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Aviation Stories


Kenneth ONeill

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To start the ball rolling, back in my school days (say 1970s) I was hillwalking in Torridon, on a path at the top of a U-shaped valley about 600 feet deep. We heard this noise approaching. I looked round and down and saw 2 RAF Jaguar GR1s approaching at about 250 feet above the valley floor. As they passed me, I looked round, and realised everyone else on the path had ducked, which actually placed them closer to the aircraft!

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As a lad I used to go on holiday to a caravan site just outside Dartmoor- Even then I was aeroplane mad, and loved the Hercs running at eyelevel in the valley alongside. I figured they must have been about to do a practise drop because the tail ramp/door was always open- and you could always get a wave from the loadie, who was usually standing on the ramp.

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Way back when I was a young soldier I took part in a major exercise in the West of Scotland as platoon radio operator lugging the radio with the 8 foot mast fitted because of the poor reception.  The opening phase was a night crossing of Little Loch Broom in paddle powered assault boats.  Once ashore we had to attack the enemy on the ridge above and establish a firm base and observation post to watch the enemy on the other side.  This involved a lot of running up a mountain with a really heavy radio on my back.  After at least an hour of this and thoroughly exhausted the platoon commander and I reached the ridge line and peered over it.  Straight into the eyes of a Royal Navy Hunter pilot racing up the other slope.  As he flew over there was a loud bang.  And my antenna broke.  All too quick to get scared!  I have often wondered what the pilot thought and how he explained that he had a section of army radio anenna attached to his aircraft.

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That sounds worse than my experience ..... A few years ago I was working on my sailing dinghy at the sailing club when suddenly I hear this tremendous noise and a Red Arrows Hawk, (they were practising for a display the next day), flew past the slipway at what seemed a few feet off the water.  It couldn't have been more than 50 feet away from me.  I could see the pilot so clearly.  Terrifying!

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I don't really know if mine qualify. I'm 54 (as of early 2017) and my father is ex-FAA. They're rather tame in comparison to others.

 

At the time we lived at Brawdy and to a 6 or 7 year old, trainer Hunters (I knew what they were even back then) screaming overhead in all over silver with dayglo panels, were quite a sight. Also, at the time, one day I got home from school in Solva to see some of our married quarter windows had cracked. It had been caused by Concorde on test flights from Filton.

 

We then moved to Yeovil and squadrons of Phantoms taking off on reheat was quite a sight - and sound. The last time I have any clear (and even vaguely relevant) aviation story is my father, who had been on 899 Sea Vixens, having obtained a taxi licence at Daedalus. Once I watched him start up and taxi a Sea Vixen at Daedalus. That was quite a sight too, see that huge aeroplane causing such a sound and moving under its own power. I couldn't at that time correlate it to one full squadron of many on a comparatively tiny flight deck of even a fleet aircraft carrier, but I did in later years.

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My worst and best airline flight.

(Just tried to post this story but either I put it in the wrong place or it needed censoring as it didn't appear so I'm having a second try.)

This story I’ve posted before or part of it but I feel it’s worth telling again as the memory is still fresh and one I’ll always honour & cherish the memory.

It all started in 1963 when I completed to Duke of Edinburgh Award Gold and had to go to Buckingham Palace to receive the award. Local boy goes to Palace I think was the local rags headline. The company ( now longer in existence ) I was apprenticed with also rewarded my with a trip to Paris to visit a French company in the same business. I was to fly from London (now called Heathrow) to Paris for a few days then take a train to Lillie in northern France to visit another branch of the printing firm for three more days and finally fly back to London.

I dutifully arrived all excited at London airport and boarded an Air-France Caravelle. So far So good as I knew the Caravelle was fairly new on the scene, and was supposed to be safe & quite, what they didn’t say was it was hot and cramped. It had one central isle with twin seats either side, mine being at the wing. We took-off & climbed & climbed at such a steep angle that the hostess’s really had to put their backs into pushing, I mean literally, the refreshment trolley up the isle, then jamming her foot under the wheel to stop it rolling back; I kid you not: while the other that was pulling did her best to serve those that wanted something, and the air-conditioning was either not working or set way to warm, ( maybe the French liked their planes hot back then) for the cabin temperature was quite hot and noisy. Maybe I was expecting a nice serene peaceful flight, I did not get one. At the half way make we stopped climbing and started to descend, maybe that should read dive. The hapless hostess’s were caught unawares and the trolley nearly escaped their grasp, the one who had her foot under the wheel had to hang on for dear life and try & stop the trolley careering down the isle the one in front was also caught by surprise as she was serving someone. I’m sure it would have made a very funny comedy sketch, but at the time I was wondering what the pilot would do if the cart had landed up in the cockpit. Finally landed and I was not impressed and sort of dreading the return flight thinking it would be the same. Boy was I in for a surprise, but that flight still ranks as the worst airline flight I’ve ever had.

A week or so later I arrived at Lillie airport, a typical small municipal airport in those days, actually looked a bit like a modernised WW 2 airfield with a few Caravelle’s Boeing 707's and other sundry jets and cargo DC4 & 6’s laying around on the far side of the airfield, nothing close by for the dozen or so passengers flying to London. We were all called onto the tarmac to board the bus and off we trundled, me wondering which Caravelle, Trident or 707 we were headed for, but we drove right passed then all the I saw our flight home, and I couldn’t believe that Air-France were sending us home in that thing. How it was still flying I didn’t know. Well we stopped near the wing and walked to the rear door to board after first climbing up the four or five onboard steps to be greeted by the most beautiful air hostess I’ve ever had the privilege of flying with, she really was a stunner. I did notice a sign near the door as we boarded. “On charter to Air-France". Inside the plane there was a single row of double seats that looked like refuges from a beach deck-chair sale, they were metal framed with canvas covering the same as deck-chairs with a rudimentary waist seat belt, on the other side of the fuselage was collection of mysterious boxes and crates tied down to eye-bolts in the floor, and I’m sure I could hear clucking noises coming from one. Once all were seated the big radial engines started and off we trundled, Not sure now if we used the run-way or just took off from the grass, well soon the tail wheel lifted, and we gracefully wafted into the air the undercarriage going home with a satisfying clunk.

The Queen was back in her element, as we were not pressurised we stayed at about six to eight thousand feet and once airborne with the engines at cruising they were surprisingly quite far more-so than the Caravelle and having climb easily to our cruising altitude soon levelled off with magnificent views of the French county side the shipping in the Channel, and regretfully the English coast. The only refreshment offered was tea or coffee apon request, I ordered coffee and I’ll say now that it is the best airline coffee I’ve ever had even though it was instant, probably made from a thermos of hot water, but still the best coffee. We flew our stately way over the Thames estuary and Romnery marshes and south London now down to less than three thousand feet, magnificent views.

Unfortunately I reckon London Traffic Control wanted us back on the ground as soon as possible, before we fell out of the sky. I could imagine their conversation. “There’s a what coming in, For (censored censored) get it down quick, those things should’ve been grounded ten years ago.” Anyway we came straight in & very gently kissed the tarmac, in fact the only indication we’d landed was the soft gentle rumble of those huge balloon tyres, then the tail wheel touched as we all to soon slowed down & took the first turn-off for the terminus.

So ended the best, and I really mean THE BEST airline flight I’ve ever had, and I gave a quite thanks and forgiveness to Air-France for giving me the honour & privilege of flying with the true Queen of the air a Douglas DC 3. It is a memory I’ll always treasure.

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The mention of the Caravelle brings another memory to mind. I used to work in Operations for a very famous, but now renamed, airline at an airport made famous by an actress quite a few years ago. Our rest/break area for ops looked out over the ramp and I was idly staring out of the window, waiting for the coffee to brew.

 

A bit of backround here: as this airport had no airbridges, passengers were led out from the gate in two streams, one for the front door, one for the rear door. As long as you could keep the passengers from bumping into the aeroplane, or wandering off, it was a quick way of loading the 'plane. If it was a 'difficult' load you sometimes kept the passengers in one line and put them all on at the front. Starting with the people sitting at the rear.

Handling agents also had a sequence for loading aeroplanes, depending on the type; for instance Boeing 737-200 were pax on both doors, baggage, rear hold first, then the front holds, this gave a slightly nose-up atitude in flight which gave a degree of fuel economy. different aeroplanes had different ways of loading, depending on a whole load of factors. Certain aeroplanes had a very specific set of procedures because their centre of gravity was in an odd place, or their balance and trim was a bit odd.

 

There was a Caravelle on stand, being loaded.

 

Part of the equipment of a Caravelle, was a telescopic pole, which was normally kept in a set of clips in the nosewheel bay. However, the clips often broke so it usually ended up in the cockpit. More often it ended up being lost. Most handling agents kept a broomstick as a replacement. At Luton it was an appropriate length of 2x2 kept in the ramp van. The pole's purpose will become apparent as the story goes on.

 

It looked like the ventral stair on the Caravelle was closed, because all the passengers were boarding at the front door, slowly. The baggage turned up and went straight to the rear hold. As loading went on, the nosewheel seemed to be getting longer- I went and told the rest of the shift, and as one they all turned up at the window. The longest serving amongst us, took one look, said;

"Uh-Oh, I know what's going to happen", told us, then went to the ground radio and called Traffic (our aircraft handling guys) and the conversation went something like:

 

"Ops to Traffic..."

"Traffic, Go ahead..."

"The caravelle on stand 8- looks a bit tail heavy, have you got the pole in?"

"The pole? Err, the airstair is down isn't it?"

"Nope..."

" Traffic to Ramp three..." (Same radio net, see)

"Ramp three, go ahead..."

"have you put the pole on the caravelle?"

"The pole?............Oh sh"

 

And at that point up went the nose, and all of a sudden: a Caravelle taildragger. 

 

The Caravelle was one of those aeroplanes that had very specific loading instructions, as the centre of gravity was quite far forward. If the ventral airstairs weren't deployed the front hold had to be filled, before the passengers embarked. Prior to this the telescopic pole had to be fixed into the little socket on the aeroplane provided for it, extended and locked. 

 

Fortunately, no-one was badly hurt, although they had to rescue the baggage loader from the rear hold, where he'd been knocked out by falling suitcases. They got everyone off by using a pile of salvage airbags under the front fuselage to stabilise it until the firemen had got everyone off. The flight crew were in hysterics, and spent the next couple of hours in our crewroom taking the mickey out of the ramp agent, in french, of course. We did the same jokes but in english....

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Great story, I'd often wondered if that kind of thing could happen Especially with the early jet airliners.

Thanks for confirming my suspitions, again great story. Love to read more,

Foot-note if you ever get the chance to fly the old DC 3, take it no matter what else you might have planed, not sure if any are still flying though.

Remember we do this for fun                       John the Pom

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I have a short story from my time as an Air Cadet in the 80's. My squadron, 2433, was (and still is) based on the then RAF Manston, which then had flying units including 1 AEF Chipmunks, 617 VGS Kirby Cadet Mk3 gliders and 22sqn E Flt with bright yellow Westland Wessex HAR 2 rescue helicopters.

Being the local ATC we sometimes got the chance to sometimes exercise with the Wessex when they were training. On one occasion a group of 6 of us had been detailed to be winched up from the centre of the airfield. During the briefing and kitting out with flight gear it became obvious that one cadet in particular was really nervous, and kept asking the ground crew questions about safety to reassure himself.

Unbeknown to us the ground crew passed this on to the aircrew and a plan was devised. Out on the field the first 5 of us were duly winched up into the Wessex from ground to about 200ft, the nervous cadet was left till last. When it came to his turn he put himself into the strop and followed his instructions to keep looking up, At the helicopter doorway the winch man didn't pull him in straight away but yelled at him over the engines to look down. He looked and instead of his feet being 200ft from the ground they were about 2 ft! As the winch cable was retracted, instead of the helicopter hovering the pilot had matched the speed and descended at the same rate, keeping the cadet just above the ground all the time. He was then pulled in and we enjoyed a sightseeing trip around the Kent coast via Westland Wessex. Funnily enough, when we landed back at Manston the cadet's fear of flying was completely gone!

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I was invited out by a mutual friend for a flying trip in this guy's Tripacer. Never able to look a gift horse in the mouth I accepted without a second thought. The owner, a bloke named Robin, said that as I had a couple of dozen hours logged, I ought to be able to navigate. So I had a chart thrust at me and was instructed to sit in the P2. This was hugely enjoyable, as I have a penchant for vintage aircraft and getting to fly in one was a major bonus. The aim was to fly to Coventry airport for a spot of lunch, divert to Leicester flying club for tea, then wing it back home. Navigation was a breeze, because Robin obviously knew where he was going without reference to charts! On approach to Coventry we were put on a holding pattern and I actually became useful for a few minutes. After looking down at the ground to ID various landmarks I became aware of something in my peripheral vision, looked up to see there was a Canberra formating on us! Then on the way home we flew at altitude over Duxford and got buzzed by MH434. A very memorable little jaunt.

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Ok, how about another, bit more modern this, and it is second-hand, in so much as I wasn't actually involved, only having seen the aftermath, but was told the full facts of the matter in the flying club, by the relevant airlines ops blokes.

 

It strikes me that we need some backround info here:

The Flying Club at Luton wasn't actually a flying club, it was a members-only, social club, only frequented by airline staff and airport hangers-on (People like the airport-based police, Traffic cops- handy that was). Much loved, and frequented!, by anyone who worked at Luton, it finally closed in 2001- 63 years after it opened. It had opened in a corner of the farmhouse that was Luton's original watch office/ Terminal/ admin office. It moved across the approach road into a temporary hut when they built the 'new' control tower (the one before the 'lump-on-a-stick that exists now) In my airline it was known as the ops restroom.

 

Additional Info: As a general rule, if a runway doesn't have a parallel taxiway, the ends are expanded into a circle (think dumbell shape) and these ends are called the turning circle because, well, that's what aeroplanes do on them.

 

Anyway, it was one quiet morning, when we got a call from ATC saying 'all operations suspended' due to a security issue in the airport vicinity. This piqued our attention, so we did some digging...

 

Our police contact would only say that there had been a report of a projectile hitting a car on a lane that ran round the end of the runway...

 

ATC then said there was also a report of damage to an aircraft in flight...

 

This is getting interesting we thought. There was another operator's B757 on the end of the runway, so we rushed up to IT, whose windows looked out to that end of the runway (disturbing the gently-snoozing duty geek). Sure enough we saw this 757 taxying back to the the ramp, as well as a plethora of blue lights everywhere you looked...there appeared to be a continuous stream of fire engines.

So back down the stairs, at the rush... We rang an off-duty ops bloke who lived out that way, who reported that the police were all over his village, and frankly, getting in the way of his dog-walking...

 

Even more interesting, the B757 was being brought onto the engineering stands, coaches and comforters standing by... As it came on stand- we saw a HUGE hole in the leading edge of the starboard stabiliser....

 

Ooh-err! this might be getting serious... Do we start the incident call-out cascade?... We were still umming and ahhing, when we get a message from ATC.

 

'EGGW now op- Temp: r/way 026 TODA 65xx, LDA 64xx. Be advzed reduced runway length. rway 026 turning circle not avail.'

 

Intriguing! A quick phone call to ATC resulted in the response from a very irate ATC shift manager:

 

'The notam is very clear, there is nothing to add' and a phone slam!

 

Later (and this is where the flying club comes in) we were discussing this over a pint, when the duty ATC tower controller comes in- with the offer of a pint, he joined our table and told us what had actually gone on... the other airlines ops guys popped up too so we bought them a pint and settled in for the story:-

 

Luton Airport were doing some work at that end of the runway, and not willing to completely resurface the turning circle, knowing that it would have to be dug up again to finish the work, some clever clogs came up with the idea of using paving blocks as a temporary measure- brilliant idea! Easy to lay, easy to pull up, certainly capable of supporting the weight of the various aircraft operating out of Luton (B767-200 MTW was 158 tonnes, Airbus A300 nearer 180). Job done!

 

Come the fateful day, the B757 trundled down to the end of the runway, turned round on the turning circle, and having been given an go-when-ready clearance, jack-the-lad captain put full-power on as he exited the turn.... all of a sudden, a loud bang and the airframe shook like a wet dog.

 

What clever clogs had forgotten, was the venturi effect. (Basically, the faster a coloumn of air moves, the lower it's pressure, in effect creating an immense suction all around it- it's how most airbrushes work). This scientific principle meant as Jack-the-Lad put full thrust on, the engine sucked out quite a few blocks, chucked them into the exhaust stream, which flung them far and wide... One through the rear stabiliser, of course...

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Hello Dave

Brilliant Absolutely brilliant.

Had to stop reading near the end as I was sure what was going to happen, I was laughing so much my eyes were watering and couldn’t focus. The ending confirming my suspicions.

Brilliant story. Wonder how they spun that one in the media.

Remember we do this for fun                                               John the Pom.

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