foresterIt occurs to me that I don’t know of any accident where cutting along the dotted line was both necessary and possible.
Has anyone ever seen it done?
foresterAdds a bit of spice to the RAF Museum Cosford Destruction Derby.
The Museum JCB enters in the dark and the driver doesn’t get to know what priceless irreplaceable aircraft he’s chopped up until the lights go on….
forester.
There are few crash sites anything like as haunting as the Mull of Kintyre, where the Chinook met its end.
foresterAn hour long programme on the Dambusters and Gibson’s popsie/popsy is the hot topic…..
Pretty well sums up the prog. —— DIS-AP-POINT-ING.
foresterThe “war” is still taking place. It’s just that it has moved to the streets outside the museum!
This is a seriously dangerous place. Take care if you’re going there and go by taxi, don’t walk.
Once safely inside, it is museum like no other and well worth the effort.
foresterHere’s what may have happened.
He set off with LGW/ LHR forecast open (otherwise he would have planned to PWK/SNN). It’s likely PWK was open as he went over the top or he’d have already known the extent of the mainland fog and gone to SNN. He let down and likely commenced an approach at LGW/LHR but the vis went below ILS limits. He had no autoland. First choice MAN but fog thickening. Second choice back to PWK. He didn’t go there so either PWK had clamped in (possible but rare), or more likely, having let down he hadn’t the fuel (which also would have ruled out SNN). Next choice AMS/BRU but probably affected by the same weather system. Next choice Paris (different weather system, two airfields, lots of runways) but apparently didn’t have the fuel.
Out of options he talks to Company but they can’t offer a civil solution within his range. So he calls on 121.5. First question they ask is how long a runway does he need? Simple question – Not so easy to answer off the cuff. His P3/Nav is busy taking down weather and in any case there’s little time to get the charts out and put in actual performance data. He has to be quick and very conservative, not knowing the actual conditions. I don’t know what the answer would have been but on a 707 it could easily have been 8000 (VC10 might have been 6500/7000, again conservative but he might have had to accept a small tailwind to get the vis required).
Not many 707 pilots of the time would have known off the cuff, without the time to go into charts, if they could safely get into Lyneham/Brize etc as Comets/Britannias/VC10s all had better airfield performance. They would have known that a USAF base was a safe bet.
I don’t know where this takes us, but if it had been me, without time to study the actual numbers, I would have accepted Filton, Fairford, Boscombe, Bedford but if offered USAF I would have bitten their hands off – nasty dogs and big guns notwithstanding!
forester.
This incident occurred in the early 1970s. Runways adequate for a B707 were few and far between then. Landing performance was not great in comparison with, say, a VC10, which after all was designed to use shorter runways. Much runway lengthening took place throughout the 70s at both civil and military airfields. The USAF bases did have adequate runways in those days as they were built for Boeing’s finest, but many RAF bases did not.The runway length figures quoted for the mid-eighties are for a different aviation era.
foresterIt is worth recalling that Alan Lane was of a generation of airline Captains with real authority and expected to use it where necessary – very different to the current culture in airlines. If he had spent any time at all on Bcal’s African routes he would be well used to informing ATC what was going to happen, rather than spending a lot of time seeking their permission to do what he considered necessary. In turn ATC was far less restrictive (and proscriptive) then than it is now.
I can well imagine that if he were concerned at the fuel state and saw a runway clear of fog he would put the aeroplane down and worry about the paperwork, permissions and other ramifications later. That was the style of the day. His generation often felt it unnecessary to declare an emergency. The mere fact that an intention had been expressed over the radio was sufficient in their view to get everyone else to prepare for the event. “Emergency” smacked of haste, even panic, something these gentlemen would go to great lengths to avoid any association with.
It remains to discover which airfield was used. A blanket of fog over the UK would also usually take out most military airfields, particularly East Anglia/Lincolnshire. St Mawgan/Newquay is an obvious exception, but away from his most likely route. He would have routed via likely bolt-holes and not gone off the beaten track unless he was certain he could get in there. I have seen Greenham Common stand clear of surrounding fog in this situation but I can’t help thinking if he’d gone there it would have been a major news event. I don’t know much about Brize’s fog record. Fairford was used by Concorde for training. Manston was also well used to civil aircraft and doesn’t fit the story. I’ll be most interested in the answer to this.
foresterFascinating story I’ve not heard before.
There will be a record of it somewhere (you can’t keep cabin crew quiet about events like this, let alone passengers).
Los Angeles – Gatwick was tight on fuel for a 707-320. Events where all major civil UK airports go out in unforecast fog are unusual but did happen occasionally in pre-autoland days. When Prestwick went out you knew you had a problem…
“Landing permission refusals” probably meant weather below limits. No airfield would deny landing permission in an emergency. Likewise “Without permission” and “unauthorised” probably meant without prior notification, rather than any implied refused landing clearance.
The story of the Station Commander rings true. They didn’t (and don’t!) like uninvited guests but usually that was because they didn’t know what to do with them and didn’t like them untidying the place rather than for any sound military reason. Unless, of course, it was a USAF base when the instruction to leave would have been altogether more serious and delivered with backup!
I think the Los Angeles service was scheduled to arrive at Gatwick in the evening so it could tie in with a thickening of the fog. They wouldn’t have left at dawn though, when it would most likely have been at its worst!
Someone at the british-caledonian site will know.
foresterTranslated by Babble-fish this means:
“Come and see how brilliantly we manage South London Interstellar Airport (formerly Biggin-something -or-other). Oh, and you pathetic lot interested in historic aircraft go and sit in that hut we’ve saved for you at great expense and we’ll see if we can get something to fly past should there be a gap in our fantastic business traffic”.
🙁
foresterthe fact that we WERE bailing you out
NO! You were NOT bailing ANYONE out. What a twisted view of events!
Had we gone down, without your help, your turn would most certainly have come later, after the Russians had been taken, as they would have been once undivided attention could be turned towards them.
foresterWent for a job interview at Radlett once. As soon as I arrived I was taken on a tour of the factory and then straight out to lunch where I was offered the job. I said:” But you haven’t asked me any questions yet!” They said: “Oh! We don’t need to do all that”.
It seemed odd to me and I didn’t take up the offer. HP folded within the year.
But I’m so glad I had that chance to look around before it closed. I would have loved to have been there in its heyday. It seemed such a civilised place.
foresterIt has also been posted before that some of the printed circuit board was turned into wacky jewellery 😮
foresterThe Swift was the shame of Supermarine, a piece of aeronautical rubbish, an embarassment to the RAF and a pointless waste of taxpayers’ money.
You fail to understand that the Swift was not a one-off type but part of a line of development of types that stretched from the Attacker to the Scimitar. Many innovations were tried out in the many different types in the line. Some were successful, some less so.
One of the attractions of visiting the Farnborough Airshow in the 1950’s, I remember, was to see what Supermarine had been up to during the year. We were rarely disappointed and a new weird and wonderful Type 5xx would duly perform for us, only to be replaced by a 5xy the following year.
The 535 was considered good enough at the time for a back-up order to be placed in case the Hunter failed. We all know now that the Hunter was a huge success. Had it failed we would have had the Swift to cover the gap and a Super-Swift could have appeared very quickly. In the event it wasn’t necessary – but the research and the knowledge that sprang from it was invaluable. I won’t go on to talk about the Scimitar, at the other end of the line, as you’ll probably rubbish that as well.
Please remember that Hawkers were similarly engaged in a long line of type development at the time. Some of those were less successful. The Hunter hit just the right spot.
That’s what development is all about.
foresterOnly a few days. Lots of miles. Not to be ruined by time zone changes/jet-lag.
It has to be South African Airways to Cape Town. Fantastic place.
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