RAF and Autoland
 

I read in a recent report that the Vulcans were equipped with Autoland in the wake of the 1956 Heathrow crash but I understood that the Autoland system was developed specifically for BEA and its Trident fleet in the 1960s.

Did the RAF develop a similar or more basic system before its introduction by BEA as I have also been told that the RAF Belfast fleet was also Autoland equipped as were the ex-BA Tristars that the RAF had after BA but when introduced into military service the Autoland facility was removed or not used?

I believe that auto land was used in the Tristar, once anyway.....

DC10, not my area but IIRC I think it was installed at Scampton where there were leader cables. It was not installed at Coningsby or Waddington. I don't think it was used..

At least twice. I was sitting behind him when he used autoland at MPA on the very first landing at MPA.

I think Ken is talking about at Brize PN.

Loads of info on this thread from a few years back

https://www.pprune.org/aviation-hist...c-landing.html

Should provide the OP with a lot of answers

Wasn't the original auto-land trialled at Bedford using Anson's?

The main post-war work was undertaken by the BLEU using Varsity aircraft.

https://abpic.co.uk/pictures/full_si...7436-large.jpg

I thought he actually did it at Lyneham. Same Captain, MPA first. Ken did say 'at least'

Auto land is a very loose term. The Vulcan system was used as a teaching aid for my Flight Systems training at Cosford in 1980. The aircraft basically flew the ILS, then at approx 50’, the throttle closed and the aircraft flared a bit. No real finesse in the action.

I was led to believe that the Lightning was to be developed as a remotely operated interceptor and that auto ILS and auto throttle were developed for it.

ZD 951 landed at Edinburgh back in 1992. As I was inbetween jobs on the ramp I had the chance to go along and have a look around it. I had a word with the Captain and he kindly allowed me into the Cockpit. I had recently finished my Auto-pilot course and recognised the ‘Barber poles’ of the para visual display indicating that the Aircraft had Cat IIIb capability. I commented on this and was told that although the Aircraft could do it, the Aircrew were only allowed to land in Cat I conditions.

From my course – as I remember – five requirements had to be met before an Autoland could be carried out; the Airline had to have procedures in place such as identifying and labelling the relevant black boxes, the Aircraft had to be Autoland certified, the Aircrew had to be trained and qualified, the Airfield had to have the necessary standard of equipment and those carrying out the Maintenance on the system had to be Autoland qualified.

1964 or 65, A15 Cranwell to Lincoln for a play rehearsal with Nige Griffiths and others and in thick fog the Waddington traffic lights go red. Odd, we thought, in this fog, at which point a BLEU Varsity trundles into view and lands. Shape of things to come we thought

There was a great story in “Air Clues” years ago about a crew en route to an airfield where the weather was supposed to be terrible. They were considering diverting but when they went to the approach frequency they heard someone saying the weather was “perfect, great”. After a very fraught approach they just got in to see the other aircraft had “Blind Landing Experimental Unit” painted on the side.

I believe that a Tristar demonstrating autoland at Brize Norton suffered a very heavy landing with enormous damage to the aircraft. It happened late 1985 or early 1986. Maybe someone has more details.

Decades ago I saw a picture of the BLEU Varsity parked neatly in the roof of a house, maybe someone with more tech savvy than me (not difficult) can find/post said photo.

Home

This one? (Can't do pics)

CG

charliegolf,

Thanks for that link, what an incredibly well written and concise account.

BLEU in the 1970s

My last flying tour in the RAF, having been on Hastings, Hercules and VC10s beforehand, was to be with the BLEU Flight at RAE Bedford where between 1975 and 77 our main trials workhorses were HS748 XW 750 and BAC 1-11 XX 105.

Whilst 'Fog Flying' with the HS748 was the activity most commonly associated with BLEU, in fact there were several other activities connected with approach and landing performance that kept us occupied. As Fog Flying required extremely low Runway Visual Ranges to meet the requirements of the boffins on clear days we used an in-house developed 'Fog Blind' that, located in the left hand windscreen area, obscured the forward vision of the pilot in that seat (P1). Stabilised in pitch and roll, it 'opened up' a visual segment as programmed by the on-board BLEU scientists who then recorded how the pilot and the aircraft responded as the external visual cues became progressively evident. However, when very low visibilities existed we would get airborne and make a succession of autopilot approaches with P1 deciding whether or not to land, whilst P2 remained head down throughout monitoring deviations from the ILS. The pilots changed over after three approaches as P1 would have started to become familiar with the cues visible over the threshold. We didn't stop between approaches but carried out 'touch and goes': in thick fog all you can see is the 'streaming' of white lights as they pass under the nose. With P1 making sure that the aircraft stayed on the centreline P2 carried out all the internal changes of configuration and all on board trusting that the aircraft would get airborne again before we ran out of runway!. I should add that the on-board scientists might (or might not) cause P1's ILS localiser indicator to be off-set left or right of the true course so that as P1 saw the external cues he had to decide whether or not he might safely make an 'S' turn to align the aircraft with the runway centreline. P2 saw only the correct, unbiased localiser and glide slope indications. All manoeuvres were recorded on board as well as by the Bedford team of ladies who operated the highly accurate ground-based kinetheodolites, helping to develop standards for ground and aircraft equipment. It was all quite exciting, really.

Together with the BAC 1-11 we conducted Two Segment and Steep Approaches trialling autopilot laws that would deliver a smooth initiation of the upper glide slope, transition to 'normal' ILS guidance, and flares together with developing optimal external guidance to assist the pilot handling to execute a smooth roundout and touchdown and associated noise footprints. One of the aids we used was a set of four boxes, each of which emitted red and white beams divided precisely - the forerunner of what became PAPIs, Precision Approach Path Indicators, that ICAO were later to agree could be chosen as an alternative to VASIs. The aviation Press were shown PAPIs when we demonstrated the capabilities of a Mk 1 Ground Proximity Warning System at Bedford: whilst the 'level flight towards rising terrain' mode was carried out over the Malvern Hills, the remaining modes were demonstrated at our airfield where the PAPIs (that our man on the ground set to different slide path angles as needed) provided helpful positional and steep approach slope guidance. The Press were in fact more interested in PAPIs than in GPWS! It was whilst subsequently when I was serving in MoD that I learnt that funds targeted for the introduction of Tornados would not be spent before the end of that particular financial year and persuaded my bosses to sponsor industry to produce some sets for use at two RAF airfields where stabilised approaches would be of benefit. The success of this experiment encouraged the manufacturer to continue building PAPIs and now, of course, they may be encountered at many if not most aerodromes in the world that serve international air traffic. Much of the credit goes to those scientists at Bedford who saw the potential for this research aid to benefit both civil and military operations.

Much more went on at BLEU whilst I was there with the two aeroplanes I have mentioned, plus a Wessex 2 (for Microwave Digital Guidance Equipment trials) and the ex Radar Research Establishment Varsity WF 379 that we used for communications flying. And of course we helped our colleagues in Aero Flight when they needed a second pilot to sit in any of the miscellaneous aircraft they rejoiced in flying such as VC10, Puma, HS125, etc.

One last comment. Alongside the main runway at Bedford there was a device for measuring RVR by the conventional means of having a beam of energy directed at a sensor that would detect any loss due to intervening moisture etc. Strangely, there were occasions when in the morning when the Met staff went to retrieve the recorded data they would find that the readings had dropped suddenly to zero visibility whilst there was no other evidence that fog had occurred. One night they kept the device under close observation and saw, to their surprise, that a little owl had landed on the transmitting element and snuggled himself in - to keep warm!

Tristar autoland was excellent. THe R A F 'incident' was a product of the usual 'holes in the cheese' syndrome. When I was involved with the Tri, the, then, BA Fleet boss told me of a day's schedule LHR-CDG x2 which was flown , to schedule and with the only sight of the ground being the taxiing at each end. A good basic system was made better by the Tristar's DLC.

Thanks for those details Nugget!
I think your work will have helped make some of the tremendous improvements in approach aids and GPWS the success that they are! :ok:

OAP

Yes, it was LYN not BZN https://www.pprune.org/rumours-news/...eleased-2.html, read on on following page, same Captain that I flew with into MPA, again a late decision that P2 and FE could not question.I

The second assertion that it was at BZN is true in that Brize was where it landed ]i] after[/i] the prang at Lyneham

I believe there was a link between the radar and the autopilot in the design with the aim of providing an auto-attack mode but nobody had the b***s to activate it.

EAP

There was a planned datalink to the ground based SLEWC system to feed commands for the pilot to follow - similar to that fitted in the USA between SAGE and the F-106 using the MA-1.

The software was still in SLEWC though and, during my first tour, we still had a monthly requirement to do simulated intercepts using it. It took 2 controllers, one pushing all the buttons whilst the other watched the screen for flight safety. If you were really good you could do 2 simultaneous intercepts - which a single controller could do manually anyway.

It was also so slow that the minimum range at which it would take an inputted intercept was about 100nm. At shorter ranges you moved the fighter label back off the fighter till yo7 had the range and let the label fly the computed course - then manually gave instructions to the fighter to fly it under the label....

Thankfully it quickly dropped out of use.

OR946 as fitted to the Gnat still had 'TAC' and 'DL' selector modes, but the data link wasn't operative. Instead the selections gave 'direct' TACAN indications or as modified by the superb offset system.

The odd student completed a TAC dive in the wrong mode and was surprised by what he saw at the bottom of the dive!

ORAC, around 1965 we were target for a Lightning using the 'system' but IIRC the data was passed as voice commands for the pilot to follow rather than by link. I seem to remember the dalek type commands like steer 085, accelerate 1.3 mach Now, climb 410 Now etc rather than to smooth mouth music.

Despite assertions to the contrary, the incident occurred at BZN and not LYN, and is (or at least was) one of the incidents highlighted during the Flying Authorisors and Flying Supervisors cses.

A friend of mine who was on 10 Sqn at the time watched the Tristar fly the visual circuit whilst spewing out a cloud of fuel.

At the time there were no RAF manuals for the a/c so crews relied on a mishmash of letters/memos/loose minutes as well as the British Airways manuals. There was, therefore, a belief that the a/c was cleared for autoland when it was not. Additionally there was also a belief that the narrow beamed ILS at BZN could allow Cat 3.

The TC had flown a visual cct and decided to extend it then turn in and capture the ILS using autopilot. The resultant capture was late meaning that the a/c was well above the glideslope and causing the AP to 'hunt' with a resultant high RoD This resulted in a heavy ldg with a concomitantly large bounce. At that point the TC, rather than attempting to Go Round, retarded the throttles. Since autoland had been selected, this action caused the spoilers to deploy and the a/c literally fell out of the sky causing a second heavy landing (and cracking the mainspar). At this point the TC decided to get airborne again and fly a visual cct to land.

IIRC the coment on the CVR was: "It's not supposed to do that" (!!)

Timelord

re: Your #15 - it's Neil Williams following the Varsity in to the approach - he's flying a Hastings.

The full story is in his book 'Airborne' ISBN-10: 190655921X

a great read.

Arc

ExAscoteer.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought the problem was that the autoland wasn't armed, just the ILS approach mode. That meant the aircraft never entered the "flare" mode, but just kept on going down at the R.O.D. it had when the G/S guidance was lost.

You're correct. It's a long time ago but ISTR A/L TRACK mode required 30 seconds of being established on the localiser (LOC 'captured' BLACK) before the Autoland system would arm. This didn't happen in the circuit and it happened as Herod describes. ExAscoteer is also wrong regarding the subsequent details - the damage was done to the a/c on the second bounce which was far heavier. The TP disconnected the autopilot on the first bounce (with no 'FLARE' mode) and then pushed the control column forward. This had the effect of removing most of the lift from the wing rather than changing the attitude of the a/c as the DLC (Direct Lift Control) was active with landing flap, which meant the spoilers came out.

It was a source of great annoyance among Sqn pilots that as a result of this, autoland was completely off the agenda thereafter. However, there was some discussion of autoland being allowed for operational necessity when 216 Sqn were based at MXP for Op Deny Force etc due to the winter fog, but it came to naught when the base moved to PMO.

Where's Autoland? Do we have many base there?

FB:)

The main problem with the ZE 705 "incident" was that the A/land selection was made at too low an altitude not giving the aircraft systems enough time etc. You will find that on many aircraft nowadays when you make the Approach selection there is a minimum altitude that it has to be selected by, any lower then the system is not engaged. For example by 600 ft radio altitude. This was the problem when a certain training person decided to show off and "look what this aircraft has fitted - Autoland", but he did not know/realise that the selection had to be made above a minimum radio altitude.

I might be wrong on the nitty gritty given that I was using notes taken from my Flying Authorisers cse of some 25+ years ago.


However I said:

Which rather indicates the damage being done on the second bounce...

I don't disagree with that. No offence meant. It was the 'closing of the throttles causing the spoilers to deploy' that was incorrect - the pushing forward on the control column caused this and was a foible of the TriStar in landing configuration.

I always thought that studying the incident on the FLAC was a bit harsh as it meant the rest of the RAF flying community thought 216 Sqn pilots were 'numpties' - as far as I know, the pilot in question wasn't on the Sqn, but was from Boscombe Down, although I'm open to correction on that.

I've looked online for the BOI proceedings, but can't find it. Anyone have a link?

As a technical cadet at Henlow I visited the BLEU at Bedford on April 17th 1962 - flew in their Varsity WF 387 with Sqn Ldr Bray as the aircraft captain.

'Twas really weird as non aircrew jumpseater I was rather entranced when the BLEU Pig wandered in seemingly of its own volition with the pilot equally seemingly taking no damn notice

Re. the tri at BZN, I was tech instructing on the Tristar at BA at that time and we were told that it was down to an attempted VERY late a/l selection - quite specifically contrary to the Ops Manual instruction. I kept a copy of the report for some time but it has disappeared in one of a multitude of 'backup' storage devices!

Yup! That's a pretty good abbreviated description of a Cat IIIb Autoland system. It leaves out all the confusing technical details and cuts through to the essentials. ;)

I was on a Course at Brize on that particular day of the “heavy landing” and walking up to the mess with an army colleague who looked up and commented “its a bit poor the Tristar is dumping fuel in the circuit”. My reply was to hurry up and enter the mess, when asked why, I replied that if we didn’t see any more we couldn’t be a witness at any subsequent BOI!

Q-SKI. My take was different. If you witnessed the accident, you couldn't be a MEMBER of the BOI. A much more onerous task.