Global Aviation Magazine : 60 Years of the Hercules
Doug: Might this be the oxygen console to which you referred? Taken over El Adem in December 1967, during the Falcons winter training detachment, at 12000 feet, or possibly 16000 according to my logbook. And using a fairly 'informal' method of pre-oxygenation!
ICM,
I am sure that the oxy console Doug refers to is the same that we used and no doubt very similar to the one in your Argosy picture. During my time we only had to pre oxygenate when operating above 25000 ft.
I am sure that the oxy console Doug refers to is the same that we used and no doubt very similar to the one in your Argosy picture. During my time we only had to pre oxygenate when operating above 25000 ft.
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I don't remember anything like that as an O2 console. Looks like the engine from a Deltic locomotive.
We had what was known as the Interim system from the early 90s when I was at JATE through to 2011 because we could not get the modern system to work consistently. I am not sure what it was supposed to have been interim too.
Interim was a Mk10 bottle rigged with 7 outlets. 6 for the troopers and one for the despatcher. the orifices were metered to give a constant flow of 5 litres per minute. it was found the number of outlets was too many. I think it was cleared to feed only 4.
The low pressure gas fed into a long hose by way of an accumulator which was connected to the mask. We called this the snake and it was packed in a pouch. the trooper disconnected from the rig and opened the tap to his personal bottle. This was good for 25K. Only 18K at night. Funny story from a PJI about this who thought it was because the O2 concentration in air is lower at night! This was a guy who was training our finest!
We did have a small number of PHAOS American sets probably from 96/7. these were specifically for tandem and Tethered bundle. I think they may be out now. They were still in use in 2010 but restricted to 18K due to regulator issues. It had been 25K prior to a few incidents. I think the spams may have bragged about it being good for 35K but not in UK service.
The system R4H describes was known as AMOS which initially had two high pressure outlets feeding a Harrier regulator. (later a Jaguar 417) for aircrew including the loadmaster before we developed a special 100% O2 only regulator.
The parachutists system R4H tested in CL was connected to a Carleton console similar to PHAOS when on the aircraft for pre-breathing. He disconnected which automatically allowed his regulator and mask to be fed from a rather nice lightweight composite bottle at P-2
This never got into service. Meggitt developed the AMOS Mk2. I even see there is now a Mk3 but I have lost touch.
35K was tested but never got into service. We became quite risk averse. Many hours spent in the chambers at IAM and setting regulators upon B2 stands. The failure rate was very high in the early days. It was like a hair spring against a gossamer thin rubber diaphragm. fingers like pigs tits was quite a handicap. There was a time when we could only get 10 out of 150 regulators serviceable. Hence the retention of interim system. Still the contractor got his £squillion. Contracting for availability had not been invented.
I am sure things are all hunky dory these days.
We had what was known as the Interim system from the early 90s when I was at JATE through to 2011 because we could not get the modern system to work consistently. I am not sure what it was supposed to have been interim too.
Interim was a Mk10 bottle rigged with 7 outlets. 6 for the troopers and one for the despatcher. the orifices were metered to give a constant flow of 5 litres per minute. it was found the number of outlets was too many. I think it was cleared to feed only 4.
The low pressure gas fed into a long hose by way of an accumulator which was connected to the mask. We called this the snake and it was packed in a pouch. the trooper disconnected from the rig and opened the tap to his personal bottle. This was good for 25K. Only 18K at night. Funny story from a PJI about this who thought it was because the O2 concentration in air is lower at night! This was a guy who was training our finest!
We did have a small number of PHAOS American sets probably from 96/7. these were specifically for tandem and Tethered bundle. I think they may be out now. They were still in use in 2010 but restricted to 18K due to regulator issues. It had been 25K prior to a few incidents. I think the spams may have bragged about it being good for 35K but not in UK service.
The system R4H describes was known as AMOS which initially had two high pressure outlets feeding a Harrier regulator. (later a Jaguar 417) for aircrew including the loadmaster before we developed a special 100% O2 only regulator.
The parachutists system R4H tested in CL was connected to a Carleton console similar to PHAOS when on the aircraft for pre-breathing. He disconnected which automatically allowed his regulator and mask to be fed from a rather nice lightweight composite bottle at P-2
This never got into service. Meggitt developed the AMOS Mk2. I even see there is now a Mk3 but I have lost touch.
35K was tested but never got into service. We became quite risk averse. Many hours spent in the chambers at IAM and setting regulators upon B2 stands. The failure rate was very high in the early days. It was like a hair spring against a gossamer thin rubber diaphragm. fingers like pigs tits was quite a handicap. There was a time when we could only get 10 out of 150 regulators serviceable. Hence the retention of interim system. Still the contractor got his £squillion. Contracting for availability had not been invented.
I am sure things are all hunky dory these days.
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Snoops
Enough of this jumping out of perfectly serviceable aeroplanes
Following the Snoopy thread a while back
I see Marshalls have it emblazoned in their A400 page. I was doing my PPL at Marshalls [remember Doug Page? ] in '73 [Nineteen 73 ...] and Snoops was in full glory at that time. Ahhh the heady Bisto days of DERA!!
From the days of 'Just Bolt It On' aerodynamics
Following the Snoopy thread a while back
I see Marshalls have it emblazoned in their A400 page. I was doing my PPL at Marshalls [remember Doug Page? ] in '73 [Nineteen 73 ...] and Snoops was in full glory at that time. Ahhh the heady Bisto days of DERA!!
From the days of 'Just Bolt It On' aerodynamics
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Snoopy
Ah DERA. Although operated by our side, DERA was a law unto itself.
When asked to deliver the High Altitude Air Delivery System (HAADS) 1 ton containers to the beleaguered troops in the Gorazde Pocket of Bosnia we raised the point that unlike the MAC boys doing their resupply on forecast winds from MacDill we would need accurate actual readings.
Bimbling over Serbian held territory and slowly spiralling up would only entertain them for a while before they smelled a rat and fired something pointy at us. "No problem" quoth the Vice Field Minstrel, "we will despatch the Met Herc to drop a descending sonde in the target area and decode all the info you need".
"Whoa, whoa, whoa." Said DERA. "We don't do warfighting" - or words to that effect Elf and safety, duty of care..etc.
So all that practice at black Ball Firs went into the bin.
Tin hat, coat.
When asked to deliver the High Altitude Air Delivery System (HAADS) 1 ton containers to the beleaguered troops in the Gorazde Pocket of Bosnia we raised the point that unlike the MAC boys doing their resupply on forecast winds from MacDill we would need accurate actual readings.
Bimbling over Serbian held territory and slowly spiralling up would only entertain them for a while before they smelled a rat and fired something pointy at us. "No problem" quoth the Vice Field Minstrel, "we will despatch the Met Herc to drop a descending sonde in the target area and decode all the info you need".
"Whoa, whoa, whoa." Said DERA. "We don't do warfighting" - or words to that effect Elf and safety, duty of care..etc.
So all that practice at black Ball Firs went into the bin.
Tin hat, coat.
Asi
Credit for this stunning shot goes to a colleague on LXX - you know who you are! Taken during the first deployment of Typhoon "darn sarf", Albert doing Eng Spt & SAR standby, TriMotors doing AAR
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Vasco/Dougie,
Well done for ignoring Reheat for the time being and posting more on airdrop. You don't see many pictures of SC8/GQ6m and what looks like a SEAC pack.
HAADs happened under an SD (Kind of UOR before UORs had been invented) whilst I was on a sabbatical back to industry. When I came back I had to formalise the clearance paperwork and support pubs. Nightmare. It was one of the first parachute Mods I signed up at Irvins. I never could understand to this day why we could not just adopt the off the shelf chute from the US without having tinkered with it. Apart from a few justifying their existence.
I only saw a stick dropped once at Everligh in preparation for Herrick. We only had minimal stocks left and was hardly worth the effort. But we were in the process of putting PADS on the J to get winds.
A few of us had log ins to the USAFWX web site and could down load wind field files anywhere in the world. But we were not allowed to use it due to restrictions placed by the UK Computer Security Group, not the US.
Reheat, I enjoyed seeing the pics of Snoopy really. Like you I first saw the aircraft in 72/3 under conversion at Cambridge. A few years on I did a wireless mod. I was at the Mods meeting where so much discussion was focussed on the chicken. Nothing else mattered. My mod got signed up with hardly any discussion.
Well done for ignoring Reheat for the time being and posting more on airdrop. You don't see many pictures of SC8/GQ6m and what looks like a SEAC pack.
HAADs happened under an SD (Kind of UOR before UORs had been invented) whilst I was on a sabbatical back to industry. When I came back I had to formalise the clearance paperwork and support pubs. Nightmare. It was one of the first parachute Mods I signed up at Irvins. I never could understand to this day why we could not just adopt the off the shelf chute from the US without having tinkered with it. Apart from a few justifying their existence.
I only saw a stick dropped once at Everligh in preparation for Herrick. We only had minimal stocks left and was hardly worth the effort. But we were in the process of putting PADS on the J to get winds.
A few of us had log ins to the USAFWX web site and could down load wind field files anywhere in the world. But we were not allowed to use it due to restrictions placed by the UK Computer Security Group, not the US.
Reheat, I enjoyed seeing the pics of Snoopy really. Like you I first saw the aircraft in 72/3 under conversion at Cambridge. A few years on I did a wireless mod. I was at the Mods meeting where so much discussion was focussed on the chicken. Nothing else mattered. My mod got signed up with hardly any discussion.
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Dougie M re Snoopy dropping sondes over the Balkans.
We were well into the planning stage when we were stood down. We were ready to go, but as you said.....politics
We were well into the planning stage when we were stood down. We were ready to go, but as you said.....politics
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I hope you will allow me a few degrees of Starboard Drift for a moment 
A couple of pages back Brian, Smudge, TBT and I were talking about RAF Albert 'dropping' the Falcons and Red Devils. Well ... after an expedition to the loft, I found the following pics.
There was mention of the Red Devils BN-2 Islander ... Well here it is, G-AXDH, on the ground at the former Lympne Airfield Kent (just north of Dymchurch on the South Coast) taken in 1981 ... sadly the Airfield is no more
Image Credit : Mrs Coff.
Just for good measure ... Here is a pic of Mrs Coff (April 1981), then aged 18, after her 3,000' Static Line Descent from G-AXDH with the Red Devils for Charity. No broken bones !!! We married three years later in the hope of preventing any further reckless behaviour
Image Credit : Mrs Coff.
A couple of pages back Brian, Smudge, TBT and I were talking about RAF Albert 'dropping' the Falcons and Red Devils. Well ... after an expedition to the loft, I found the following pics.
There was mention of the Red Devils BN-2 Islander ... Well here it is, G-AXDH, on the ground at the former Lympne Airfield Kent (just north of Dymchurch on the South Coast) taken in 1981 ... sadly the Airfield is no more
Image Credit : Mrs Coff.
Just for good measure ... Here is a pic of Mrs Coff (April 1981), then aged 18, after her 3,000' Static Line Descent from G-AXDH with the Red Devils for Charity. No broken bones !!! We married three years later in the hope of preventing any further reckless behaviour
Image Credit : Mrs Coff.
Last edited by CoffmanStarter; 28th Aug 2015 at 15:20.
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The Big 500,000 Reached !
Thanks to everyone who has contributed to our Herc Thread ... clearly a lot of people have enjoyed reading the tales of RAF Albert and his gallant Air & Ground Crews ...
Best ...
Coff.
Thanks to everyone who has contributed to our Herc Thread ... clearly a lot of people have enjoyed reading the tales of RAF Albert and his gallant Air & Ground Crews ...
Best ...
Coff.