Remerberance
 

From the Trident comments - does anyone remember Capt Jimmy Green c 1967 (ish) a BEA Captain?

G G

Lederhosen
 

As an SLF 'Flight Deck Groupie', when such things were possible :sad: I remember a 1983 Autoland approach to (I think) 10R at LHR in a BA 737 ex Moscow. We could see aircraft on approach disappearing into the clag from about overhead Beaconsfield VOR and all innocent, I asked if we would doing an autoland?

The reply was that they wouldn't, ordinarily, do one because they would probably break out at 1000ft and land mandraulically, but since I'd asked and they hadn't done one in a few weeks ...... :eek:

It was fascinating and just like the first film clip. The FO sat with his hands on his knees, watching and the Captain was turned round chatting to me! Mind you, just before touch down they both said "Ohhh no!" and there was a hell of a bang on landing. Stuff fell out of the rack behind me and I was clearing it off the centre console as we braked. :rolleyes: Obviously I asked ......

Apparently the Trident and BAC111 had their A/L set up to do 'greasers' on the long runways of Europe, but Boeing set up theirs to trip the WOW switches "on the zebra stripes". Obviously so the 737 can land in foul weather at indifferent airfields in Battle Creek, Michigan without falling off the runway. :rolleyes: A very interesting evening that. :D And if you are still reading; thanks to those two and all the other crews who put up with me in dozens of cockpits around the world. :)

Roger.

We have to do one a month for currency plus the real ones so over the years I have probably done a couple of hundred on the 737. Actually I don't think it does a bad job, not noticeably worse than us anyway. :}

I do not believe it is set up to make a dirty dive for the beginning of the runway, however good a story that might be. It follows the glideslope which as a cursory scan of the Jepp chart shows can lead to a quite different point. It also doesn't call you a retard in the flare, a pleasure I am soon to enjoy.

However if you do a practice autoland for currency purposes unprotected (e.g. low vis procedures not in force) there seems to be a marked tendency on our early NGs for the autopilots to trip out when the previous aircraft clears the runway.

I am fascinated by Prober's story of trying to autoland off a non precision approach. The concept of the aircraft flying based on memory seems to have been resurrected in part on our newer aircraft which are more tolerant of minor beam deviations. So again there is not much new under the sun. However the rest of it (and the earlier VSP anecdote) reinforces why some pilots get into management and maybe should stay there.

Pretty much.

I remember one of my instructors talking about auto-land. He said: "The autopilot doesn't care for a greaser. Its job is to put the airplane in the TDZ, sometimes it pulls a greaser but when the conditions are appropriate it comes out quite a smack-down"

The film was ALL IN A DAYS FLYING - 1965 director Richard Dimbleby and narrated Johnny Morris who did Animal magic.
It showed a VC10 trip with captain Bill Williams and his son who was at Hamble at the time as well as a Trident one with a GVA and Nice turnaround with shopping excursions. ( Nice was rather impoverished at the time)
The Trident 1 carried out a typical controlled crash - no real attempt to kick off the drift or flare.
We all winced when we were shown it during current affairs at Hamble - thought that the landing should have been left on the cutting room floor!
It was shown as a B movie and for recruiting for the corporations.
Still available for around a tenner from Phil Nelson - link via the Hamble website.
A very good example of the privileged life of a pilot in both of the corporations at the time.
I was one of a handful of guys who experienced both the gripper and the Iron duck.

Speaking of the Trident wing versus the 727 -take a look at this cracking shot. The way that wing 'came apart' always impressed me.

http://www.pprune.org/spectators-bal...fahd-b727.html

Have enjoyed reading this thread. Flew a lot on Tridents (as SLF) from the mid 70's and loved the aircraft from a pax point of view although some interesting moments.

Any support for a Trident thread on AH & N for some more of those stories?

Prober - was it Capt. Ormonroyd who was the intrepid aviator that removed the Comets fin in a low go-around at Bedford?



ASN Aircraft accident de Havilland DH-106 Comet 3B XP915 Bedford-Thurleigh Airport

It was in the days of training accidents seemed to be part of normal life in the BEA group (several tridents, the odd Vanguard and Airtours 707).

Thanks for that Pew - hadn't heard of that one although my father told many tales of many others. He'd spend weeks on T1's and T2's at Shannon and Prestwick doing base training at a time when fuel was cheap and I presume simulators poor. He certainly got rather tired of being required to use autoland as often as possible to build up the reference database. He claimed that the passengers didn't like it as it was prone to give a rather more agricultural arrival than the manual version. I presume today it'd all be done on the simulator.

AH & N?
 

errrr.... what's AH &N?
(And while I'm displaying my ignorance, where on PPrune does it tell you how to insert quotes in messages?)
Steve

AH & N means...
 

Aviation Hobby & Nostalgia :cool:

Try this?

http://www.pprune.org/aviation-history-nostalgia-86/

Shannon base training
 

The 1st Trident sims were very sophisticated - by the standards of the day!!

I was on one of the first Hamster courses so if cremeegg's dad was a trainer he may have done me.... be interesting to know but would kind of bust your anonymity. Anyway at that time (winter 65-66? again I'll have to find the logbook) the sim. was not approved for stall training, so we did full aerodynamic stalls in the aircraft at Shannon. Must have been exciting for those skippers, with a kid with all of 250 hours in each of the other 2 operating seats, and a T-tail aircraft with a known deep stall potential! The supervisory F/Os assigned to "mentor" us had their work cut out and were outstanding guys as well.

One story about the Shannon Base Training.

We were on day 1, Geoff Fowkes (lovely gent) was the boss. We must have spent 45 mins doing the preflight setup (remember we had no "part function simulators" or "procedures mockups"), while the Shannon ground mech is hanging around underneath on the headset in the winter breeze. Eventually Geoff says "Hello Ground, we're ready to start".
"Sorry skipper, it'll be just a moment now, we've got a shift change". Click of intercom, we watch him walk off to the hut. We twiddle our thumbs for 10 minutes and there's another click on the intercom. "OK skipper you're clear to start now".

Geoff: "are you the gentleman who was here before?"
Ground "that's roight"
Geoff "I thought you were having a shift change?"
Ground "That's roight, oi'm on a double shift today! Do you want to start up?"

So we start, taxy off and fly circuits for several hours before returning to the pleasures of the Limerick Intercontinental Hotel, our first experience of the lavish lifestyle we were to become accustomed to as "BEA pilots on the fastest jet airliner in the world" (well it was at the time !!)......

As not much response to my suggestion that a new thread on AH&N might elicit more fascinating insight into this aircraft maybe a new technical question - Mods feel free to move/delete or suggest a completely new thread if you feel too much thread creep here!!

From my few visits to the 'Best Seats In The House' end of the Trident I recall that it apparently had a moving map display which seemed to consist of a paper (?) scroll and a moving pen? I cant imagine how this worked let alone how you guys used it on longer sectors.

Wookey,
It seems most of the Trident crowd has congregated here, so why not stay here?

"....a moving map display which seemed to consist of a paper (?) scroll and a moving pen?"
Ah, you're opening a new can of worms as well!
No, the scroll was some type of Mylar, and the moving pen was a moving marker.
But I'm as curious as you to hear a bit more about its workings!

By the time Concorde came around, they'd progressed to a projected moving map display, using projected maps stored on film.
And in the case of Concorde it was thrown out almost as soon as it arrived... a bit useless over water, and replaced by the INS.
Only the prototypes had it, and even then only in the earlier days.

CJ

The moving map was worked by "Doppler" and that also showed on the Doppler Ground Speed and drift instrument above it. The First Officer put the Doppler map position right occasionally when passing a fix. Then it did its own thing by applying its own calculated speed and drift. It did not, in my experience, do this very well and I always said that Doppler was only right when the First Officer had put it right!

I thought the Trident had Decca Harco navigation with moving map display.
I seem to recall that it was fitted to the BAC 1-11s of BEA also.
I saw a few of these at Hurn in the early '70s.
I also worked on a Jetstream and a Hughes 500 with Decca Danac which was similar to the Harco.

Doppler and the Trident's Voice Activated Autopilot
 

The Doppler navigation used a x-shaped antenna in the belly - it rotated so that when each side was reading an equal groundspeed the angle relative to centreline = drift.

There’s more info on a couple of other pprune pages and a good photo at Photos: Hawker Siddeley HS-121 Trident 3B Aircraft Pictures | Airliners.net

The Special Reactive Instant Navigation Geographic Current Location Indicator Pointer” (SPRINGCLIP) fixed just above the map in the pictures is holding a bare metal rod I think, initially there was a pen with a little ink reservoir on it. The idea was to have a permanent “flight recorder readout” of actual track flown for record purposes e.g. to improve airspace usage etc., most F/Os were glad that got dropped pretty early as there was often more ink on fingers than map! Also the maps had to be route specific so started to be significant cost as single use items.

Drift could be fed to the autoflight system, in fact IIRC the steering was actually looking to keep commanded track not heading per se. Just below the compass you can see a horizontal rectangle with 4 white marks on it (can’t remember what they are). This covered a drift selector, with it open you set drift yourself (e.g. to fly radar heading set it to zero) and with it closed as in the picture drift was auto. (I think!!)

The current “actual drift and G/S” are just above the map in the picture. As PeteMcleland has just pointed out this could be adjusted because Doppler wasn’t always reliable especially above e.g. smooth water or snow. The adjustment was by an X shaped switch at the rear of the centre pedestal. Move the switch > change the drift and groundspeed readouts. As Peter says the actual display motors could also be adjusted to drive the pointer around the map.

Voice activated autopilot. This was a very advanced feature only occasionally demonstrated to a certain category of SLF. It was only available after the introduction of the Cockpit Voice Recorder and required good outside visibility. The mike for the CVR was located in the overhead towards the back of the centre panel. Remember the Gripper had 3 pilots. Remember F/Os flew alternate legs as RHS pilot and “Flight Engineer” (all qualified in both seats). Also we operated with noise muffler headsets and used intercom as standard.
Suitable SLF asks usual questions – gosh isn’t it small in here, do you understand all those knobs and dials, what do you do all the time ‘cos it’s all automatic now isn’t it?” 2 front pilots deal with SLF questions, P3(F/E) apparently oblivious of visitor.
Response to question 3 “yes it’s so automatic we don’t even have to turn any knobs any more, it’s voice activated”
“NO!?!”
“want a demo? OK lean forward a bit and speak into that mike.” (You see where the SLF needed appropriate qualifications now) “ Say clearly “TURN LEFT”.
SLF: “TURN LEFT!”
P3's left hand resting nonchalantly on rear of centre console increases right drift ……. Autopilot senses drift error, banks aircraft left …………
You get the drift I’m sure….
Steve

slast,
Steve... ROFLMAO re the VOAP....

Thanks for the other info too.... so I was wrong, and it was indeed paper at the time. (Love the perforations...)

dixi188,
The Doppler of course was "dead-reckoning" and "self-contained" if indeed less accurate than INS or nowadays GPS.

Decca would provide a "true position", but IIRC, by that time Decca coverage (being ground-based) was totally inadequate for the typical BEA route structure.

Looking forward to more info.

CJ

Steve,

Above the box where you type your words into your post there is a small yellow cartoon quote. Highlight any of you own text or any you have copied and pasted, and click on this.

Flew all the Tridents for 14 years (once or twice with you)....happy days.

Blind Pew and Comet Fin
 

No, I know who I think it was. All I can say is that Capt O was NOT cocky, but apart from that I had better go no further.
Prober

The Super 1-11 had Harco and I loved it...I only flew it as a First Officer and I remember that some Captains were not to happy with it. I remember you had to remember a particular circuit breaker to punch in and out a few times on the first trip of the day if it was reluctant to wake up...After that it was good as gold!

I never flew the Trident as a First Officer but I flew the Trident 3 as Captain from 1975 till it retired in 1985...36794 in your logbook if you flew with me :)

Peter

My logbook has your signature and that very number by some sectors on 05 Oct 83 and also 10 Feb 84.

And a similar signature on my membership card for a club in North London!

Good to hear from you, and I trust all is well with you Peter!

Best Regards

Trident Sim

Trident simulator visual.

The Trident sim was fitted with a visual display - it was a rubber conveyor belt around 6 ft wide and 20 ft long and mounted vertically.

The black and white TV camera was mounted above it and positioned by two threaded rods to give vertical and horizontal displacement from the belt centre line.

The cloud base was controlled by a sheet of frosted glass positioned in front of the camera.

The airport buildings and runway were made of paper and card with trees and grass made form those bits of kit used by model railway enthusiasts.

On one of the last exercises taken by a non flying simulator instructor I was given a main gear collapse after landing, the belt flexed and the camera lens touched the paper runway.
Unfortunately for the crews for the next few days the lens tore the paper which proceeded to peal away in an ever increasing roll.
I shouted to my fellow trainee to duck as we were going to hit a road roller and we careered across the tarmac and destroyed the hangar.

We P****d ourselves and were taken down into the guts of the machinery to see the results of our incident - looked like the bark on a silver birch.
The instructor had humour failure and talked about the consequences for us but after I reminded him that he had initiated the gear failure he calmed down but still didn't see the funny side of it!

Fortunately never did the Trident high fly but was told of a stick push exercise which nearly went wrong - the nose just remained pointing skywards after the push fired - it took several seconds before it slowly descended!!!!
Believe it was stopped soon afterwards.

Did a High fly on the Duck though - scared me s******s.
We didn't do the full Trident stall rubbish but dutch roll recovery. I still believe that dutch roll was a necessary exercise whereas the stall exercise was stupidity personified.
The Duck had a periscope to observe the huge T tail. The exercise was limited to 30 degrees of bank after a trainee had put in the wrong correction with 60 degrees of bank and got the wings through the vertical.
I am still amazed how much the T tail flexed without breaking off - the tips must have moved at least five feet.

My only real emergency was a dutch roll type of incident on the Duck when we thought it was going to break up - after declaring a mayday, reversing course and initiating the descent I decided to try and hand fly it - contrary to my trident teachings - the movement had got so bad that ceiling panels were falling down.
Punched out the A/P and the dutch roll type of movement stopped - runaway roll or yaw damper which apparently had never happened before.
Got plastered in Hong Kong.

Moving Map Display

Thanks for the explanations so far. This is probably a stupid question but looking at the picture link from slast's post it seems that the map movement was up and down ( north/south) while the pointer/marker could track sideways (W/E). What happened if you were flying a sector with a significant W-E component? Was the map scale adjusted to allow for the travel limitattions of the marker. If this was the case how positionally accurate would some of the longer W-E sectors be, say London - Moscow (if the Trident operated this route).

I seem to remember that the map roll was oriented with the E-W bit to N-S if you see what I mean! :)

Wow bet that was interesting. Cant imagine trying to read my sat nav rotated through 90 degrees !

It's what you're used to, isn't it? Modern civilian satnav wouldn't hit the market until nearly 40 years after the Trident first flew!

The technology might have been a bit steampunk by comparison (with attendant reliability issues), but some of the innovations in the Trident's avionics were truly special.

I don't think she'd have had the range for London to Moscow though... ;)

OK, I know who you are then...How nice to hear from you again. Yes, all is well with me I took early retirement when the Tridents went and I came to the Southwest with my boat and married again. Are you retired now?

Longest sector I travelled on a Trident was Tel Aviv - LHR (needed a tech stop in geneva as I remember) which has a significant W-E and N-S component. Again can I ask if the map scale is adjusted to allow for this and if so how accurately were you guys at the front able to establish your position?

I have no personal experience, but there's a good thread on it here...

http://www.pprune.org/tech-log/38428...echanical.html

Wookey,
London-Rome would also be SE-NW.
I hope somebody will confirm this, but I would expect they would be route maps, oriented along the track from A to B, rather than oriented N-S or E-W, and that when operating a given route you would have loaded the relevant map.
Not sure how you coped with a significant diversionn though.

This was long before you could put the entire map of Europe and the display electronics into a little box the size of a cigarette package .....

CJ

No, no, each sector had its own roll and it was track orientated...Same as Harco. You picked up the map roll with all the other clutter for the nav bag at briefing. Navigation on the Trident was certainly NOT done with the moving map...It was done with VORs and NDBs as indicated on an RMI. You could lock the autopilot to a VOR radial and uncage the drift shutter if you wished but mostly the autopilot would be locked to Heading and the handling pilot would steer with the heading pointer knob on the compass, changing heading as the RMI needle swung round to indicate the passage of a fix and make a small allowance for drift as appropriate.

We didn't have glass cockpits in Tridents you know!

Here an old picture in the cruise...Note the MachNo:-
http://www.petermcleland.com/trident/Trident010.jpg

Seeing as all you great Trident guys are here, can I please ask a few questions.

How much was the extra "half engine" actually used on the Trident 3B, was it only if the boost was really needed ? Was it eventually given up and removed ?

Why was the nosewheel offset when virtually every other manufacturer managed to design it in the centre. Did it make any difference when taxiing ?

As the Trident was used on many of the sectors to socialist eastern Europe at the time (1960s-80s), what were the loads like ? Is it true that these trips were often operated virtually empty ?

Great picture Peter and thanks for the explanation. I think I now understand the process much better!!
Mach no. noted as well. I seem to recall from a friend who used to fly Tridents that he called the T2 the GT version as it had better performance than the other variants.

Yes the T2 was the sports car varient and it climbed higher up to about 42,000 feet...The T3 was limited to 35,000 feet and had no "Drop Down" passenger oxygen system. The plastic Boost Engine had 5500 lbs of thrust and you used it for take-off if the runway length or air temperature were limiting. You could also light it in the air if extra thrust was required if you had lost a main engine.

I did lots of Warsaws on the T3 and it was always very full...Often with no seats left at all.

The sideways retracting nosewheel saved an enormous amount of space to put the electronics bay in.

Moscow was certainly a regular non-stopper with, I believe, only T2's. My father had an unscheduled week there trying to fix a couple of errant starter motors. Remember him talking about some "interesting" readings on the radiation meter as they flew over certain parts of eastern Europe.

Tel Aviv also a regular non-stopper - out and back. Again I think only with the T2. Used to have huge bags of citrus fruit brought back from those trips that the family much enjoyed.

Off Set Nose Gear
 

I was told that because the Cat3 autoland was so accurate the nose gear had to be offset to prevent discomfort to the pax as the nose wheels would be bumping along the runway lights!!!!!! :E (I was an apprentice engineer at the time and believed everything the old salts told me)

All those years of pax briefings on the Shuttle T3s (and also the T1s they used at first) and I never noticed this. The Caravelle was the same but when these were sold to United Airlines in the US the FAA would not allow this and they had to be re-engineered with an overhead oxy system. The Trident of course was never certified in the US - or was it ?

That was the reason for the 35000 feet altitude limit...No drop down Oxy. No, I don't think it was ever certified in the US.