then promoted to 707 Captain, and shortly afterwards 747 Captain - where I had to forget all my Astro formula and start to learn about INS !!.

My recollection is that the last of the old "straight" navigators flew about 1962/3 tho' some of them were retained in the Nav. Office as check Navigators for our annual theory re-examination.

Although a fix by Loran, or ADF or Consol was required every 20 minutes, if navigating solely by Astro, as occasionally happened, then the requirement was extended to 30 minutes.

I'm sure the track separation was 60 nm. i.e. one degree of Latitude, but I have a recollection that was between aircraft of opposite direction, so that aircraft flying in the same direction would be 120 nm apart, but I could be wrong on that - it is some 45 years since I last had to do it !

It was a requirement to cross the ADIZ - Air Defence Identification Zone - around the USA within 10 nm either side of track, i.e. a 20 nm "window" at a specified point know as a "fish point" i.e. all the positions, which would now be known as "waypoints" were named after fish, and the one we used most when approaching New York was "Tuna".

The Weather Ships were of limited use for navigation, tho' we did use their NDB for bearings sometimes, and they were also occasionally able to give us a position from their radar, we mostly spoke to them to pass position reports, them having reasonable VHF reception as opposed to the more usual HF Comms. that we had to use.

The Captains rarely used the HF, leaving that unenviable task to the co-pilot, but one once offered to help his co-pilot by passing the 40 West position to Ocean Station Charlie, as that nearby ship was called. Unfortunately that particular gentleman had a bad speech impediment, and he stammered his message embarrassingly slowly .... Ocean Sttayshunn Cchchcharlie, this is is Speespeespeedbird 509 etc. and ended with Chchchcharlie diddid you cccopy?

A languid American voice came straight back with ....... jeez, did we copy, we’ve carved it into the f***ing deck !!

Sometimes the Weather Ships would ask to talk to the stewardesses, and I know that at least once they held a "Beauty Contest" amongst all the airline girls that passed by and spoke to them, and those girls willing to pass out their "Vital Statistics" were put into a draw, and the winner was given a trip to Boston, where the US Coastguard Base for weather ships was, and a few days sightseeing ( amongst other pleasures I guess ! )

A "bonus" of being made to navigate, was that BOAC contracted to keep ones' CPL valid, and as we weren't flying the "big" aeroplanes as co-pilots, they positioned a fleet of Chipmunk aircraft at Croydon, and we were allowed to turn up to fly up to 6 hours every 6 months at BOAC expense, so I have a passing interest in the Croydon Airport thread, as well.

I never wanted to be a Navigator, I was a Pilot for Crissakes, but now I'm glad I did and I occasionally wish I had a sextant to play with from time to time, it took a long time to become proficient, and I guess I could soon pick it up again, but it was very much a "hands on" art, and it is a shame that I no longer need it. Also, as a 20 something young man, there was a certain pleasure to be enjoyed in knowing that for a few hours over the Atlantic, you were the ony b*gger who ever really knew where we all were ! That sometimes needed a few fingers to be crossed tho', day trips to Bermuda when the Loran was down, and the only positive was an occasional single Sun line concentrated the mind a little - and the Brit. was occasionally below cloud - and I seriously considered Chichesters "find the Island" theory sometimes ! Happy Days.

Hope this helps, maybe I should write my own book !

"From Flying Boats to Flying Jets" by Eric Woods also covers this period when navigators were disappearing.

There is an ex Qantas Navigator still teaching bits and pieces at a Flying school in Sydney Australia. Taught me many moons ago and I passed first time.

RAF Navigation
 

Slightly off thread, but I was an RAF navigator in the 60's, flying in Shackleton's out of RAF Changi. We carried out Search and Rescue duties in Gan, and so flew long sea legs across the Indian Ocean. Navigation was by mechanical airplot and single position line mpp's using a sunshot. Occasionally able to get a fix using a merpass. If the NDB at Gan was u/s, it was common practice to use " find the island technique", obviously track accuracy was not as stringent as the North Atlantic.

middlesbrough,
I assume the 'find the island' technique was a variation on the 'creeping line ahead' !We once 'avoided' Gan in a thunderstorm ! Well it did look like a cun nim on the EK290 .

IIRC when I joined CAA as a trainee ATCO in '73 the lateral separation on the pond was 120nms.


Also Eric Woods in his book mentioned above gave '63 as the date that navigators, as opposed to pilot/navs, were dispensed with.


I have no axe to grind as it happened while I was still at school and 2 years before I joined the RAF, but it seemed with hindsight a strange decision. Several of my pilot mates joined BOAC having worked hard to get their CPL/IRs etc and were immediately sent on a 6 month nav' course. The result was surely that, now having 3 pilots on the 707s and VC10s, the time to command must have doubled.


When those types went out of service in the late 70s lots of pilots were laid-off for 3 years while the backlog was worked through and presumably recruiting at the bottom must have stopped.


There was always a ready supply of trained professional navs leaving the RAF, I for one would have loved to join BOAC as a nav when I left the RAF in '73, even though the career may have only lasted until 1980( the date I believe BCAL went from navs to INS ). I bet the bean-counters at BOAC didn't have a say back then.

Find the island technique
 

Gan was the southernmost island of the Maldives, so you made sure you were north of track, then before ETA you hoped you'd pick up the islands on radar, and you'd know which way to turn!

No, Chichester set off for Norfolk Island en route New Zealand - Australia in a Fox (?) Moth with a hand held Marine sextant. He reckoned that if he tried to maintain the direct track he could end up somewhat North or South of the Island at ETA, and if he was way off, or in poor visibility, then he wouldn't be able to see it, so wouldn't know which way to turn.

He pre-computed the bearing of the sun that would pass through the island at ETA, then deliberately flew well North of the direct track, kept taking sun shots with his sextant until the bearing he had pre-computed came up, then he knew he was definitely North of track, so turned left and flew down the sun line bearing until he saw the island ahead. It worked.

I also know of a BOAC 707 Captain who flew across the Pole back to UK using two toothpicks stuck in two pieces of cheese, using a constant sun line - shadow of one across the other - and adjusting the heading every 20 minutes via an Astro sun line. A long story for another time !

Polar crossings were certainly not common in the 60's as they simply did not make any sense from a flight planning point of view. I would be very suspect of anyone claiming that they they did polar crossings or even operations above 78 degrees. Yes, we did grid above 72 degrees as I recall?

Regarding the 707 Nav station which was in the aft left side of the flight deck you might recall the sighting stool which the Nav could stand on so as to get a better angle on the sextant eye piece. It normally stowed against the left aft wall. Also there was a drop down curtain to prevent light from the nav station expanding forward flight deck.

I spent about eighteen months as a 2nd Officer at Pan Am before the Bendix dual doppler and Edo Loran A took over and slowly displaced the Nav positions.

Good times for sure:ok:

ExSp33db1rd.
Now's the time, please! ;)

I'll bring mine ( http://www.celestaire.com/marine-sex...or-detail.html) when I fly up to the Bay of Islands next year and we finally get to meet. My first ever attempt at a position line was a lunar distance, after I had noticed Jupiter in close proximity to the moon, while walking back from the pub in Saigon! My LOP was 12nm out, which was pretty good I thought, considering the circumstances. I also used the sextant to observe the Transit of Venus in 2013, which was very special.

Concerning polar crossings, I remember reading about a non-stop Wardair 707 positioning flight in the 70s, from Gatwick to Honolulu. I recollect that the aircraft was towed to the runway before starting the engines and the go-no go calculations coasting out from Alaska were very meticulous. Does anyone have any details?

ExSp33db1rd.


Fascinated by your nostalgic recollections........more please [or write the book}!

H49

My log book records London – Anchorage 18th May 1970. My first Polar Crossing.

We flew NNW from London, and for the first few hours the Nav. Instructor would take frequent sun shots with the sextant, and compare the performance of the two compass systems that we had, Captain and Co-Pilot. One of the pre-flight checks was to ensure that we had two meticulously maintained gyros fitted, these were fitted to any aircraft making the Polar transit, the idea being that the maintenance given to these gyros would minimise precession due to friction on the various bearings and “innards”, this would become critical when we switched from magnetic reference to gyro steering.

Gyros maintain their heading in space, theoretically, but precess, i.e. drift off heading, for a variety of reasons, one of them relative to the present Latitude, and our compass controllers had a knob that could set the mid-latitude for the next leg between navigation fixes to correct for the Latitude factor of the total precession observed.

The Nav’s job was to compare the drift of the gyro relative to the Latitude correction that had been set whilst we were still using a North seeking compass function, hopefully zero error if the Latitude correction was accurate, but never say never, and eventually create a graph, similar to a deviation correction chart so that when we switched to gyro steering, not only could he select the next mid-latitude correction, but also apply an additional precession error that he had determined from his Astro observations on the initial part of the flight. Clever stuff, but you small aircraft pilots do apply compass deviation as well as variation to your computed tracks – don’t you, or do you just follow an iPad now ?

Approaching 66 North, the Arctic Circle, compasses were switched to gyro steering, and a Grid heading flown, determined from a polar chart with a Mercator type grid superimposed. If for instance the heading was determined as 330 deg Grid, this could be plotted on the chart and flown beyond the Pole, when one would actually be flying South by normal consciousness.

We actually flew between the True North Pole and the Magnetic North Pole, and apart from the fact that a magnetic compass was useless in that region, the rapidly changing angle between required track and the local Longitude was changing far too quickly to compute with the human brain and an E6B wind drift computer. Remember, this was before even Inertial systems, never mind GPS and iPads.

Where it all got a bit mind blowing was when Fairbanks VOR started to be received, one could be – for example – on the 020 (M) radial of the VOR heading towards it, but the Grid heading being flown might be 340 (G), i.e. one appeared to be flying North, but in reality was now flying South, and the VOR needle would be pointing behind the aircraft tho’ in reality one was flying towards it.

Please don’t pick me up on the nitty gritty of all this, it is 40+ years since I last did it, just think about it !

The cheese story ... leaving London one had many hours to sort all this stuff out, but out of Anchorage on the return sector one was thrown almost instantaneously into the Polar navigation exercise. I recall the “Grivation” i.e. a mix of Grid angle of the chart relative to True North, and the local Variation, was in the order of 174 deg east as we left Anchorage, which meant that if one applied it in the wrong direction – never say never – one could set off towards Siberia instead of Europe, very embarrassing. I used to calculate the Grid heading required, then give the available data to the co-pilot, and ask him to calculate it too, and if we agreed within a degree or two, then we would switch the compasses to Gyro and set off.

Company rules said that if there was any doubt as to the accuracy of the gyro compasses, then turn back. One Captain suspected such an error, but called for the cheese tray, cut off two lumps and balanced them on the windscreen coming and stuck a toothpick in each such that the shadow of one fell across the other, i.e. a sun position line.

Then he told the navigator to use the sextant to determine the True heading, and the consequent Grid heading to steer, turned the aircraft on to this new heading and re-arranged his cheese. Then he maintained that sun line for 20 minutes and repeated the exercise. He kept this up for about 2 hours until they were back into an area of normal compass operation, when they decided that in fact it was the co-pilots gyro which had been dodgy. I don’t think that they ate the cheese at that point.

When the stuff hit the fan because he hadn’t turned back, he said – the sun moves at 15 deg. an hour, by steering a constant bearing for 20 minutes, the most I could have been off the required heading was 5 deg. and that only at the end of the 20 minutes, as well. When we thought we had a problem we knew where we were, we knew where we were going, had we turned around and tried to re-establish ourselves back to Anchorage, we’d have been f***ed.

That Captain had been an RAF Coastal Command skipper in WWII, and they all had to be proficient on navigation as well as flying. I understand the theory but I doubt that I would have had the courage, and I’m glad that when I was a Captain I had the benefit of triple INS

Happy Days.

Qantas kept Navs on long haul over the ocean sectors until we had triple INS.

Two-Two-One
 

OK, an easy question, the answer to which will add a bit of 'colloquial accuracy' to my old chum Discorde's book:

What was 'Two-Two-One' and why?

:)

221 was originally a hut on the perimeter of Heathrow along side the Bath Road where BOAC flight and cabin crew reported. I think because the huts were numbered rather than named.

The flight report centre moved to Terminal 3 at some time in the 60's [before my time] but the name 221 continued to be used until BA moved to Tristar House.

Even recently the term '221 divorce' was used by us older members of the community to signify the seperation of 'temporary couples' returning from a long trip. If you get my meaning:ok:

ExSp33db1rd

wonderful stories thank you

I joined BOAC in 1962 as a pilot but had to get my Flight Navigators Licence on Britannia 312s. The training was done by the few remaining straight navigators. After 2 years I went to VC10s as a pilot/nav. The crew then consisted of a captain, 2 co-pilots who alternated (roughly leg and leg about) between rhs and the nav table, and a flight engineer.


I can confirm ExSp33db1rd's recollections, though being on VC10s we did not have to do polar navigation. Everything else was the same re Loran, Consol, astro, etc. You have a wonderful memory! I can also confirm that the lateral separation on the NAT track system at that time was 120nms.


INS was gradually retrofitted somewhere around 1973/4, thus we were able drop the additional co-pilot and revert to 3 man crews. I became a navigation instructor and also a check navigator in the VC10 nav office in the same corridor in the Kremlin as ExSp33db1rd!


Building 221 was on the north side of the airport as confirmed by George,etc,etc. It was a 2 story building set amongst a number of similar buildings. Crew reporting was moved to Terminal 3 soon after it opened in 1961, but was still called it 221 for very many years.

Discorde


See also my posts Nos. 3, 17 and 14 on the 'Navigation System on Bristol Britannias'. There was little difference other than a much better Loran set!

Yes, 221 moved from the building of that number on the North Side to the first floor of the South Wing of No. 3 Building (Oceanic) when it opened in mid-November 1961. (Staff Travel was on the ground floor, where those on concessionary travel waited nervously to see if they were 'on' or not.)

The crew suitcase of preference for that era was the blue 'Globetrotter' - until those new-fangled wheelie Samsonites were invented.

Sorry to spoil the party but as the second oldest airline in the world Qantas were doing all the same old stuff. We had a very long haul structure,

PS KLM is or was the oldest.

For which all the keys were marked No.3 !!

More Polar stuff.

A well known S.E.Asia airline ( Not SIA ! ) also flew over the Pole from Paris to Anchorage, and in later years used a DC-10, with the by then standard INS navigation equipment, so the principles of Astro and Grid Navigation were no longer required.

One day the DC-10 went sick and was replaced by a 707, the crew knew about Grid navigation and gyro steering and when they eventually passed the Pole and saw the snow covered coast of the North Slope of Alaska appearing at ETA, were confident that they were only a short time away from Anchorage until they were forced down by a passing MiG fighter, and fortunately were able to land on a frozen lake somewhere near Murmansk. They were over Siberia, not Alaska.

Yes, they knew all about Grid navigation, but knew nothing about correcting for gyro precession, so the gyros had worked as designed, and carefully and consistently steered the aircraft in a nice curved arc, unfortunately to the right instead of left, which would have placed them somewhere over Canada. Murphy is always with us.

That same airline later lost another aircraft shot down flying between Anchorage and Seoul due to a navigation error. I'm occasionally asked if there is any airline that I wouldn't fly with. I have an answer, but my lips are sealed.

even more Polar stuff
 

whilst not a lot to do with BOAC except I would be interested in the implications of the Hermes landing in the Sahara on BOAC Nav ticket philosophy.
I attended the same college as Bergerie and probably had the same Nav tutor...originally a pilot but after an accident was retrained as a Nav IIRC.
I believe I was on the first course of ex Hamsters to fly the VC10 without having a Nav ticket...having come from the "opposition"...The aircraft having been retrofitted with INS.
My next venture into long haul was with my subsequent employer who literally threw heaps of money into training and equipment.
They also had an alliance with KLM,SAS and UTA to share facilities; documentation, spares, simulators - to name a few.
Whilst some of my mates spent 18 years on their first aircraft I went through them faster than wives. So 5 years after leaving the Iron Duck I was driving my third "new" jet.
The DC10 upon launch had the most sophisticated NAV system...two computors driven by three INS platforms with autotuning and update although our routes were sourced via a Betamax sized cassette tap - 12 mins to initialise.
I had learnt early on in my career through the deaths of several colleagues that doing the minimum wasn't a guarantee of not crashing - so in some ways I became a bit of a "Pilot Nerd". This led me to buying an Ebco sextant and some complicated book on Astro which I attempted to come to terms with.
Before the advent of INS Swissair carried professional Navigators.
We had two "risky" operations o the DC10...RIO and Anchorage. Even our extended range versions couldn't carry enough fuel and the forecasting wasn't the best. The latter we started in the late 80s and I found myself returning to home base on a BA 737 24 hours before my first flight departed - personal flight preparation and rest. As fate would have it the purser was an old friend off Tridents who had been on the 747 and night stopped in ANC.
I asked him about it and he described his journey in crew transport - a yellow school bus driven by an adequately built Afro-American who no doubt had belonged to a Baptist choir or six. She was asked by a ex public school, demure young lady about the entertainment.
WELL HONEY, IN SUMMER THERE'S FISHING AND F##KING, AND IN WINTER THERE AINT NO FISHING!
Anchorage was my favorite destination...it was and probably is frontier land with the wagon trains replaced by dog sleds; I rented a large number of light aircraft - all equipped with a weapon and ammunition - mandatory in case you crashed and the bears arrived. Low flying along the gold rush rivers (20ft)..landing on a frozen river and collected by a snowmobile...aerial photographical hunts for bears, whales, moose and of course float planes.
We had slips of up to 7 days and my family spent a lot of time with me...
You couldn't invent a better life and all paid for in Swiss francs.
My third trip was the "eventful" one. As no doubt my ex colleagues will confirm - flying is about risk management although it was never talked about. If the commercial branch decide we could make money and some effing hero says "yes we can do it" then we do it....alternative get another job.
So at briefing where we were told how much fuel was needed and how much we could take the dispatcher said would you like to be the first Swissair flight over the Pole...it only needs a couple extra tonnes...and I have planned you destination Fairbanks with an inflight diversion to ANC...not out of the ordinary... we normally saved contingency fuel and the engineers reduced consumption by switching off two of the aircon bleeds...which I hated as I developed migraine due to the low oxygen levels (and no doubt ozone and organophosphate levels)
It got dark fairly quickly into our 9? hour flight but we had a beautiful moon just off the nose and low down on the horizon and all was normal until we were overhead the pole...when the panic started.
Company procedures dictated that above 65 degrees we had to be in True North compass display and under NO conditions were we allowed to disengage Nav mode. Our two computors were decoupled - can't remember whether they used average ins position or individual.
Crossing the pole we suddenly had two different track displays - 30 degrees apart.
Our next waypoint was at 80N...360nm...
I tried direct to on both displays...no change...checklists and books out...nothing...the consequences could be as speedbird wrote or just running out of fuel...at night...
Whilst not as clever as his cheese toothpicks...I disengaged everything..kept a constant bearing on the moon and by making "softly softly catchee monkey" heading changes got the Longitude counters on the INS changing towards the correct one.
After the next way point it all went back to normal.
Flying as we know is about learning from other's mistakes so I wrote a detailed report about the incident only to get a very rude reply.
Whilst I have had some excellent management pilots there are a certain group who shouldn't be in the job but as they are crap pilots many think that an office is the safest place. Fortunately our technical pilot wasn't one of these and I knobbled him on a sim check and he contacted McDonnell Douglas who came back several months later saying yes it could have happened and we don't know why but it shouldn't happen again...Inshallah
Happy days

An interesting thread

I joined BOAC from Hamble in '67 and due to no pilot courses we spent the first summer doing some of the Nav course - 6 weeks in Braincrank then let loose on the Atlantic - under supervision of course. Most of the time it was back and forth to Bermuda with the occasional Toronto and JFK.

Bermuda was off the track system but the others weren't - certainly the lateral separation was 120nm - along track I think was 20mins at the same Mach number, but just about everybody flew at .82.

At the end of the summer we were given our pilot courses and having spent the summer on the 707 we were given the VC10 - similarly those who nav'd on the VC10 were given the 707! A quick visit by a number of us to the VC10 flight manager - the lovely Norman Bristow soon got that changed!

Regarding the polar operations many moons later I was a Nav Instructer and found myself doing lots of ANC trips using the grid nav system others have mentioned. Actual navigation was fairley easy - quite a few NDB's and use of the weather radar to pick up some of the more recognisable landmarks.

We normally only went as far north as 80N but early 72 - 17th Jan. to be exact - Canadian ATC were on strike so we had to crawl up the FIR boundary to the North Pole and the south to ANC. AS far as we know that was the first BOAC aircraft actually to fly over the Pole. Wish I had pulled the chart and Nav log from the archives before they were destroyed.

INS's came a few years later and a command a couple of years after that!

arem - I remember the event of the ATC strike and the first BOAC a/c directly over the Pole, didn't the skipper send a 'greeting' to the BOAC Chairman from overhead ?

Akcherly, flying directly over the pole could have been easier - just fly up the Zero (Greenwich) Meridian and down the other 180 Meridian on the other side ! Would have taken longer of course, not favourable with the bean counters.

Blind Pew - Anchorage was my favorite destination in those days too. Driving out to the Portage Glacier for the first time, we were told to stop at the (name?) bar halfway along the route, where the barmaid - Ciel ( can remember that !) was reputed to have the largest tits known to man - or woman - kind, wore no bra or knickers, and short mini-skirts.

Walking through the door one Sunday lunchtime, our mouths literally dropped at the sight before our eyes, and whilst walking to the bar she said, "Come in, you must be BOAC crew ?" Why, I said, is it tattooed on our foreheads ? No, she replied, y,all talk funny, what's it to be ?

Already pre-primed to order a less popular beer, 'cos that was kept on the bottom shelf of the 'fridge, she went A over T and treated us to a knickerless and braless exhibition to produce our requested drink !

Subsequently the first officer remarked that he would like a photograph of her tits, but was too embarrassed to ask. So I did it for him. Sure, she replied, but let's go outside, there's better light. Outside the building he wasn't sure where to stand, so she said - "don't you want to hold, them luv?" And promptly heaved them out of her loose fitting top and handed them to him ! I think I ultimately destroyed the photo. to preserve marital harmony.

Standing in ANC customs one morning our girls came over and suggested that we'd all be going to the (name again ? but see below !) bar and strip club that night ? Probably, we replied, after all, what else is there to do in Anchorage on a cold Winters' night ? Well, they said, we want to come with you. OK, down in the lobby at 7.00 pm, see ya.

Walking into the bar that night we were treated to the sight of two naked males cavorting on the stage to a frenzied mob of women crowded around the edge, many of whom were tearing the Presidents portrait out of dollar bills and threading them on to a certain part of the male anatomy.

Somewhat bemused, we left our girls glued to this scene, and went to the bar. Don't worry lads, said the barman, Wednesday's Ladies Night, they end at 8.00 and it all returns to normal.

Frontier Town indeed. What was the question - 707 navigation ?

Edited - name of Anchorage strip club was the Great Alaskan Bush Company of course, how could one forget ? Still can't remember the name of the bar on the road to Portage - the Bird Cage perhaps ?

I think there might be a place for that barmaid in the story . . .

Recently read a review of that, some Anniversary date I think. 'fraid I can't remember where I saw it - can remember details from 60 years ago but not last week ! - but it will be available on the Net. The navigators compass was equipped with a scale that could be rotated to apply the variation and then one could steer True courses as plotted on the chart - or something like that, unfortunately the graduations were x 10, so he applied 10 x the required variation, and they eventually became "temporarily uncertain of their position" and ran out of fuel. There is some tale of a passenger telling them that the Sun was on the wrong side of the aircraft, too.

On a Brit. once had a steward ask the name of the Caribbean island that we had just passed, looked at the chart and gave him a name. Shortly afterwards he appeared with a passenger, who had questioned my answer.

Oh! for f***ks sake, come and look, and directed him to my chart, we passed X at this time, we're flying at Y speed, and it is now Z time so we've covered A miles which means we are - Oh dear !! I was navigating by Loran, not islands, who cared what the name of all the various islands was ?

Turned out that the pax. thought he had seen his home on the Island he knew well, and still asked the question, and being given the incorrect answer by the professional navigator made his day. Passengers ! We've all had them !

Light aircraft out of Anchorage ....... once hired a Cessna 172 to go and look at the Portage Glacier with some of the crew. The instructor who signed out the aircraft told me not to approach the glacier from the bottom, but fly in high and then fly down it - the glacier has a greater rate of climb then the Cessna, he said. Good advice !

A crewmate pilot of mine hired a small aircraft to fly to Kodiak Island. I'm not sure if the wreckage was ever found, don't think so, likely disappeared into the sea, which was a bit cold up there.

ExSp33b1rd,

Yes, the Bird House Bar! Fun place, burned down years ago, probably took about 5 minutes to ashes.

GF

Thanks, Yep, the peanut shells covering the floor wouldn't have been an advantage !

The other incredible Anchorage bar was the Burning Embers. It was open 23 hours a day and it was staffed by very nubile young ladies who were probably the first Lap dancers.:ok:

I can still remember a whole BOAC crew being pushed out in the morning, standing around in the freezing cold for an hour and then back in!

I also remember witnessing a gun battle between a couple of locals from my hotel window.

They were obviously blind drunk and dressed more for Honolulu than Anchorage they also missed each other fortunately.

Sahara Incident
 

Visualising the track taken I can quite believe someone noticing the Sun was on the wrong side.
In the late fifties this unfortunate incident was used as an example to drum into us to check the graduations on compasses at 2 ANS.

intruding as a hunble pax- and conceding that a nightstop in ANC was something I clearly badly missed out on always going t Japan via HK in those days.

Another BOAC Captain book of this era is called 'Can Anyone see Bermuda' but I cannot remember the authors name. Not as silly a title as it sounds as BDA is so tiny and has no real high ground (200 ft amsl I think) and of course frequently shrouded in (horizontal) rain and cloud . Trying to actually find it after 7 hours across the Atlantic was probably never easy in pre INS days .

From my recollection of many trips there it was still a pretty popular stop over for BOAC and later BA crews but as far away from the antics of ANC as could ever be imagined-in those days women could be fined for wearing shorts that came more than 2 inches above the knees away from the beach.

Archie Jackson wrote 'Can Anyone See Bermuda'. See here:
I also have another one that he penned, but cannot for the life of me remember the title of that one.

On the subject of navigation, I can second an earlier suggestion: Gwyn's book is well written and he describes his training and initial flights on the VC10 both as a co-pilot, as a navigator and later on as BOAC's youngest VC10 captain.

Blind Pew

I was reminded by your bit about the DC10 nav problem and had a similar?problem on a southerly (overhead or close to Bermuda) track Heathrow to Miami - you may recall BOAC (or BA?) had a DC10 from Air New Zealand, also KSSU.

We had a large along track error - I noticed the time to next waypoint kept increasing - and went back to basics from VC10 nav days by decoupling and navigating by track and drift.

When in range of BDA it started to autotune and updated itself.

If I remember correctly the 3 inertial systems had some kind of averaging and were supposed to chuck out any one which the system suspected was in error.

I came to the conclusion that this wasn't happening and it was still averaging all 3.

I wrote it up and discussed it back at base and I think they came up with a change of software.

We had previously had an aircraft that failed to turn toward JFK when it got to Canada and overflew the turn by a couple of hundred miles (20 minutes or so) before Moncton? managed to contact the crew - they didn't know they were in VHF range.

Discorde
A considerable number of the BOAC 707 Captains were ex WW2 and highly decorated. They were mostly from Bomber Command and Coastal Command and there was even one who was a Battle of Britain pilot. I do not think there are any books written by these pilots.

However there is a book by Peter Duffey "Comets and Concordes". He had a very interesting career and there are a couple of chapters of his time on the 707.

Mike