Parking Aircraft – Into the Wind ?

Parking A/C in Wind.

Thanks for that (Mike?)

I do recall stories of the rapide replica when being craned in ‘flying’ to such an extent that the weight indicator in the crane cab reduced by 50% !

Your worries reflect my own, hence my posting on the forum.

2nd. that Roy, Thanks Anon-Les and JDK for input, all noted and welcome.

Thanks for that (Mike?)

I do recall stories of the rapide replica when being craned in ‘flying’ to such an extent that the weight indicator in the crane cab reduced by 50% !

Your worries reflect my own, hence my posting on the forum.

Tying down of aircraft.

When the Rapide replica was first positioned outside the Marriott in 2001 she sat there for a week with six 100kg breaking strain bottle screws holding her down until we could get her properly secured.
There were some highish winds that week but she was still there the following weekend when I arrived.
However, the two bottle screws on the tail had been ripped out and the tail weathercocked around about a foot. The two pairs of bottle screws on the main u/c were stretched so much they had almost broke.
Needless to say I got a heavy duty spanset and steel cable out and tied her down right through the centre of the aircraft and into a purpose-build tie-down in the plinth in short order.
The hotel front-desk staff said “oh yes, we were watching it fly, the wheels were a foot off the ground” (she really flies lads, she flies!). At this point I realised it was no laughing matter and reminded the staff that they should have rung to tell me because if it had broken loose it would not have ended with their nice new £30,000+ replica being trashed but a few v.expensive Mercs behind as well.
This replica weighs 3 tons (the weight, incidentally, of a fully-loaded “real one”) and it easily “flew” and, by the skin of someones teeth, remained in place (its elevators were in the fully down position too).
Lesson one – NEVER underestimate the strength of the wind, especially in the vicinity of buildings. Lesson two – make it as heavy as you can or tie it down with steel cables and proper fastenings into the deck (e.g. not a square metal plate with a loop in the middle and held by four screws).
Lesson three – don’t wait until you are finished to tie it down.
If that Brit breaks loose it will cause a lot of damage and that damage may extend as far as the old hangar next door (I think it’s a call centre and it has a huge glass wall facing the Brit).
The whole aircraft may not end up through the glass wall but a chunk of it that has broken off might. The consequences of liability and the impact on the tenure of the Jetstream Club could be significant. Big companies don’t like risks (unless it’s a bank and it’s not their money).
Might be just as well to find out exactly who would have to carry the can for this one.

I don’t have a good photo of them, this is the best I have as I wasn’t allowed out onto the wing (and frankly, I’m not sure I’d want to be out there!)

What you can’t see is they have circular holes cut in them as well.

Thanks James – I know lift spoilers are more common out there in the territories but I’d love to know more about them. I’ll give the guys at MM a shout and see what comes back.

Roy.

One of the Martin Mars was lost in a Tornado in Canada, many years ago. The Mars guys now fit lift spoilers to the wings on the aircraft when parked ashore. You could drop them a line?

http://www.martinmars.com/

I don’t have exact details myself, but they seemed like large blocks of wood (rather like extruded or long chocks in shape) positioned along the spar, roped down. HTH.

BillT
Whay not have a word with the Britt blokes at Kemble? Their machine has been sitting outside on the airfield for yonks.

.

Parking into wind.

Good idea Moggie ! From what I’ve seen all tanks are bag tanks and shredded by time and exposure to the elements though. Also don’t think wing deflections will be a problem Roy, she’s strong enough for that and should be tied down anyway.

Keep the ideas flowing folks, they are really appreciated by us at Speke. They might just save our bacon !

Bill T.

Have you thought of offering its fuel tanks as a depository for waste oil from local motorists and businesses?

It would build up the weight and keep them safe from rusting. Might take a few years to fill them, but it ain’t going anywhere.

Moggy

I don’t think I’d want countless gallons of other peoples waste in any aircraft!

I have heard though that it is wise to load the wing tanks to reduce flexing of the wing root. Can anyone else shed light on this?

Thanks to all for the comments so far, I’ve learned a lot.

Roy.

Are you being facetious again Moggy? As if you would eh?

Have you thought of offering its fuel tanks as a depository for waste oil from local motorists and businesses?

It would build up the weight and keep them safe from rusting. Might take a few years to fill them, but it ain’t going anywhere.

Moggy

I’ve always heard that tail draggers should be parked tail to wind as it then puts the wing at a very steep angle of incidience, hence absolutely no chance of it developing any lift. Could never see the wisdom of some people’s idea of a tie down. What hope have three 5 gallon containers of concrete got of holding down a machine designed to lift its own weight plus fuel, oil, some baggage and (even in a single seater) an average of 140lbs per person on board?

Re-Parking A/C into wind.

Thanks Ant ! What a cracking idea. That would be the solution allright. Practical Problems, very daunting, but it is a solution for Speke.

So what would be required here is one of those old BR Steam Engine Turntables Set into a pit and sheeted over with steel structure and cladding. The Brit could be positioned on board and the whole lot even hand wound around according to the wind direction. This would cost an arm and a leg to put in mind you, the weight of turntable and Brit. combined wouldn’t be much over 100 tons and some steam locos weighed that much.

There are possibly old Turntables available in Ireland, but the logistics and costs would be horrendous, way beyond mere mortals these days.

The big-big obstacle to even getting the OK on this would be getting an exemption off Liverpools Town Planning people as the Apron is listed and no building or permanent works are allowed on it. We could never raise the money required also. But thanks for the idea. Back to the drawing board I guess.

Bill T.

I don’t have any first hand experience of this kind of thing, but I just thought I’d add a couple of thoughts to the pot.
One solution to the problem that I’ve seen before is to mount the aircraft on a kind of turntable mounting, allowing it to weathercock freely into wind. I’ve seen aircraft as large as the DC3 mounted in this way, I think there’s one in Aus and another in northern Canada. God knows whether this would be a practical proposition for the Brit at Speke, but I thought it worth suggesting anyway…

Parking Big Historic Aluminium Museum Display Birds into Wind.

Hi Roy /Jon,
Feel a need to add to this. Like these guys I’m a Speke Volunteer and this problem has given me some sleepless moments since arrival of G-ANCF. So this my plea for assistance on this one. The Marriot Hotel Chain, who very kindly allow us to carry out these activities at Old Speke look to The Jetstream Club to lead this situation, and appointed us to take total charge of the Aircraft scene here, with all groups to come under our control. G-ANCF, although completely an iconic item, has caused some head scratching to take place,because of her size, the fact she’s here and this is a new element for us. We have to consider new problems on a now regular basis, and this “wind” problem is worrying. What the members working with A/C Owner have achieved so far is only just short of miraculous.

Everyones contributions so far to this thread are sound, please continue to pass us your thoughts, they are very much appreciated. ) The main problem as I see it is once she is up on her “Legs” and moved into position, she can either:-

1)
Be Secured into her nominated position, by Chocking, Lashed and strapped down, controls locked, etc, as mentioned by one fine gentleman already.

2)
Be secured into the same position but mounted up on axle stands to save the tyres and wheels from long term deterioration.

3)
Be “plinth” mounted in some way, more like bolted to 3 big RSJ “Forth Bridge ” Girders sunk deep into Aircraft Apron. Again on axle stands as well. So she is totally immovable, Even by big winds.

The trouble is, each of these scenarios brings it’s own problems.

Item 1)
This for me is the first realistic option. The problem at Old Speke Airport is the prevailing wind generally comes in from the West-ish direction, this is the obvious way to face G-ANCF and provided that is how the wind will stay, IDEAL ! But several times a year, the wind changes around 180 degrees and can be quite violent from that direction. ( Ex-Airport members have pointed this out many times. ) G-ANCF is actually quite light on her legs, because so much is missiing ( special equipment, fuel, many systems, etc,etc). This means she could ” Fly” under a very big wind or tornado. I’ve seen this happen myself before now on other Aircraft. ( As you folk have also mentioned )

So I go for the option of having a tractor and Towing arm and crew and “chock” men available to move her and face her the other way, when reqd. So if she ” Flys”, when tied down, it will be a controlled situation. We at least have now split all Main and Nose wheels to check inside for corrosion, ( none present ) cleaned and painted wheels externally, re-assembled, and inflated to 100psi, Al tyres are good condition too.
cleaned and re-greased all bearings and re-fitted wheels onto Main bogies, so G-ANCF will move nicely if and when required.

Aaagghhh ! I can feel the heat hitting me from folk saying–” Impossible for volunteers to achieve”. I was thinking really of having a stand-by team, much like a Lifeboat team would do. I am quite aware of the implications of going down this road and the difficulties it would cause, but to leave G-ANCF tail first into a really big wind, could turn our difficulties, into a disaster, ( as one gentleman has pointed out already. ) These Britannias have a massive tail /Fin /Rudder surface area and will definately weathercock around into prevailing wind.

Item 2)
I personally am not keen on this idea,as when I saw some pics. taken of the Cosford Brit, I was quite shocked at the cracking up of the Main U/C Legs top alloy Castings, no doubt caused by her rocking in the wind. Cosford have( or had ) her mounted on axle stands for a number of years. And it seems pointless the same happening to G-ANCF, quite apart from a Tail wind tearing her off these mountings.

We would like to see any input here from Cosford or Kemble reps. for their respective Britannias, we do need more ideas and thoughts. Oh ! Yes, my apologies to Cosford here If I’m wrong on my observations.

But that doesn’t make our problem go away !

Item 3)
I quite like this idea too, but it would mean” butchering ” the Airframe wings somewhat. Bolted and locked down in this way, I reckon it would have to be a tornado go through before control surfaces were ripped off, etc, but if that happened the Airframe would look like it had been ” Para-Fragged” by flying roof slates and other Liverpool debris anyway and we would with any luck also find ourselves the new proud owners of a modern 757, or Airbus, highly trashed all the way from John Lennon Airport just up the road. And we would probably never find our Flight Sim J41 again.

So this is one solution that has merit.

I have got many yrs. experience as a SNCO Airframes in RAF, fast jets and V-Bombers. ( 23 yrs) and 11+ yrs working for Airworks on Jags and Hunters in Oman. So I speak not with forked tongue. But we do need your serious considerations please on this G-ANCF problem.

Thanks for reading,

Bill T.

Always park into wind especially large aircraft with large side areas, just before Christmas one of our 737s was sitting on the ground in manchester when the strong winds blew up. The poor thing had minimal fuel on board, jumped its chocks and turned thru 100 degrees and landed on top of a mobile luggage conveyer. Nice little repair for boeing to do and we got a ruling to make sure all the aircraft were at least 3/4 full when left overnight for a few nights.
So the rule is make it as heavy as possible, tie it down and point into prevailing winds.

I recall lots of fun and games when aircraft were insuffiently picketed or not into wind.

😀

Yep. Sometimes, you’ve got to improvise………..

I recall lots of fun and games at Duxford over the years when aircraft were insuffiently picketed or not into wind.

The Charles Church Fairey Battle (no engine and not much other weight on board) produced enough lift one windy day to show daylight under the wheels!

The B-52 when newly arrived was de-fueled and both wings lifted when the wind blew (one normally sits down on the outrigger). One wing then dropped, and impaled the big outboard fuel tank on one of the pins keeping the aircraft roped off. Damage repair still visible if you know where to look!

About 20 years ago, big gust lifted ARC’s Broussard over the airside fence and wedged it tail-first under the starboard inner (I think) engine of the Shack – bending both prop-blades back. I believe this is finally being rectified now!

There is, of course, a long history of successful flying from fibreglass replicas!:D

And there is the weathervaning effect (AKA weathercocking – but that will get censored, oh, no apparently not)

All floatplanes want to swing to face into wind – same forces are at work on landplanes too.

Facing into wind, picketed and chocked, control locks on – stops the control surfaces thrashing in gusts. Not so important on heavy aircraft, but certainly so with light airframes.

SoG