Certainly true. We had a family friend who was a Flight Engineer on the Ba VC10 fleet who transferred to the Tristar circa 1979. However in the 1978 book "Facts about an airline" by Alan Road Published 1978 their is a feature following a Ba 1011 Trip to Nice in G-BBAE. The technical crew composition was a Captain (Doug Lee) and Two Senior First Officers (David Reed and Richard Poad).
It seems European division carried across the Three pilot operation from the Trident for the first few years of the widebody operation.

My time on Tristar tech instructing all incorporated F/Es. A number of my previous Brize mates turned up and some of those ultimately took the opportunity to cross-over when BA offered their 'cadet' scheme.

Thanks all. Perhaps it was old BOAC influence that brought Flight Engineers across all appropriate types after the merger.

AKA ''Landing Drinks''
The LCA was a Night Stop iirc...

Some nice night stops back then - such as LCA ATH IST TLV CAI

That's an interesting thought. Wasn't the 747's introduction delayed by industrial action, partially because of a demand from the F/E side? I cannot find the details right now.

Not for my trip (16 Jan 81); we did out and return in one day with a quick turnround; I think they were just redeveloping Larnaca at the time and there wasn't a lot of parking space.
I didn't record chock tmes but flying times were 3hr 40min outbound and 4hr 20min for the return.

rog747, On the BOAC Britannia fleet they were called 'Brake Dwell Cocktails'.

jelle, In the UK, the introduction of the 747 was delayed by a dispute between BOAC and the pilots, so far as I know the engineers were not involved. I don't know about what happened in the US. But I would have thought that the handling of the engines and the complexity of the systems panel would have required a flight engineer from the very start.

The BOAC 47 introduction delay was due to a pilot's dispute over their claim for 'wide body' pay increases ... one of the 'leading lights' being the 'Chingford Skinhead' ! The immediate result was the sight of delivered 74s with their engines replaced by concrete blocks

I gained a lot of experience of engine changes thanks to this period.

Hence the joke about why the 747 had a hump over the cockpit, "so that the pilots could sit on their wallets".
I seem to recall that the engines were profitably leased out to other operators, the JT9D not being terribly reliable in those early years.

That's an incredible fact, wow! The management must have known that the dispute would drag on for a period of time to be able to consider leasing out the new engines. Considering the prestige of having these game-changing aircraft in your fleet and not being able to use them must have been a big upset to BOAC and their First and Business class passengers.

Out of interest to which airline/airlines did they lase the engines to ?

Pan Am and TWA

Thanks for this. It is clear that the 747 needed an F/E, but I wondered if the fallout from any industrial action on this fleet would have spread across to other fleets that had a more reasonable case of dispensing with that role on the flight deck. I read in one article that the 747s standing idle started as a dispute with BALPA, but was further delayed by F/Es not turning up for the first scheduled service:
from: https://www.key.aero/article/boacs-t...ing-boeing-747

We're straying off course a bit... ;)

Thanks! So the engines were probably sitting in LHR for a good part of every week during turn-arounds ;-)

That must have been one of Onyerbike's last activities at BALPA, before he first became an MP in June 1970.

I believe the aircraft had not yet been delivered to the UK. I visited Everett at the time and the new BOAC 747 fleet were lined up with concrete blocks hanging from the engine pylons, to maintain the structural loading.

The JT9D were in short supply because the early engines had a significant failure rate, and P&W could not keep up with overhauls.

As an apprentice at BAC, Hurn, I visited BOAC in 1970 and the first 3 747s were there, some engines were missing, but one aircraft had a No. 3 installed. A group of us were standing nearby waiting to go onboard, when some wag in the cockpit did a dry motor of the engine. I nearly fouled my breeches!

NA, NB and NC were all delivered by mid year 1970.

Before my time, but yes - the BOAC history books confirm that the first three aircraft had been delivered to Heathrow; BOAC was unable to put them into service due to an industrial dispute with BALPA about the pay differentials between the new 747 and other fleets; and a significant relief to the losses was achieved by leasing out the engines to US airlines suffering with early reliability problems. No mention of a flight engineers' dimension to the dispute.

The 47 engine problems were (from memory) due to tip clearances causing seizures .. the instantaneous nature of which caused the support pins to act as designed ...and break ! Engine and aircraft then parted company., one such occuring near to Paris This led to the apocryphal story of the conversation between the 47 skipper and a Comet similar 'discussing' their aircraft. The 47 man declared that 'pylon' engine mounts were superior, to which the Comet man replied "perhaps, but we bury our engines in the wing roots ... you bury yours in France!" ...