Questions about landing having run out of fuel
 

Hi, I am reading 'In Plain Sight: The Life and Lies of Jimmy Savile' by Dan Davies. Davies recounts how Savile told him:

[‘I came across here, 50 feet from where we are now, in the back seat of a Buccaneer with the Police Air Arm. We just missed the Grand Hotel; took two windows out. We were supposed to refuel in the air but the tanker couldn’t take off. So we ran out of fuel. I’m sitting strapped into this bloody amazing thing.’

He explained the jet had to divert to RAF Honiton. ‘They told us they would put the arrester wires out and we’d see if we could pull those bloody great concrete blocks out of the ground. We hit the ground at 350 miles per hour, because we had no fuel left, and the thing caught on the arrester wire, and the next minute you’re standing still.’]

War Thunder says Buccaneer landings should be made at below 249mph.

I presume Savile/Davies meant the Fleet Air Arm, part of the Royal Navy. Why would running out of fuel mean you had to land faster than normal? Because the flaps wouldn't work? Presumably the (wheel) brakes wouldn't work either, increasing the need for the arrester wires - is that right? Thanks.

Salute!

Have you ever flown a sailplane or glider?

I am not sure you have to land faster than normal if in an unintentional glider! Having done it myself one day after being shot up, it was not that big of a deal. Especially if you had practiced it a bit. I had the pleasure of being close to a field and could spiral down, but no speed brakes or hydraulics...just fly best AoA, maybe slip a bit if too high without gaining speed and aim for a third way down the runway. Piece of cake. Also a good story for commercial folks if you Google "Gimli Glider". Quite a feat, IMHO.

I can unnerstan faster touchdown if no flaps or whatever, but I can tellya that I lost a lotta speed in the flare and was glad I had aimed long.

Anyway, a good question and we may have a few of His Majesty's best that have done it in the RAF crowd that dominates here.

Gums sends...

Do you land faster than normal or do you approach faster than normal? At a rough estimate. 99% of the landings I have done have been without fuel. In each case the approach was equal to or above cruise, depending on conditions, but the battle.between gravity and lift was usually lost around the stalling speed, and in ideal circumstances, with the minimum of distance between the wheel and the ground..

I’ve not flown one but I do know that the the Bucaneer had “blown” control surfaces. Air from the engine compressors was directed over them to allow better control to lower the landing speed (bearing in mind that the aircraft was designed to land on carriers). Having said that, I think the landing speed quoted is an exaggeration!

Seems like a pretty strong Tail Hook to withstand snagging a cable at 350MPH!

A Buccaneer with no fuel would not glide very far! I suspect there is rather a lot of, let’s be kind, “ journalistic licence” in there.
Police Air Arm = Fleet Air Arm
Ran out of fuel = Had to land earlier than planned.
Honiton = Honnington
Took the cable as a demonstration.

If any of it happened at all!

HONINGTON!

Quite right, sorry.

]

​​​​​​​Says it all .......

I used to live in Holme on Spalding Moor, quite close to the HSA airfield where I occasionally worked on detachment from Brough. I remember one Friday afternoon, probably in the 1970's, there was a Buccaneer being flown very enthusiastically at low level around the airfield, which was unusual since 'the works' normally finished at lunchtime on Friday. The word in the office on the following Monday was that Jimmy Saville had been in the back seat and it was an RN display pilot, so maybe he did once fly in a Buccaneer.
I am pretty sure no Buccaneer was ever landed after running out of fuel. I think one did run out of fuel during an air test from Aldergrove as a result of the fuel jettison valves failing open after testing the system, but that one crashed and was written off.

Hi! Yes I have copiloted a glider but I didn't land it.

Thanks for all the replies. There is an RAF Honington but it's maybe 150 miles away from Scarborough, where the quoted conversation happened. I wonder if there used to be an RAF Honiton somewhere near Scarborough. When you search for it some results come up, some of them old. The Navy flew the Buccaneer from 62 til 78 and the RAF flew them from 69 till 94. I've asked the RAF if there used to be an RAF Honiton. If there wasn't one near Scarborough this could have happened at another RAF base and he mixed up the names. Just trying to get to the bottom of this anecdote.

Many years ago, didn't a Puma pilot land very quietly on a parade square in Portugal having run out of fuel? When I say quietly, I believe that the navigator crewman made some noise about it. ;)

There was no 'manual reversion' in the Bucc, so if it ran out of fuel in the air, it would crash.

A Bucc did not need blow on for all landings; unblown landings in the appropriate configuration were quite routine.

It is quite possible that some form of GS HYD failure required a RHAG engagement and it would have made obvious sense to divert to RAF Honington when it was a Buccaneer station.

I cannot recall the datum speeds for specific Bucc configurations as it's around 46 years since I last flew one. But there's no way even a heavy unblown landing would have been at the speeds quoted.

The aircraft took off from the royal naval facilities at Sydenham Belfast ,now Belfast city airportIt went out and they tested the fuel dump over the houses of East Belfast and it failedLuckily enough a office building caught it after the pilots ejected
The faulty valve was presented to the company and is still on display at the front reception

https://aviation-safety.net/wikibase/55097

Such as: “Land now or I’ll kill you with this fire axe!” ?

Its a long time since I last looked at a Buccaneer fuel system schematic diagram but my ageing memory seems to think there were two jettison vales in series so a single valve failing open could not result in loss of all the fuel - but I may be wrong.

Probably a little out of date however fuel diagram from: [no [b]HPA/no fuel text]
https://www.docdroid.com/DzWc4jy/bla...lots-notes-pdf (11Mb free)
M.148 Buccaneer
PAGES of FUEL Text is there at front of PDF but too tiresome to make into readable text from PDF page. There is some 'landing advice' BLOWN or UNBLOWN - graphic follows.

https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....bb3d7cf214.gif

https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....9da79e3a3d.gif

Some top responses here. I'm not allowed to like posts because I don't have enough of my own presumably.

I was assuming that 'RAF Honiton' would have to be close to Scarborough, as they ran out of fuel over or close to Scarborough. But he doesn't say they ran out of fuel over or close to Scarborough, he just mentions flying over Scarborough and running out of fuel one after the other. Maybe they ran out of fuel far from Scarborough. Upon reflection he probably did mean RAF Honington, which was home to Buccaneers from 69 to 80, although you could still land one there even if none were based there.

Landing at Honiton certainly would not have gone unremarked and would have made a mess of the Hight Street.

Nearest RAF airfield to Scarborough would have been Leconfield which closed in 1977.