One for Peter.....

[forthbridge]

Hey all/Peter,

I'm quite happily running the Trident on some Edinburgh-London shuttles but I'm just curious - in reality what was the normal fuel load, and what would be the typical flight profile, especially max altitude?

[petermcleland]

Hey all/Peter,

I'm quite happily running the Trident on some Edinburgh-London shuttles but I'm just curious - in reality what was the normal fuel load, and what would be the typical flight profile, especially max altitude?

As far as I remember the Glasgow and Edinburgh shuttles were flown at about FL270 to FL280...maybe on occasion at FL290...Manchester shuttles were flown at FL140 or FL150.

Fuel loads would tax my memory too far but the Edinbugh sector in my days were often subject to diversion to Aberdeen because of "standing water" on the Edinburgh runway...In those days the runway was a bit short for the Trident and with standing water it was almost impossible to stop. The normal form, when "Standing Water" was mentioned by ATC, was immediate diversion to Aberdeen and the groundstaff at Edinburgh would dispatch the London bound pax by bus to Aberdeen. Those same busses would be used to take our disembarked Edinburgh bound pax down to EDI and we would then fly the London bound pax from Aberdeen to London.

This was all a very fussy disturbance to things in general and ATC were sometimes a bit reticent or even economical with the truth when declaring the runway state...They knew that one mention of "Standing Water" would fire you off to Aberdeen, whereas "Wet" would see you landing at Edinburgh.

I found this out the hard way on my "Route Check" one year...It was to Edinburgh and it was near crosswind limits..."Wet" was mentioned and "Standing Water" denied...I touched down firmly near the threshold and copilot got the reverse in. However, it was obvious when I started braking that not a lot of retardation was happening so I asked for "Full Emergency Reverse to be kept in till we STOP".

We stopped with the flightdeck over the grass beyond the end of the runway...But fortunately the nosewheel was still just on the runway and I was able to crank it round to turn us onto the taxiway

[Tomliner]

Hope you had a spare pair of underpants Peter! EricT

[jonesey2k]

I wonder if any of the passengers clocked on to what nearly happened...

[cstorey]

As a matter of interest , Peter did the Speys object to that sort of treatment, or were they reasonably tolerant of reingestion?

[petermcleland]

As a matter of interest , Peter did the Speys object to that sort of treatment, or were they reasonably tolerant of reingestion?

No the Speys roared steadily with no bangs or strange sounds rightdown to the stop when the FO cancelled the reverse. There were several large patches of water and the Maxarets were very busy keeping the wheels turning.

I don't think the pax realised that anything unusual was happening and the Route Check Captain gave me an "A" on his debriefing but reminded me that the Company would NOT thank me if I took a Trident off the end

I remember that when we had shut down on the stand, I reached up and took my headset off to hang it on the yoke, I noticed that my hands were shaking

[forthbridge]

Thanks Peter.... good to know - I'll try and make sure I stop in plenty time tho

[ggi]

Well if you try it at Edinburgh use runway 30 or 12 (In those days it would be 31/13). There used to be an ILS available but this was withdrawn when what is now 06/24 opened. The wind is predominately southwesterly, and I believe it was a challenging landing by all accounts. Maybe an ILS could be added using AFCAD - however I've no idea what the frequency/ident was in the 70's.........but I bet someone here does know!!!

[petermcleland]

My Approach Booklets from my Shuttle days are from 1985 (the last year of the Trident) and by that time the ILS had shifted to RW 25/07 and the only approach listed for RW 13 was a VDF approach on Edinburgh Approach 121.2...I certainly never did one of those in a Trident and I'm not sure that I even remember what a VDF approach was! However, the old runways are still on the Aerodrome chart and 31/13 has a length of 1829m and width 46m.

The runway availability was as follows:-

13/31 not to be used for take-off/landings by jet a/c unless the crosswind component on 07/25 is unacceptable or awaiting access to 07/25 incurs a delay of more than 5 mins.

That flight referred to above was before we had the luxury of 07/25 and I was landing on 31.

[ggi]

Peter - I had forgotten the delights of the VDF letdown.....letdown being the best word for it. Endless calls of QDM, QDM, QDM to atc who gave your bearing from your transmit signal. I spent a miserable hour in a Piper Cherokee flying teardrop patterns and trying to work out what the drift was, where the heck I was, do the maths and somehow fly the plane too. They say men can't multitask - and on the basis of the VDF approach, I have to agree I don't suppose these are done anymore??