Apologies in order - was paraphrasing from a book.

I remember the same, from reading "Night Fighter" (by C F Rawnsley and Robert Wright, great book btw).
To 'camouflage' the performance of the early airborne radar, the story was put about that his successes were due to "being able to see in the dark like a cat", hence "Cat's Eye Cunningham".
The book mentions too, that John heartily detested the nickname !

CJ

And to help perpetuate the myth, they were introduced to the press all munching on raw carrots. Allegedly (but not truley accrately) the beta kerotine aided night vision. This article helped perpetuate the myth that carrots helped you see in the dark. The joke carried as the Luftwaffe tried it as well after having read the article!

....... and back to thread topic !!!!

Given the different performance carachteristics of the different variants, were the crew licenced on all three types in use with BEA/BA?
Secondly (assuming that they were) was the flight planning routine complicated by this factor, particularly T3 with it's 'fourth' engine?

Wookey - No, we were not qualified on all three types. You were on either the T1 and T2 (that is, qualified on both, and alternating according to your roster), or you were licenced on the T3 only.

Having said that, when I left my T1/T2 fleet and converted onto the T3, it was a pretty straightforward conversion.

Regarding flight planning, I think I remember correctly - the T1 fuel planning sheet (can anyone remember what we called it?) was printed on white paper, the T2 was on blue paper, and the T3 on pink. Have I remebered that correctly? Performance data was also on different coloured pages.

My memory is heading 180 Magnetic, I'm afraid.

AD

From about 1980 onwards all crews were 'Tridextrous' and flew all 3 types.

Colours correct, it was called the P3LOG IIRC, it then became the KELOG, when Pete(?) Kimmens and Simon Edwards redesigned it.

From about 1980 onwards all crews were 'Tridextrous' and flew all 3 types.

Hobo, what happened in 1980 to change things? Alternatively, prior to 1980 was the reason that T1/T2 were isolated from T3 just the fourth engine and performance, or something else?

I think, although Steve might know for sure (?), that the reason was that from about 1975 there were no new NEP/DEP pilots coming into BA on the Trident, so by about 1980 the minimum co-pilot experience was 8-10 years or so, and the CAA, who had vetoed it before, were persuaded by BA, with this amount of experience, to approve the tridextrous route - economics presumably being the driver.

I don't think it was the 4th engine, all this did was give extra thrust for T/O and although its operation was complex, it was just another system. I think the main reason was the very different pitch attitude on approach. IIRC 7-9 degrees in a T1/2 and 3-4 degrees in a T3.

I had done 2 years on the T1/2 when the T3 came in. Initially it attracted more pay, so all the senior guys went on it. After a short while there was parity with the T1/2 so nobody wanted to go on it - it didn't go to the Eastern Med - so juniors were posted. After 7 more years on the T3 I became tridextrous, 1 sim session in the T1 sim, 3 sectors line training with two landings. IIRC you couldn't do 3 consecutive sim checks in the same sim, and there were no requirements for recency flying on the 3 types.

Hobo: The following licencing quirk may amuse some of the posters on here.

As Steve posted earlier, The Gripper was crewed by three pilots in BEA/BA but by two pilots + flight engineer in some other airlines.
Now, when BEAirtours started operating the B707-436 they had no qualified Flight Engineers on staff as required by the CAA. The company got approval to qualify their F/Os as P2 and as flight engineers. To get this approval, one had to have 2,000 hours flight time on 4 engined aircraft. This was mainly Viscount and Vanguard/Merchantman people but, believe it or not , the T3 qualified also as it had four engines!!
This, I recall, did not sit very well with a branch of BA that flew predominately long haul!

I think Hobo's got it pretty well covered...! And wasn't the official term for the P3 IIRC was "SPO" - "Systems Panel Operator" ? as opposed to Flight Engineer.

Tridextrous
 

The mists of time are starting to drift in, but I seem to remember that a general feeling at the time was that the T2 and T3 had more in common and the T1 should be its own fleet (if---if that was necessary at all). When "Tridextrosity" (??) was introduced, the view was that it had taken all those years for common sense to prevail.
Prober

Adverse Jaw
I beg to differ on your comment re "design fault caused Papa India."

Cunningham's testimony at the inquiry stated that we operated the Trident contrary to HS's design philosophy.

This was to retain T/O flap until acceleration point. If this had been carried out than none of the premature droop retractions would have happened.

BEA noise abatement procedure was one of the most foolish procedures that I have ever carried out - except the Vmca at 300ft in the Baron over the English channel.

Very interesting history from SLAST.

The philosophies in BOAC were incredibly different to BEA, I was in the first group that "went across" - there was a movement to send us all back - started by some of the 707 training captains (ex National Service)as we were not up to BOAC standards.
Fortunately I was on the Iron Duck with mostly ex Hamble training captains who understood the deficiencies in BEA.


One point was that I had never used wx radar in my 6 yrs on the Trident!

I think the greatest shock for my first line training captain was when I asked if it was OK to descend and then whether he would mind if I disconnected the autopilot - both standard practices in BEA.

It took me around six months to "get into the grove" and accept that when I flew a sector I made ALL of the decisions - including declaring the only Mayday I made in my career.

BP, do you have a reference for this (I couldn't find it in the report but that doesn't have the verbatim statements.)

I carried JC on the jump seat once in the mid 70's, returning from a conference, and he said the only thing he would have, in retrospect, changed on the Trident was to have the droop and flap on the same lever, with the last 'flap' setting being the droop. IIRC this was echoed in later editions of Handling the Big Jets by DPD.

After PI, there was a mechanical interlock put on the levers, so the droop lever couldn't be moved without the flap lever in the up position.

During the course of this flight, he said that HS couldn't get to the bottom of why the T3 usually gave a firmer landing, and was more difficult to grease on, than the T1/2. Even he said he couldn't guarantee the landing on a T3. Their best guess was that it was to do with the different 'rigger's angle of incidence' ie the way the wings were fixed relative to the fuselage, and the different height above the ground that that put the trailing edge of the flaps. The theory was, that this distance, on the T3, was so critical, that mm's meant the air being 'sucked' out with a venturi effect (firm) or not (greaser).


bp Which were?

Do the old rivalries linger on ?????

There have been a number of posts in this thread that have referred to the Trident's ability to cruise at high speed (Peter McLelland's reference to the mach meter in his photo etc.). I am curious as to whether the 'Gripper's' lack of climb performance was due to it being underpowered or due to lack of lift from the wing design and whether this translates into lower drag and higher cruise speed.

BP

Just think about it - with a single lever, Droop could NOT be raised in lieu of flap.

Hobo
 

You said,

'After PI, there was a mechanical interlock put on the levers, so the droop lever couldn't be moved without the flap lever in the up position.'

I was on my initial conversion 'sim' phase when PI was lost, but I'm sure the flap/droop interlock was in place before that accident. There had been a suggestion that some captains were in the habit of raising the flaps as soon as they were airborne, having utilised their effect of minimising the take off run, and by their retraction improving the 2nd sector climb angle.

By doing so, they were removing the lock on the droop at only two or three hundred feet.

The DC10 had a mechanical link between the trailing/leading edge levers, so that both levers moved together, and only the last selection would retract the slats. The system was (IMO) foolproof. Conversely, the Trident arrangement was an accident waiting to happen.

AD, you could be right, does anybody else remember something being done to this lock after PI ...?

I think there might have been some who did what you describe.

AD, I have to say that I don't believe I ever encountered anyone who did this in 9 years as an F/O, in fact I can't even remember hearing about it being done. But that may just be my memory having a gap in it.... and I can't recall the sequence of design/mod to that interlock.

Wookey, Interesting question and I have no idea what the answer is! Certainly we flew initially at M 0.88 but it wasn't long before .84 became the norm. I think one of the factors was fuel burn and another was tendency to catch up with other traffic in airspace that was still largely procedurally controlled (not much secondary radar in those days).

I hope this link works. it is to the AAIB report into PI. Have a look at page 39 - the Fox Hotel incident.

Air Accidents Investigation: 4/1973 G-ARPI

SLAST
I spent three days researching the testimonies in the BA museum and made a FOI request to the AAIB.

I have written a biography but due to advice from counsel have put publishing it on hold.

Cunningham's testimony I have read in full and there is a reference to him in the accident report.

As has been pointed out we flew a different noise abatement procedure than that recommended by Davies who was the ARB test pilot , it is in handling the big jets.

There is also a file on his testimony which I do believe is not mentioned in the official report. I missed reading this which I regret and at the time I didn't understand the significance that he isn't mentioned in the report.


The report states that there was a baulk (or interlock) fitted between the levers as there was a theory put forward that if the down selection wasn't made correctly then the droop could automatically move when the flap lever is selected up .


I remember playing with the levers with the engines off and realised it was balderdash - the theory is in the report.


There are several opt out clauses on FOI which the AAIB used after they had retrieved the files for me.

Two important questions they couldn't answer under these constraints, one was whether my letter about our training had been submitted by FM to the inquiry.

But I had a very interesting conversation from one of the accident inspectors.

The main points of this conversation for this forum were his distancing himself and the AAIB from the inquiry conclusions and that the simulator flying characteristics were markedly different those of the aircraft.

The other interesting testimonies were George Childs who had quizzed me on what to do with a stall warning and had tried to get management to introduce a correct stall recovery procedure, Evans, Holloway and one training captain who said he had interviewed numerous co pilots who, to a man, had recounted a stall recovery procedure which was rather different to that which I had been taught and was in my flying procedures - those of us on the fleet at the time will know what I am getting at.


Hobo

Sorry I will not go into much detail on the forum but somewhere in the inquiry report it says words to the effect that co pilots were provided to ASSIST the Captain as the Trident was to complicated to be operated by one pilot.



Contrary to what was stated in equally sharing the flying, I achieved around one leg in five and when I was initially P2 only I flew EIGHTEEN sectors RHS without being allowed to attempt a landing.

And if you really want to look at the BEA field of influence - I joined the week the Vanguard dug a hole near Ghent - this was followed by another six or seven aircraft in my 6 years in BEA.

All bar one were 100% our fault - except for Zagreb although the report stated that if the crew had looked out then the accident might have been avoided.

Other prangs were the viscount flew into cloud wiv hard centre.

Cyprus T2 - low slow during training - became XM.
Two 707s .
Bilbao 1E.

I left BEA in 1978, the accidents didn't initially - so it wasn't my fault your honour.

BOAC didn't destroy anything during this period.

I owe a huge amount to some of the ex national service pilots and Hamsters on the Trident and without their nurturing I would have never successfully completed my transition on the Iron Duck.

Flap retraction after take off - yes I witnessed that as well.

Even got to Burnham off 27 left at 365 knots and three grand.

Re high speed cruise / wing performance.

The Trident one approached around 30 knots faster than the DC 8 - I know as had to go around on my annual route check when an Eitie didn't understand " keep 180 knots to the outer marker" and reduced to an approach speed 30 knots below our minimum.

I believe that we rotated at a comparatively high speed due a very dirty wing and lots of drag. Don't forget that the T1 had a rather crude droop compared to the T2.

The clean wing was very thin - I believe that MMO was .92 but later reduced to .885 - therefore power wasn't a problem in level flight.

We used to race the Swiss Coronados (which were equally hot) into LHR - best trick was to get underneath them and match their speed.

Happy days.:O

Aileron Drag

Not wanting to go too far off topic, but the DC10 system, whilst better, was not foolproof, as a couple of stalling incidents in the mid 90s showed. One of these was on approach, when flap was selected out, but not the slats. It needed a bit of wear and tear on the levers and linkage, but it could, and did, happen.

Hard to believe, I know, especially if you know the linkage between the two levers, but I was on the fleet at the time, and watched in amazement as a TCP showed me exactly how the two levers had been (inadvertently) separated on one of the incident flights. Like watching a conjuring trick, you know what you've seen, but you don't believe it!

I believe Boeing got it right, with the single lever concept.

Regards

Trident Sim

Interesting - I seem to recall though that Captain Key (the PIC on PI) was in fact very much a stickler for by-the-book flying, his one concession being a tendency to engage autopilot early in the climb.

Some 727 pilots worked their way round that by popping CBs though, so no system is completely foolproof.

Following this with great interest, even though the "Gripper" was 'before my time'.
This of course calls for that classic remark:
"It's so difficult to make anything fool proof, because fools are so damn ingenious..."

CJ

I have a very strong belief that the avionics of your beloved bird owed a great deal to the advances made on the Trident - I understand that Lockheed later poached a lot of the avionics guys to work on the Tristar too.

I don't think so....
I'd be the last one to restart the "Smiths/Elliotts war" of the time on a forum and a topic like this, a subject so much better discussed today over a pint at the local!

But it's a subject worth discussing, and I'll be only too pleased to see other input!

For me, there are two key differences between Trident and Concorde.

The first one is, that Smiths went for the "triplex" solution, with three computers continously "talking to each other", and checking that all three were "reading from the same song sheet".
If they didn't agree, no autoland.

Elliott, who did the VC10, and then Concorde (with SFENA), went for the alternative "duplex monitored" solution, with two computers, where each of the two was effectively two computers in one, with a "command" and a "monitor" channel being compared continously.
If the two halves didn't agree... end of story : the computer would disconnect and hand over to the other one, which up to then would have been a "hot" standby.
Otherwise, the two computers basically did not "talk to each other".
BITE (built-in test) was used to assure that both computers were still serviceable just before committing to an autoland, thereby reducing the 'time at risk' of a common failure to a couple of minutes, and the resulting risk of such a failure to "highly improbable".

The other difference was simply a matter of age.

The Trident system came into being before the arrival of integrated circuits.
Now, I've never had a real opportunity to dive into the Trident electronics, but going by other systems from the same period, I would expect it to be full of things like magnetic amplifiers, transistor-based operational amplifiers, and transistor and relay type logic.

Concorde happened just at the time of the arrival of the first integrated operational amplifiers and the first integrated logic circuits.
At that time, integrated circuit development was going so fast, that the avionics on the prototypes, the preproduction aircraft and the production aircraft basically ended up using three succesive generations of integrated circuits..... (for the conoscienti here... think 165, 709 and LM101 for the opamps, and RTL, DTL and TTL for the logic).

So, to make sure we agree... the Trident and Concorde both, certainly profited hugely from the pioneering work of the BLEU, and the experiments with the Lear system on the Caravelle.

But, IMO, they diverged afterwards.

CJ

Actually, it was Collins Radio Corporation, who designed the dual/dual autoflight system, and as I recall, they came from Smiths, all four of 'em.

Smiths made the very first operational automatic landing system - as fitted to the RAF Victors and Vulcans. It was a different system to the civilian ones though.

Fairly Early Flap Retraction
 

Indeed! When fairly new on type, I was pre-warned, but even so slightly alarmed when a well known Captain from a far flung part of the Empire insisted on flap being fully retracted by 500ft. Interesting and exciting, but not now part of the aviation scene. Getting old.
Prober

Maybe dumb question but was the Trident the first aircraft to have wing leading edge lift devices (slats or droops or whatewver you call them)?
Dont recall noticing them on other aircraft of the era or earlier that I flew on like Caravelle, comet etc.

If you mean airliners, I don't have a quick anwer.
But wing leading edge devices as such go back to WWII, and probably even pre-war. Some Messerschmitts come to mind, and the Fieseler Storch STOL, but the list is much longer.

CJ

...and includes the Tiger Moth :)

500 ft AGL was the standard flap retract for the BA 1-11s, due to the noise profile.

Re earlier question on what changes were made to the flap and slat/'droop' system post PI, the story isn't quite right. There always was a flap/droop balk so that if the flaps were not up, the droop lever could not be moved inadvertently or otherwise. What killed PI was that having moved the flaps up, there was nothing to stop anyone raising the droop at a ludicrously low speed. The claim that a single lever would have prevented PI is questionable - it is just as easy to retract slats early with one lever as two, you just have to forget what you are doing, as someone just proved recently with an A320. The Stan Key Memorial Mod was to add a speed balk to the slat/droop lever, set, if I recall, at a nominal 208 kt.

An even earlier post asked how it flew, thinking it might be difficult. Actually as Pete Mcclelland and others have said it was a doddle once a whole lot of cr*p acquired in early training was ignored and people went back to treating it like an aircraft. No thrust/pitch couple, little asymmetric yaw, super crisp ailerons, immaculate High Mach behaviour, and a 'classic' trim system that left you knowing exactly where you were. The only inconvenience was the position of the thrust levers (sorry, throttles) which were indeed a bit of a stretch, but that didn't stop the final iteration of Trident handling being just like any other aircraft, with the handling pilot handling (gasp!) his own throttles.

Finally despite rumours to the contrary the aircraft was not speed unstable on the approach, Vat was above min drag at the appropriate flap setting, and experienced hands could carry out an ILS hardly moving a muscle. Nothing since has come close (though I only encountered the splendid L1011 in the sim so perhaps there is room for argument, 411A).

[Tiny O/T...]
Vat? Wot's dat?
Two seconds on Google.
It's Velocity At Threshold, and merely a term I personally wasn't familiar with.
Never too old to learn....
[End O/T]

CJ

L1011, very speed stable...pitch too, thanks to DLC.
A pilots dream...with dual/dual (not triplex) autoland thrown in.

Reluctant to let this thread die as I have enjoyed reading the insights into this interesting aircraft (as have others judging by the number of posts) so here goes with another (naive) query.

The Trident had leading edge slats whereas I believe that the 1-11 had a fixed leading edge. Was the 1-11 wing design that much more efficient than Trident or was it simply a power:weight factor?

The original Trident 1C had leading edge droop. It wasn't a slat because there was no slot, otherwise worked the same.
But for us engineers, very difficult to make it work properly. Rigging it after a component change took 8 hours.