BAC 1-11

My memory of the Bac 1-11 is of a somewhat peculiar nature. I’ve worked for 20 years as a ‘ramp-rat’, so I had to unload/load the odd Bac 1-11. I found the way the belly doors opened/closed a bit awkward: to open one you had to unlock it and push it inwards, which was not to difficult. Then, it slid outwards and down on a complicated contraption of wheels, extending rails and spring-loaded cables (for counterweight). To close the hatch you had to reach down under the fuselage, get hold of the handle, and pull it upwards with quite some force. When you had pulled it up you had to slam it towards you into the closed position and lock it. Of course this system worked well when the aircraft was new and everything fitted neatly and was well greased, but when the aircraft got older this system was subject to wear and tear, and you had to use quite some force to handle those hatches.
Well, one day I had loaded the aft belly of this 1-11 (I am not sure if it was a BIA or Air UK example) with baggage and jumped out onto the tarmac. I pulled up the hatch from below, but this one would not slide up high enough to close it, so I let it go down again and made a second, and a third attempt. At the fourth attempt I let it slide down again and to my astonishment the entire hatch fell out of the rails and fell down on the ramp! All pax were boarded and te flight was ready to depart. Now, my supervisor at that time was a real coward (and he spoke no English apart from ‘wante koffie, hotte water?’) and he ran away, telling me to tell the captain about the incident and solve the problem myself. So there I was, with a malfunctioning belly hatch and a fully loaded and boarded aircraft ready for departure. I went into the cockpit and told the captain what happened -he was not pleased, to say the least. But, he told me it was not the first time this malfunction occurred, and if I would be so kind, please, to assist him he and the co-pilot would try to get the hatch in place again. That is what the three of us did and after 30 minutes of wrestling with the heavy hatch, wheels, sliding rails and some broken cables we were able to close up the rear hold and the flight departed with 45 minutes delay.
Otherwise I will remember the 1-11 as a fine, good looking aircraft and I particularly liked the whining sound it made when starting up the engines. It sounded like sirens. And the thunder when it ook off at full power… wow.

Tillerman.

I was at Richmond College (Twickenham!) between 1993 and 95; with the wind in the right direction we would regularly be disturbed each morning by Concorde taking off… That was a good five or six miles from Heathrow, you know.

Flood.

Good point and fair comment Jeansk-SN, but bare in mind a lot of people living around airports and highways were there before the noisy aircraft and cars!!!!

It’s also about air pollution!

Purser

I find these rules very exaggerated! Why is this necessairy if most of these flights only fly at day? Avoid to scare the old granny? I don’t think it makes much sense; a ban to fly at night would be good, but a complete ban, no! I believe there is now a ban of Stage 3 aircraft at Brussels from 23 – 6 hours. gooood, as long as the pople finally shut up and stop nagging about the noise. If you don’t want the noise, then they shouldn’t have came to live there. The same counts with livving next to a highway or a rail line!

It never found a home with any of the major airlines in this country,it lost out to the ubiquitous DC9, to my recollection there were only a couple ever used here by the Dept of Civil Aviation

Boscombe Down is the airfield that MOD Bac111 is based at.

Dee Howard had a Bac111 with a Tay engine on one side which appeared at Farnborough show mid 80’s.

The museum at Brooklands has a development aircraft that has undergone several modifications during its lifetime. It was the original 400 series (i think) was stretched to become a 500, then reduced to become the 475 but kept the 500 series wings. (but still has a 200 series wing box)
It also did a couple of sales tours (as a 475) to south/central america and Japan – having seen a video of some of the airports flown into it must have an exciting time.
Have also seen a video of its arrival at Brooklands – very impressing short field landing (runway length under 500m) made possible by a small aerodynamic fillet on the wing that reduced the landing speed by up to 20 knots.

As far as i am aware, the only one still operating in the UK is owned by the MOD, a -400 for weather research I believe?? I recall seeing it blast off smoke and all from whatever military airfield is close to Salisbury station (thats where I was when I saw it) an that was about a year ago.

Down here where I live just a few miles from STN, we used to quite often be shook by the 1-11’s. The way it works out, is that if the wind is in a particular direction, they use the runway with the planes taking-off, engines facing away from us, and the wind carries the sound towards us! It would usually be incredibly loud considering we are still 3 miles from the runway, the most we get nowadays are the Ryanair -200’s and the FedEx MD-11’s usually cause a bit noise!

Funny how you take something for granted then they are no-more ! First time I flew in a 1-11 was Gatwick to Girona with B.Cal, I also flew on one from Luton to Basel with Court Lines, several BA ones out of MAN and Ryanair from Liverpool to Dublin.

I can remember at one time the Ryanair BAC 1-11 was the most regular jet we saw at Liverpool after BD pulled off the LHR service. There are many more jets using Liverpool these days, but none are 1-11s anymore, sad really.

With all the regional jet operating today CRJ etc its a pity that BAe missed that with. Maybe with an upgrade 1-11 they would have been succesfull. I think the 146 was an expensive plane to operate with having four engines.

Originally posted by purser
After production finished in the UK were’nt they being built in Romania under some sort of agreement?

Yes they were. They were built by ROMAVIA(?) and I believe DanAir operated some of these aircraft. An offshoot of ROMAVIA called BRASOV built a glider called an IS28 which BAC (gawd bless ’em :rolleyes: ) built in exchange! The Romanian built 1-11’s were referred to as the ROMBAC 1-11.

I flew 1-11’s twice, both DA once to Salzberg, the other to IBZ. Sat facing BACKWARDS for the IBz flight as we had emergency exit seats. A great aircraft, fell to bits in your hand!!!!:eek:

Looks like we all remember the noise the most! Spent many an hour at Gatwick watching DA and BCAL 1-11 launching. They were much noisier that the 747-100’s,Caravelles and even 707’s! Nowonder they had the nickname of pocket rocket!

My first cockpit visit was on a Laker Airways Bac1-11 (G-AVBW) from Gatwick / Alicante / Gatwick on 3/11/79.
Sat on jumpseat from pushback at LGW to arrival back at LGW.
A wonderful day on a wonderful aircraft

how many airlines are left today that operate them

British United Airways became the launch customer by placing an order for 10 of the twin-engine, 80-seat aircraft in May of 1961 and the first BAC One-Eleven flew on August 20, 1963 – a year and half before the DC-9 and three and a half years before the 737.
This lead was short lived, however. Once Douglas and Boeing got their small jets airborne, the competition became a two-horse race between them. They offered several variations to please airlines while BAC was slow to respond catering mostly it seems to the needs of BEA.
While it can safely be said to have been a success with sales of 241, the DC-9 (and MD-80 derivatives) and 737 have sold in excess of 6,000 and the 737 is the best selling jetliner of all time.

After production finished in the UK were’nt they being built in Romania under some sort of agreement?

To re-engine the aircraft I believe was totally cost prohibitive, a real shame as they were one of the best, along with the VC-10.

I stand corrected, perhaps that’s what i was thinking of

Originally posted by steve rowell
The RR tay’s were the culprit, one of the noisiest jet engines ever produced

I think they were RR Speys weren’t they?

Lovely plane – Despite all the airports I have been to and airshows attended, the only time I actually thought my ear drums were going to burst was when I was working at Edinburgh airport on the taxiway joining the old runway when a British Caledonian 1-11 taxied out and took off about 200 feet away. Absolutely earth shattering.

The RR tay’s were the culprit, one of the noisiest jet engines ever produced