At BA one engine at a time is started on the 777 and 2 at one time on the 747.

"I love the A340"
 

Sorry but I despise it! All apart from the -600.

It's a sad day when a 70s vintage 747-100 outperforms an A340 of the deck. Crawling along at 180knts climbing solely due to the curvature of the earth.... The Virgin reports "we are accelerating"..... My a@%e!

In answer to my query "if given further climb can you increase your rate?". The Virgin crew simply replied "Nope!"

Honesty if nothing else!

CT: It might be nice to have lots of Ummpphhff but the designer knows the client wants to save money on fuel. :ok:

BEagle: Thanks for the run down. Sounds like good fun. The last time I saw a Vulcan in action was Bournemouth air show in 1989 (I think). They did a low level pass, then eased the nose up and 'put their foot down'. The noise of ten thousand cows bellowing was remarkably sweet. :}

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"I tell you, we are here on Earth to fart around, and don't let anybody tell you any different." Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

We used to call that the 'Rutting Dinosaur' sound! Great, wasn't it!

True BEagle, and dont we dont just know. A340 and ancient DC10 are the only aircraft I've had to pass traffic info on a/c below controlled airspace as they couldn't even keep up with the climb profile on the SID.

Can't help but wonder how it would cope with an engine failure/loss of power. From an ATC perspective, better climb/descent performance makes it far easier to get yourself out of the proverbial hole!

(Not that performance is ever used to ensure separation of course..)

The Roar of the Vulcan.

I'm still hoping to hear from someone who was on that aircraft carrier in Lyme Bay when I did everything but catch a wire before slamming throttles during a pull up.

The carrier wasn't supposed to be there particularly as we had just unloaded a full weapon bay of inert bombs through cloud in the same restricted area.

Yes yes, the A340 (aka transport glider).
A true pain in the @rse... (for ATCOs at least). :{

"340" must be some kind of mathmatical code for "doesn't climb worth a crap!" I flew the Saab 340A, and even at a medium weight during the summer, it was painfull to climb past 12000!

PS - Never fly the A model of anything.

The difference with the BAe 146 of course is that it utilises DC starter/generators. It lacks enough electrical power to start 2 simultaniously!

T

Hi Baharain lad, we start both B772/773 engines at once with serviceable Autostart system, except for 300ER which are always started one at a time. Rgds.

Hi gear door, correct 3+4+0=7. Therefore any aircraft with less than two sevens is going to be struggling to perform. Sorry airbus guys.

Delta used to start both on the push, invariably when the tug being used was one of the weaker ones, and the push back included several tight turns. Depending on how quickly they spooled up, it made things "interesting" on occasions!

On a couple of occasions, I managed to "persuade" the crew to hold the start till the push was completed, as I knew that if they got both turning before we got to where ATC wanted us to be, there was no way that the tug would get it there, it just didn't have the power to fight both engines.

757's used to be interesting in that respect as well, I'm not sure if it's the older design or what, but they always seemed to spool well above ground idle before settling back down to a much lower N1, which again could make push back a little more than interesting.

Classic 747's were the other extreme, the headset man ended up waiting by the nose gear for ever as they spooled up all 4, and one operator required a confirmation for each engine that the fan was turning before they'd continue the start, which used to cause all sorts of problems if the headset that was being used was the normal pushback headset quality. Trying to be heard above the howl of 3 engines live and one just spooling up was sometimes quite challenging. I never did find out why they had to get the headset man to confirm rotation, as it was only one operator that did it, and we didn't get much chance to talk to the crews other than during push back.

Vulcan and Victor DVD's
 

Do you guy's know of any DVD's about the Vulcan and the Victor?