Ye old Electra days!

[Cee of Gee]

For all the former 4-screw Channex boys, get hold of the Aleutian Electra DVD. Some great sights 'n' sounds from the old girl!

Lost contact with most of you, drop me a PM if poss.

See ya around, C of G.

[barry lloyd]

Stopped the car yesterday and wound down the window as I saw one on approach to Liverpool. Five minutes lost in memories of the Rio-Sao Paulo air bridge, and the 'lounge' seating at the back - wonderful! Where can I pick up the CD?

[Nineiron]

Worst turboprop I ever flew. Even its mother didn't love that thing! Its design was a desperate attempt by post war US to compete with the emergent European airliners. The development history was scandalous, with the software way ahead of the hardware. The US industry eventually made a good a good job building the FH227 under licence, and then turned to jets, and found they were good at it.
Now if you are talking Britannia, Viscount, Vanguard, CL44 or even the IL18, that is different - but Electra, sorry no

[Daysleeper]

Britannia, Viscount, Vanguard

Of course the Electra continues in service while all of the above are but memories. Not bad considering it was the only "airliner" size turboprop the Americans ever built.
It introduced a lot of technology that we take for granted.

[Zoner]

When Dad transitioned from the DC-6 to the Electra he thought it was wonderful, a real pilot’s airplane. Later when flying the jets he still had a soft spot for the Lockheed. I flew the Electra and enjoyed every minute of it. The instantaneous response when the throttles were barely moved was always exhilarating. When I moved up (?) to the B-727 I was aghast to see the F/E trying to manually parallel generators by eyeballing flashing lights! The jet was light years behind when it came to systems.

[Nineiron]

Is the Electra being praised, not for its merits as an aeroplane but the fact that it was the first big piece of machinery in many an aviation career, resulting in no shortage of cheap crews
Throttle response was not particularly an Electra feature, all big props will bite the air with a power/pitch change, there is no waitng for spool-up.
There was a lot of new technology on the Electra and much of it was disproved as well as proved. If you went into ice, you might as well be on three engines and the contol boost/deboost system was never to be repeated on another aircraft. As for comparing the electrics with simpler jets, at least you had the option of having a split-bus if you need it and auto paralleling is a wonderful bit of magic.
They are still around because they made 170 of them

[Daysleeper]

They are still around because they made 170 of them

Which is a tiny number for an aircraft and proves my point.

The Deboost sysytem allowed for double hydraulics with wire backup saving the weight of a triple hydraulic sysytem.

It introduced the "fire Handle" concept (E-handle) where a single action secures the engine. No seperate feathering, fuel cut off, etc.

16,000 equiv Shaft Horse Power, which was double the same weight DC-6.

75% of the wing is swept by the prop airflow resulting in a huge amount of induced lift/stall supression.

Automated heating and cooling. Automated pressurisation control. Bleed air anti icing and de icing, and yes it took a huge amount of air to do the job but then there was a spare engine or two.

Easy to fly on 3 engines (just as well).

In freighter mode 2 spare generators.

Ok they were a bit tired by the time I got on them, but for the crews transitioning to them in the early 60's they must have been like space ships, speaking of which, if you go into the apollo space capsuals you will see a lot of the same switches dials and electrical systems.

[Ignition Override]

Did Channex or was it Atlantic (a British airline?), which received approval for using only TWO pilots to fly the Electra-with no Flight Engineer(!)? Even an old two-engine jet can be quite a workload on shorter legs and/or with weather: I still fly them, by choice-not just because of much higher 'seat seniority' (also more two and three-day trips). Our only so-called automation is airspeed/mach hold, altitude hold and ILS coupling.

How was this two-person operation considered possible on the Electra (I flew the C-130 for a short while)? I read somewhere on Pprune about a training accident during landing.

[Daysleeper]

The training accident during landing was a failure of the left main gear shock strut due to cracking of the high strength steel. The gear was at 15,600 (ish) hrs with a design life of 16,000hrs (ish) and had not been overhauled since the aircraft came onto the EU reg. (nor was there a requirement for there to be)
It is a similar failure mode to those suffered by a variety of aircraft and pariticularly the MD-80 series.
There were no injuries and after changing some bits and a new gear leg the aircraft was flying again within a couple of weeks. I've forgotten the exact details it was a few years ago but a search of the AAIB website should find it.


As for the two crew issue, there was a lot on PPrune about it at the time which i'm not going to drag up, but it has been a total non event these last 5 or is it 6 years now since they were converted. Its an easy aeroplane to operate for 2

[Irish Steve]

Thinking of accidents, did the one that tried to land at SNN without the gear down get repaired and put back into service, or was it scrapped?

If I remember correctly, it lost one engine completely, and damaged 2 of the remaining 3, as well as making some holes in the fuselage as bits flew off prop blades.

Despite the damage, the crew managed to keep it in the air and fly round the circuit with it, and make a second less eventful attempt at landing it.

[woptb]

Its just so many coke cans now!

[freightdogg]

atlantic are operating them 2 crew now , with i believe some of the old flight engineers as pilots

[Zoner]

So who has to go out when it's cold and wet to pull the sticks and do the fueling?

[Ignition Override]

Daysleeper: I'm impressed. That must be excellent training with only two c0ckp1t crewmembers. Having former FE's is a very good idea. Flying very short legs (30 minutes enroute) must be quite a challenge, or is it mostly just after all four engines are started? I can't imagine having a serious system malfunction in a two-person Lockheed turboprop when in congested airspace, even in good weather. An instrument approach must sometimes be briefed, never mind a non-precison and the extra demands for the pilot flying.

How might their workload (especially during winter conditions etc) compare with the newer C-130J (with no FE) or Avro, during normal flying?

A friend just left aviation because his company would not upgrade any F-27 third-year FOs (lots of hours) because hiring outside guys as first-year Captains is cheaper, and he was really fed up with working at night.

[Engineer]

Thought the demise of the PFE at Atlantique a case of the "thin edge of the wedge".

Started when instead of hiring PFEs low houred CPL pilots were employed to sit in the third seat. The only proper FE was the CFE. Maybe that was a condition enforced by the authority.