Belfast????
 

Anybody got any news on the Belslow??

Last I heard it was indoors in a hanger in PIK

VEEPS :ok:

I flew into Prestwick last week and it was still sat outside the Polar Air Hangar. I was talking to one of Heavylifts former senior engineers at the Coventry airshow and he was perplexed why anybody bought the aircraft after they went bust. He reckoned the aircraft only had about a years life left in it even robbing bits of G-BEPS. Still a great shame to see it sitting abandoned. Hopefully the new owers might donate it to a museum such as Duxford if the issues to return it to service cannot be resolved.

Are they able to use the one at SEN for spares as with all that has gone on who actually owns the SEN one. The other might as well have stayed at Southend as far closer to Duxford.

``it arrived last week??????

It arrived 9 months ago mate.

In that time it has been in and out the Polar Hanger.It got repainted in there and it still has to get a rej.It has supposidly been sold on to Transpacific PTY Limited(whatever the hell that is)in Australia,but there has been something happened in the deal and it has went off,rumour.
OH,and the guy that runs the Polar Hanger is the owner.;-))

Belfast Freighter
 

Well, here goes my first post! For all you purveyers of doom out there I can only say that my old girl has a very positive future and will shortly be leaving PIK for warmer parts: and she will hopefully have a long future out there. O

Following article from AIR TRANSPORT WORLD:

HeavyLift to enter crowded Pacific island cargo market
Dateline: Friday September 05, 2003

Competition in the Pacific island market intensified after the International Air Services Commission gave approval to HeavyLift Cargo Services, which is owned by Transpacific Pty Ltd., to begin operating international freight services into and out of Brisbane with a mix of Belfasts and 727s.

HeavyLift this month will take up operations providing for the carriage of up to 60 tonnes of cargo per week to Papua New Guinea, followed by the Solomon Islands (50 tonnes per week) in Oct. and Vanuatu (25 tonnes per week) in Nov. It will compete with national carriers Air Niugini, Solomon Airlines and Air Vanuatu on the routes.
HeavyLift also has expressed interest in extending its network to Nauru and New Caledonia when the rights become available. Another Australian startup, Transpac, obtained rights to those points but has not yet utilized them.

IASC in its determination of HeavyLift's application raised concerns that forecasts of likely volumes on the Pacific routes appeared "optimistic," particularly in relation to Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands. However, it was satisfied that the airline has the financial backing, resources, skills and experience necessary to implement its proposals.

"While the Commission does have some concerns about the ongoing viability of HeavyLift's services, it is not necessary for the Commission to be certain that a carrier will maintain services over the long term," IASC said. It has given the carrier until March 2004 to use capacity fully on all three routes.--Ian Thomas

Thought y'all would be interested!
thetexpat:ok:

Belfast made a 15 minute test flight from Prestwick today, as 9LLDQ.

Shorts Belfast
 

9L-LDQ departed Prestwick 1648z 16/9/03 for Malta :-(

Good luck to the old lady. Like so many aircraft (or ships) she has gone from Queen of the Skies to tramp steamer in her late middle age.

I want to think of a Bogart lookalike skipper, with a battered cap, and a grubby shirt. I want to think of a keen young copilot, who is so keen to get into the air that he will happily pole an aircraft that is as old as his mother. The engineer will drink coffee from a mug that is furtively topped up from a hipflask.

And what better venue to operate in than steamy Pacific airstrips, and what better cargo than 'general freight' around PNG?

I can visualise the movie already. I want Draper to play the engineer, I have a skipper in mind but the libel laws are too strict.

And on the ground is a sassy Oz girl pilot who flies the near suicidal rescue mission when the old Belfast finally runs out of puff on an upcountry airstrip where the locals prefer pilots to pork in their stewpot.

The Oz GP? Reddo, of course.

I love the picture that you paint but the "steamy Pacific airstrips" bit is unlikely to happen unless the said airstrip has a bloody good LCN.

If my memory serves me right, the old girl has a pretty high footprint.

EricTCartman, Hi;)

Are you sure it was Malta?? Thar's a funny way to go to Oz and the intention was Westabout.

JW 411, Hello:O

The Belfast has so many main wheels that she can operate off surprisingly low LCN's ( or pcn's as you wish). If the pressures are dropped to 120 psi you can operate down to 23 or so.
We operated into many short strips with very low strength pavements over the last 23 years without problems. Stopping was never a problem it was getting airborne that caused the odd rear twinges!

Hi H. Admiral
Yes, I'm sure it was Malta, coz a) I've seen the flight plan & b) I spoke to the aircraft on departure from EGPk ;-)

Hockham Admiral:

Many thanks for that. I flew the old girl for 6 years with the original owners and I do remember that we had to pay a lot of attention to LCNs. We often had to get permission from the airfield owners to let us in on a temporary basis when the published LCNs were too low.

Mind you, it never occured to anyone to let the tyres down a bit! I suspect that such a notion would simply not have been countenanced.

Did you know that the Belfast mainwheel tyre was the same size as the B-50 nose tyre? One of our aircraft blew four or five tyres landing at a SAC base in the USA one day. They managed to swop enough tyres around to get it on to the ramp. It then looked like they were in for a bit of a wait while they waited for the replacement tyres to be flown from UK.

An enterprising USAF Staff Sergeant in stores made the B-50 connection and found someone who had hundreds of them still in his store. The replacements were delivered in just a few hours!

As for being a great stopper and a poor goer, I could not agree with you more! The DC-10 was exactly the opposite.

Hockham Admiral:

Further to my last; your quoting "lowering" the tyre pressure to 120 psi got my curiosity so I have just dragged out my old Pilots Notes.

The normal tyre pressures quoted therein are:

Nose: 140 psi
Main: 120 psi
Tail: 100 psi

So if you lowered the mains to 120 psi, what pressure did Heavylift usually use?

I can confirm she passed thru Malta today, departed at 09:48 local, next stop unknown

Belfast was due for Muscat
 

The Belfast was due for Muscat from Malta. No further details known to me

I'm not familar with Belfast performance but if memory serves my right you can expect Belfast to do Prestwick-Muscat direct with half load and even Prestwick-Colombo with nil load. Why they going thru Malta?

JW11:)

Yes you are correct! The normal pressures were 120 main and the Flight Manual (I don't know where that came in to being from, but thought it was directly from the RAF manuals) recommended 100psi for the reduced LCN's. As you can probably guess a lot of the places we went would adjust accordingly if it was a commercial necessity to get into the field...or we paid enough!

Ah, days of the Falklands, Disasters, Wars (anyones!), French Strikes, before the 124..............we enjoyed them all..........it was all a grand adventure and I only hope the "few" enjoy themselves as much as we did!

Cargo 1,
I wish! In fact STN- BAH could take up to 13 hours.............empty!
So PIK-Muscat would be at least 16. About the maximum I ever did in "The Queen" (of the Skies) was 14.55 Ascension-BZZ
Pls keep the stories coming!:p

That sounds about right; Brize - Masirah was 15½ hours (with very little in the back).

I find it quite fascinating that G-HLFT is the one that has survived. She was originally XR365 "Hector" and was probably the most cantankerous of the fleet. She was known by all as "Silly Old Hector" (from the kids TV show) and the best advice was never to go flying unless her black nose was wet.

What used to fascinate me was that half of the 'B' Defects would disappear during a sector and then another half a dozen would come out of the woodwork before next landing!

I am totally fascinated by the reports that work is going on to get G-BEPS airborne again. She was the first Belfast to fly (apart from the prototype) bearing a civilian registration. From my logbook the date was 14 February 1978, the place was Manston and Heavylift hadn't even been invented!

CargoOne,
'Cause its a full load.......of Irn-Bru, caramel wafers, whisky, haggis, Special Brew, bagpipes and jimmy wigs...all you need for a good party :ok: (apart from the lassies)

Will the Belfast ever be back for maintenance at Polar in Prestwick,also could we expect to see G-BEPS up here in sunny Prestwick for some maintenance?

Kris

JW411 & KPIKO3

Dont hold your breath on GBEPS getting airborne. Still an awful lot of work needed to get it airborne! Can't see it happening myself.

I recently seen G-BEPS on airliners at southend.
No engines(only covers)
No Side Door and I wasnt to sure whether it had wheels or not,but if they can find one that is on display and nick some working parts off of them and replace with replicas,who knows.

Kris

The only Belfast on display is XR371 "Enceladus" at the RAF Museum at Cosford. I sincerely hope that they do not intend to let anyone else have or even borrow any major components!

I did hear on one of my grapevines that when G-BEPS was parked by Heavylift, all useful spares were carefully removed and stored. I have subsequently heard that a couple of engineers were equally carefully putting all the bits back on again.

This would certainly be a long process and, in particular, the poor bu**er who has to put the hydraulics back together again should be payed every penny that he asks for!

G-BEPS is parked at the back of the dump at SEN an area usually leading to terminal decline and scrapping. Who owns the hull.

It's good to hear that the Belfast has re-entered service.
Who will do the mx,there can't be too many experienced guys out there?

I think the Polar guys at Prestwick will do it as they got ten months experience on it while it was at PIK.
It would certainly be nice to see it back at Prestwick.

Kris

Belfast
 

:O Hello all you believers and doubters!

Despite all the bad tidings about the Queen of the Skies future I can tell you that she is earning a respectful living at the moment flying out of Townsville, Australia.
So what went wrong H&P? It was said that if the old HCA couldn't make a living out of her no-one could......................I'm afraid you've been proved wrong (yet again).

And I must think back, 'cos the first civil registered Belfast was GBEPE, the pre-production model, which we flew out of SIN during the early 80's. She weighed about 2 tons more than any of the others.....but could always (eventually) make FL 120 out of SIN with 30tons at ISA +15

And what about that 250,000lbs TOW out of Saigon in 1980? NOT intentional but we just about managed to survive it!

Hockham Admiral

It's my understanding that the Belfast is based here in Brisbane, having arrived late on 21 Sep. She positioned to Townsville on 25 Sep to operate an Australian Defence Force charter to Honiara in the Solomon Islands on 26 Sep.

She is a most honoured guest in our city!

Cheers

Belfast
 

Fris.B
Many thanks for the info, perhaps you would let us know any more info you hear about "The Queen". She has been flying for nearly FORTY YEARS now, but when I last saw the Tech Log had obout only 26000 hours total!!!
I know the crew very well and can assure any of your Oz drivers out there that they will get a warm welcome if they want to look around the FIRST cat 3 aeroplane. And it was all analogue..........
ledex switches and relays galore!
Again many thanks, perhaps you would spread the word in your part of the world about "Freight Dogs"?

Admiral

Have posted a link on the local enthusiasts forum. If there are any significant developments I'll post them on "Freight Dogs".

Cheers

BELFAST
 

Hello from Townsville in North Queensland Australia.

a BELFAST arrived here a fortnight ago. It is being used by the ADF to resupply the regional assistance mission to the SOLOMAN ISLANDS. The BELFAST replaced an IL-76 Candid and is supported by a fleet of RAAF C-130-J's. The BELFAST is white with red and blue and has the H on the tail.

Daruman, I think thats THE Belfast, singular! The 'H' is a leftover from her previous operators 'Heavylift' in the UK.

Hockam Admiral

Have received an email that the Belfast did at least 3 flights to Hir from Tsv for the ADF but i believe it has done quite a lot more.It is there for 4 weeks then back to BNE.

Wirraway

Hockham Admiral:

I would just like to make a small historical correction to your piece on G-BEPE. The reason that she weighed so much was that she was the prototype and still had a lot of test wiring in the airframe. In fact she carried the first civilian Belfast registration with Shorts as G-ASKE.

In the pre-Heavylift days we had three Belfasts at Manston; G-BEPE (ex-XR362 "Samson"), G-BEPL (ex-XR369 "Spartacus") and G-BEPS (ex-XR368 "Theseus").

G-BEPS was the first civilian registered Belfast to fly (if we discount the "Short" time that G-BEPE/XR362 was G-ASKE during initial trials).

G-BEPL made a one-way flight to Hucknall and was swopped for (I believe) G-BFYU (XR367 "Heracles").

Heavylift also purchased G-OHCA (XR363 "Goliath") which was ferried to Southend and used for spares and G-HLFT (XR365 "Hector") which is the Australian based survivor.

Here endeth this historical lesson.

HUCKNALL
 

Thks for the history lesson, good on ya!
So what did happen to the one that made a oneway trip to RAF Hucknall??
Never seen it down there...

XR364 "Pallas", XR366 "Atlas" and XR370 "Ajax" made one-way flights from RAF Kemble to Rolls Royce at Hucknall and were immediately broken up. Rolls Royce were only interested in the engines.

The same fate met XR369/G-BEPL when she was flown from Manston to Hucknall.

The tenth aircraft, XR371 "Enceladus" was flown from Kemble to Cosford and is on display there.

And the destination for the engines.... Libya and their G222Ts!

G222's use Tynes? Must be an up-gunned version for sure!

TT

No just a bit on Anglo-Libyan sanction busting (the US would not sell the standard engines).

;) Any of you guys in Oz any recent news on the location of the Belfast?