VC10 Production and First Flight

[Nigel H-J]

Came across this on You Tube and thought it would be of interest especially to Ian, Dank and of course Mr VC10 himself......Tonks!!

From first flight through to the RAF......Air Support Command......101 Sqdn.

Also if Gevers1 comes this way he it will see the answer to his question of wing flexing!! :o

Note how close some people are to the runway at Farnborough when she takes-off!!

Also it mentions that the VC10 has an autoland, I seem to remember reading some time ago that at first it caused a bit of consternation with the crew as the a/c under testing only raised its' nose on flaring at the last moment. Did they manage to get around that?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JKdBawbm ... re=related

Regards
Nigel

[TSR2]

Brilliant find Nige... really enjoyed that. Some of the best VC10 footage I've seen!

[Techy111]

Excellent..........

Tony

[forthbridge]

What a brillaint vid - cheers Nige

A couple of nice paint possibilites there for Dm's '10s!

I did not know the '10 ever had camo!

[DanKH]

Yes the whole bit is in fact from the Avion VC10 DVD. I have it (of course)

But for those that don't have it it's a brilliant find.

It's one of those DVD's I never get tired of.

Still available here (a long with a whole lot of other goodies):

http://www.avionvideo.com/products.asp? ... 0Programme

[DanKH]

Here's another appetiser:

Stills from the DVD

[DaveB]

I've watched that DVD so many times, I recognised it within a second of the clip starting I have the VHS too.. just in case ;-)

ATB

DaveB :tab:

[speedbird591]

Thanks, Nigel. I've got the video but I don't seem to have a video player any more. Hmmm. I wonder when that became extinct?

Anyway, they certainly had autoland but it wasn't as successful as the hype. It wasn't as advanced as the Trident and if I remember right, LHR was about the only place they could use it. There was a lot of pressure on the pilots to use it as often as possible so that it could get approval for a higher category. But they didn't like using it and tried to avoid doing so.

I remember landing at 27R in broad daylight when the pilot engaged the autoland at, what, 1000ft and the a/c immediately banked to starboard. It was quickly disengaged and the glide slope recovered, but I should think it put the development back a few months! You wouldn't want it to happen in fog :o

It didn't stop marketing using it as a selling tool, leading to awkward questions when you're sitting on the ground at Manchester or Prestwick along with all the 707s, waiting for the fog to lift :roll:

Ian

[DaveB]

..when the pilot engaged the autoland at, what, 1000ft and the a/c immediately banked to starboard. It was quickly disengaged and the glide slope recovered..

You know.. that sounds like me flying into Geneva. Dunno what it is about that place but it stopped me relying on AP for landing. I've since got used to using the Mk1 Eyeball and the lights instead! All my landings are now done that way with the occassional looksee at the wires if I've bothered to dial the ILS in ;-)

ATB

DaveB :tab:

[speedbird591]

I've since got used to using the Mk1 Eyeball and the lights instead! All my landings are now done that way with the occassional looksee at the wires if I've bothered to dial the ILS in ;-)

That's interesting, I do the opposite (No, not that, Julian!). I always rely on the ILS/DME and disengage the autopilot at about 1000ft - the eyeball and lights are subsidiary visual aids . Maybe it's because I've watched it done on big jets so many times that doing anything else makes me feel uncomfortable

Perhaps I need to do a conversion course on props to slow things down a bit, now I'm approaching middle age (what?)

Ian