It's like trees on a golf course, the rotor and stator discs in the turbine are 75% air and when they line up you can see straight through. (Or on the golf course, in my case, hit the tree.)

Thanks, Hobo. I suppose I'd assumed that turbine disks were like fan disks, less than 50% air, and that therefore one would never be able to see past both rotor and stator.

Shorly after starting up the 707's flames became invisible. Would this be because the flames themselves had reduced?

Because they were burning at a lot higher temp (and therefore different colour) than at start up maybe??

Wookey: You are absolutely on the right track, however, as Bergerie 1 says:

Any airplane, except one with electric motors, will eventually run out of steam as Weight/Altitude/Temperature increase. There's no substitute for horsepower!!

That's also one reason why you're starting to see electrically powered UAV's.

TC

Hot/High
 

An example of the difference altitude can make was demonstrated to us when we carried out a wet lease for Avianca in Bogota (8,455ft IIRC). Normal Vr would have been 120 -130 Kts. It still was as the Indicated Air Speed, but actual Ground Speed at rotate was, on average, something in the order of 195 Kts. Approach power (B757) is usually 1.16 EPR. At BOG it was 1.26.

In it's day, was the Trident economical compared to other machines?? Today, smaller Airbuses will struggle performance-wise and climb rate at high weights, but is economical once it gets into the cruise...

Cracking thread, keep it up!! Let's outdo the Concorde thread!!!

:D

BN2A
 

I think some of us are reluctant to pursue the subject for too long, for fear of becoming boring.

The average 'Gripper' driver looks back, I suspect, with a degree of adoration for the old girl (I certainly do). However, in the 90's and 00's any talk of the Gripper would be met with the response, "Oh no, not another b*oody Trident story", from the 25 year old F/O.

We old farts soon learned to keep silent. :)

Gripping as the Trident thread is, to those of us lucky to have flown in her, I doubt it will knock the Concorde thread of the top of the must read daily list, mearly due to the fact that Concorde was untenable to most mere mortals who could only dream of flying in her.

However please do not drop the Trident thread

I am glad the thread is still running-as an 'aviation enthusiast' (I stopped actual spotting at 14) living right on top of LHR Tridents were the most common site or so it seemed.
Also the most common sound but they didnt stand out that much against the Caravelles (how could two Avons make more noise than 4 or so it seemed ) VC10s etc. The T3 was also easy to tell by ear because the boost engine made a very distinctive noise.

Re-reading this fascinating thread again today it brought back a question to my mind. Sometimes when Tridents lined up for take off ( and I remember this scene with them using the intersection on as it was 10R (block79?) as the engines spooled up a jet of white vapour shot out from below the engines-was this water injection or something else?
Wonderful and fascinating variety of sights and sounds in those days at Heathrow-no doubt why I am sitting here reading PPrune 40 years on.
PB

kiltrash
 

"Concorde was untenable to most mere mortals who could only dream of flying in her."

All you needed was lots of money.:)

So far as flight crew were concerned, the Concorde fleet was listed on the annual bid-list, but very few (IMO) pilots bid for the type because...

1. It was a 7 year freeze for an F/O.
2. It was a 'final type' for a captain - ie. you're on it for life.
3. The route network was remarkably limited.
4. There was very little 'hands-on' flying.
5. Every sector was (as a flight-engineer pal of mine said of his Concorde job) "like a flaming sim-check", with so many things going wrong!
6. Fuel was always a real worry. Remember the Flight Manager who flamed-out exiting the runway?

It was a wonderful icon, and I suspect that most of us would have killed to fly it ONCE.

But as a full-time job - no way.

As a bit of light relief, here's an slight indication of how it felt to be P3... actually of course the P3 wasn't a qualified F/E and switched with the RHS P2. But this is such a good bit of aviation insider video I thought some of you might not have seen it. Anyway, as our transatlantic friends say, "Enjoy....!"
YouTube - The FE's Lament 2010 HD

PB
 

"....as the engines spooled up a jet of white vapour shot out from below the engines-was this water injection or something else?"

This was probably the oil/air mix being ejected from the engine's internal cooling/sealing outlet. Once the engines were running at power, the bearings would seal up and the oil content of the cooling air outlet would disappear. (if I remember correctly)

bizdev

Bizdev
Many thanks-I do seem to recall this was transient event but a very noticeable on the Tridents,I don't seem to recall other planes doing similar. I suppose it is one of those nice quirks of the time that came from having so many different types of aircraft. Other favourite oddities of the time were the great noise Swissair CV 990 s made and the enormous moving silencer contraption on the back of Alitalia DC8-40 engines . Apologies for thread drift into general nostalgia for LHR in the late 60s Thanks again
PB

In post 250, 777fly said:

The T1 had excellent high speed handling. I remember seeing over 0.95M during our high fly exercise (cb pulled) .......

I can guess which cb was probably pulled (:)) but I presume you wouldnt get away with this now in the nanny state we now seem to live in.

However 0.95M seems pretty impressive and I would guess not matched by any other civilian aircraft apart from Concorde?

As a copilot, I did a couple of air tests in Tridents, including several full stick pushes at various configurations. These were suprisingly 'gentle' with little or no negative g IIRC, presumably due to the low speeds at push (with the shakers going full blast of course).

We also had to do high speed runs, IIRC at .88, for 5 minutes.

Peter Hunt, IMHO the best tech manager ever, once told me that he had been involved in the flight test programme at Hatfield on the T3 with John Cunningham. This included a 'terminal velocity' dive, on each example prior to delivery, which involved winging over to a vertical dive with full power to see what the TV was.

TV
 

Well, what was it (the TV)? Don't leave us in suspense. By the way,I remember .92 was the usual high speed demo on base trg for the T1.
Prober

Way back then when oil was a sensible price was there a tendency to exploit the Tridents remarkable speed to make up time after say a delayed departure? I remember some very rapid transits from LHR to NCL !!

Just a personal memory of the speed of the Trident.

Many moons ago when I was a 23 year old co-pilot on the Viscount I was due to position from the N.E. of England to LHR on a Trident. The Captain, who was one of life's characters, and excellent if ill-advised operator, asked me if I would like a little fun. Of course says I in youthful ignorance. "OK he says, you sit in the RHS, the F/O sits in the E/O's seat and the E/O on the jump seat".

After a briefing which could hardly scratch the surface of my lack of knowledge of a jet aircraft laying particular emphasis on the setting of power on the take off run, never having operated one before, we set off into the wild blue yonder at what seemed like breakneck speed. I was used to the leisurely speed of the Viscount - I remember the routing down A1 was POL - LIC - DTY - Garston each portion of which required a position report and normally took about 10 minutes in the Vimy. Of course they all took a little less than half this and I seemed to be constantly on the r/t. I really didn't know which way to look as we rocketed up to FL260 then down again.

Of course we survived and a great time was had by all except the E/O who was distinctly uncomfortable with proceedings and 2 years later I was flying the 1-11, I never again sat in an operating seat of the Trident. I might add in slight mitigation that I had previously been allowed to hand fly a Britannia 102 by the same Captain on an empty positioning flight in cruise, so I wasn't a totally unknown quantity to him. However apart from the size of the flight deck which was more akin to a ship's bridge, the speed and handling characteristics were much closer to what I was used to.

I feel safe in recounting the story now as I at least 2 of the 3 other players have left us and the statute of limitations must have run out after 43 years.

Happy, politically incorrect, technically dangerous and pre CRM days. I can't imagine anybody being foolish enough to try the same stunt nowadays, but I enjoyed it!

Prober, IIRC, I think special 'test flight' pitots were fitted, Pete said TV was 'very close' to M1.0 ..... he didn't say which side...

Regarding high speed sectors, my logbook tells me I once did Aldergove-LHR in 38 minutes (with 632 kts G/S at one stage IIRC), and LHR-CDG in 29 mins A/B-Landing.

MS Flight Simulator Trident
 

Peter McLeland,

I just bought MS Flight SimulatorX as a result of seeing your pictures etc, never having had any desire to do simulator work at home previously!

I downloaded the files but the Tridents don't seem to be available, and I'm wondering if that's because Dave Maultby's website refers to FS4 and 9, not X. The file structure for FSX doesn't seem to be quite the same as is described, e.g. there's no "Aircraft" folder but rather a "sim objects/airplanes" one, and I wonder whether that is what is wrong - any thoughts?
Steve

Well I got rid of FSX years ago as I didn't like it...I use FS9(FS2004). I'm familiar with the structure of FSX though as I was one of the beta testers for it. I know that many of DM's aircraft do work in FSX from other people so I will go and ask your question. I'll get back with any info.

EDIT...Hi Steve,

I asked the question and got this reply:-

"Hi Peter,

The latest version of DM's Trident packages come with a readme file that covers the slight changes that need to be made to the file structure and effects. There are also some replacement files included with the panel package to allow their use in FSX.

The versions I'm referring to are the packages ending in _20081209.zip."

Let me know if you have any difficulty obtaining those files :)

Did a year on the T3 as an F/O. My line training was conducted by two TCs. The first was a rather grumpy older chap (RM) who told me off when I said I was enjoying the experience. 'You're not here to enjoy yourself,' he growled. The second chap was younger and more laid back (JM). He asked me to hand fly a departure one day. After a while it seemed to me there was a problem with roll control – the a/c seemed to have become very sensitive in roll and I found I was overcontrolling. Afraid to admit my lack of knowledge – obviously some factor had intruded that I should have known about from the ground school course – I persevered. The overcontrolling got worse. I looked across at JM, not knowing how to proceed. To my surprise he was grinning. 'Do you want the dampers back in now?' he asked. He'd switched them off without me noticing, presumably to demonstrate their necessity. He was a great character. He could devour an RE2 between landing and parking (with the F/O taxying).

A boost story. Oslo to LHR, mid-winter, full load of pax (140?). Contaminated runway, but TO perf okay with boost. Taxi out, light the boost just before entering the runway. P1 advances the throttles – the boost flames out! Taxi back to the gate. The engineer can't help – 'you'll have to take it boostless back to LHR'. Rework the TO perf w/o boost. Can only take 40-odd pax. I don't know how the ground staff did the cull but we left behind 100 odd v angry pax.

This is an utterly absorbing thread. Sadly my contact with The Trident was either seeing the Northbound Belfast Shuttle turning vaguely left over The Midlands, or the decaying machines on the fire dump at the 23 threshold end at Teesside, almost as if they were victims of Midland's mid-eighties inroads into the shuttle routes.

Meanwhile...

London Heathrow B.E.A. Vickers Vanguard G-APER and two De Havilland Tridents | Flickr - Photo Sharing!

I remember a flight fromNicosia to LHR in a T3.The crew had problems with the boost but got it going eventually.I have a copy of the plog the captain gave me when I deplaned and I will try and post it when I find it.

The only one I could find tonight was a LHR-PMI from 1974

http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5132/...5c39a77a_b.jpg

Trident auto-throttle
 

Thanks to all for a wonderful thread. I flew as pax on Tridents many, many years ago when studying in the UK even though international flights in those days cost nearly a month's pay. One episode that stuck in my mind is a flight from Edinburgh when, shortly after starting the take-off roll, the plane braked hard and taxied rapidly to the other end of the runway.... whereupon it did a neat 180 and took off in the opposite direction. No explanation was forthcoming from the flight-deck although there was considerable buzz in the cabin!

Anyway back to autothrottles, just for fun I coded up a pid controller for David Maltby's sim that can couple independently to the three throttles - there's a screenshot at http://img822.imageshack.us/img822/9435/t3ath.jpg . It is certainly odd seeing only two throttles moving, particularly in the descent when throttles 1 and 3 are near idle and the middle lever sticks up like a... sore thumb, I suppose.

One thing I've noted is that there isn't much reserve power with a Trident 3 on the glideslope at MLW with full flaps and gear down, and engine 2 set at 11200rpm. If it gets below the glideslope (thanks to FS's fickle wind system - DM's autoland does a superb job) it is hard put to climb back without adding power to No. 2. I suppose that's why the engine 2 setting on the T3 is higher than the T2, but even so it appears quite marginal.

Also, while engine 2 appears to be under-producing on the approach, it seems to produce too much thrust for the descent and the plane doesn't slow down easily at all, especially when clean.

Perhaps an ex-Trident pilot can comment on whether these are artefacts of the sim or whether the real planes were like this.

surplus power on approach or not!
Did my annual route check with one of the few who stood up against management at the papa india inquiry.
It was in the days before the Dibley descent computor - which was aimed at fuel saving and not dragging the beast in for the last 15 miles.
Did a perfect one into marseilles - spooled the engines up around 5 miles - you couldn't do it that late with some of the guys (in my final company we did it around 2 miles - but that is another story)
Last sector of the day was into heathrow at close to max landing weight onto 27 or 28 right.
ATC asked the preceding to keep 180 knots to the outer marker but unfortunately it was Alitalia whose english is marginally better than the Frogs.
The DC8 reduced to final approach speed as they didn't understand the instruction.
We were instructed to reduce to minimum safe speed but were still 20 knots plus faster than the Italians and around two grand we were told to execute a standard missed approach.
TOGA - advance the throttles and rotate to Go around attitude - check the speed before calling for the gear and flaps - forget the order for retracting them in BEA - and the speed had dropped around 10 knots below final approach speed.
Had never been in that situation before - nor were we trained to think.
Didn't want to call for the gear as with land flap we should have the gear siren blasting away - and at that indicated speed we would have got the death rattle if I called for the flaps.
Eventually I lowered the nose, descended, accelerated and then cleaned up.
Nothing was said in the debrief and I went home and reread the books to see what I should have done.

It didn't cover it - a bit like before papa india when we didn't have a procedure for a stick push.

There was also the trident 2 in nicosia that got low and slow during a training detail and firewall thrust wasn't enough to redeem the situation.
Gear and wing broke off which was repaired by BEA and reregistered as X ray Mike.

So yes - low and slow a Trident doesn't have a lot - if any - spare thrust.

(then there was the T3 at madrid........)

Ah, the good old days! If anyone's interested, I've started a thread entitled 'LHR nostalgia' on the 'Aviation History and Nostalgia' forum.

Just for reference, while the gripper certainly didn't feel as if had a lot of spare thrust capacity, it obviously did meet them -BCARs at the time, now subsumed into JARs/FARs. These require that in the landing configuration, (i.e. gear down and landing flap) the steady gradient of climb may not be less than 3.2 percent, with the engines at the power or thrust that is available 8 seconds after initiation of movement of the power or thrust controls from the minimum flight idle to the go-around power or thrust setting" and at a speed not more than Vref.

That 8 second spool up allowance plus the fact that 3.2% is not much of a climb gradient - a bit less than 500 fpm at 150 kts. - means that the transition to a climb after pushing the thrust levers to go-around seems to take an awful long time!

Trident Performance
 

On the subject of perf, you should have tried a two-engine ferry. Now that was an interesting take-off. There was a period of about 20 seconds from V1, during which an engine failure would result in the Airways Pension Scheme having three fewer monthly cheques to write in the future.

It was volunteer only, and we received a very nice commemorative tie for doing it - a three-pronged trident (as in Neptune's), with flames burning from only two spikes.

The trip was MAN-LHR, with a T/C with initials VG. Didn't phase him at all, as he'd done several already. The perf calcs took forever.

Still got the tie and, now, the pension too.:)

slast - I presume the go around performance was at airfield level and didn't take into account the altitude - which would have given a lower climb performance.


You probably remember the T3 that diverted to Madrid after an engine failure on take off (Malaga?) without checking the go around perf.

As often happened atc gave clearance for an Iberia DC9? to line up (always the worst controllers I came across) with full thrust she kept descending and the skipper ended up lowering the nose, cleaning up and followed the lower terrain.

Min drag was around 230kts I believe.

Another boost story
 

Full load ex GVA. R/W 24 in use. Wind calm. Boost required (high terrain to the SW for anyone unfamiliar with Geneva).
Lined up for departure but boost would not start. Taxied back towards the ramp explaining to Pax that we could not take off as one of our engines was not working.
P3 checks manuals and says 'Hey we can use 06 without the boost.'
Ask ATC if we could use 06 - he says OK.
Check perf numbers and set up for new SID. By now we are just approaching the 06 holding point.
ATC says 'Line up cleared immediate TO with right turn out, traffic on approach 24 at 10 miles.'
With no time for thought had to explain to pax in about 10 seconds that even though one engine wasn't working we were going to take off anyway!

I still wonder just how that was received down the back!

Trident Turnround...
 

I have re-rendered the TridentTurnround video in 1080 HD and it is now very suitable for Full Screen viewing.

YouTube - TridentTurnround1080.wmv

Click the resolution up to 1080 HD and then if you have a slowish Broadband which causes buffering pauses, click the Pause icon in the bottom left corner...Now WAIT as the pink band moves from left to right, till it gets about halfway across. Now click that same Pause icon to start it running again and finally click the Full Screen icon at bottom right...It should now run through without further pausing.

I worked with Tridents as a mechanic and was informed at the time that the disconnected autothrottle on No 2 was because the throttle system was continually modulating and the continual variation of rpm was upsetting some passengers.

The water tank was dumped by gravity - we mechanics did it on frosty nights.

Stand to be corrected but autothrottle on number two was disconnected for autoland due to the gain programming.
On descent number two was set at 10,800? rpm to maintain pressurization - any less then the cabin would climb.
When power was increased from a low state then the cabin pressure would surge - not very comfortable on the ear drums.
When we were eventually allowed to use manual throttle on approach all three were moved together.

Back to the top with it.

Did you fly the Trident? Tony Jarrett is trying to compile a complete list of G-ARPO's flights.

See this thread.