5B-DAB, Trident Nicosia, Walkround

[Garry Russell]

Abandoned in the conflict

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kshA31HEcRc

[VEGAS]

Fascinating and detailed footage which I enjoyed in a somewhat morbid capacity.

Thanks for the link mate.

[dfarrow]

On a similar vein , G-AVFB the T2 at Duxford was leased to Cyprus Airways in 1972 . She was caught out at Nicosia by the Turkish invasion , but not heavily damaged . A BA repair team of engineers patched her up [ inc . bullet holes ] and a team of senior trainers flew her home in 1977 . During her subsequent C of A inspection before re-entering service , a nest complete with eggs was found in the fin . We flew her until she was retired in 1982 . Whereupon driving past Duxford always made me feel old before my time as an a/c I flown regularly was retired and in museum ; and I was not yet 30 .
Lots of info on individual British registered a/c for those who not seen it http://www.caa.co.uk/application.aspx?c ... 65&appid=1 commonly known as
G-info ......
As an aside in early 1974 a group of us got sent to Nicosia to complete our Trident conversion course with ''base training'' circuits and bumps and engine fails on the real a/c as simulators were not as good as now . We flew a sister ship 5B-DAC borrowed from Cyprus Airways .

ATB Dave f .

[Garry Russell]

I thought G-AVFB was swapped rather than leased.?? It was replace a damaged aircraft that was rebuilt as G-AZXM. G-AVFB being recovered later with G-ASWU and some bit's and pieces after the invasion

[ChrisHunt]

We have some '83 train stock in a similar state (but with significantly more graffiti) and stuck in a sidings that shall not be named. My challenge is to remove it before December next year, far from easy with no road access and limited height clearance - it's going to be interesting.

It's always a bit sad when you see pictures/video of old aircraft and ships that have been abandoned and left to rot. At least with a good museum version there is always the illusion that it might one day live again.

Regards,
Chris

[dfarrow]

Garry , you may be correct in that , info such as that was outside our pay grade ; but G-INFO just says to Cyprus . Certainly G-AZXM was a standard T2 on the fleet but with an out of sequence reg. G-ASWU '' Mr Wu '' was a T1E , but because of cockpit fit being the same as the 1/2s , came to our fleet rather than the old Northeast T1Es fleet . Rather a fun a/c to fly as she handled smoothly , responsively , and the handling pilot could comfortably reach the throttles [ being a ''GT'' set , cranked back to within reach ] , whereas BEA in it's wisdom had straight throttles which the handling pilot could not reach . Therefore the non-handling pilot set the power to the handling pilots request .... thus down finals handling pilot was continually calling ... 10-8 , 11.. 11-2 , 11-1 , 10-8 [10800 HP RPM ] ...etc , followed by ''power off , reverse , Emergency reverse ! '' [ short rwy at EDI or tailwind at ABZ ] .
Thankfully every other a/c has throttles that can be reached by the handling pilot .

ATB dave f .

[Garry Russell]

Another oddball Trident in the EA fleet was G-AVYE

When Channel went but BRA bought G-AVYB and G-AVYE.

'YB was shipped off to Northeast to join the two 1E-140 they already had and 'YE joined BEA Channel Islands.

Although it did appear at LHR and Manchester, it's primary role was Birmingham -Paris operating as a fleet of one.

CI division had three bases, Jersey, Birmingham and Gibraltar so it CI division was purely a BHX thing. It wore standard large BEA titles without th suffix before leaving to join the Northeast division and eventual integration with BA.

G-ASWU and G-AVFB both wore BA tail margins and non standard British Airways titling for their position back to LHR.

Had their been not Cyprus invasion, I guess the Tridents will have all made it back to BEA in the end. It was a BEA support operation from the start s was the Olympic Comet fleet.

BEA was to rebuild the damaged Cyprus aircraft in any case so a replacement was needed of some sort. So G-AVFB went off and G-AZXM entered service with BEA'

I don't know if the Cyprus Tridents were technically owned by BEA and leased but I do know that happened with Gibair where BEA bought an ex NZNAC Viscount to lease to Gibraltar airways in place of the rotated CI division machine. This though was registered to GB from the beginning but not bought from BA until some years later. Ownership is not always clear.

[dfarrow]

Garry memory is old , but think it was nicknamed '' Yogibair '' , and think was painted on the a/c . If we flew GB services with mainline a/c ; there were stickers all over the cabin . Some guys always had bad luck / wx and diverted to Tangiers . A mate never saw Gib 'cos his trips always diverted ! Later on when Gibs were at LGW , we rented in an Air Europe 73 , G-??DV ;which became a dedicated Gib route a/c with more permanent stickers . 737-200 was a much better a/c for Gib ,would stop and go very well . On a T2 got cleared for t/o onetime , and the skipper delayed 'til a passing ship in the bay was through the centreline of the rwy . ATC queried this as ship was 4 miles away ....'' Have you seen a T2 with an engine out ? '' was our skips reply ..

ATB dave f .

[Garry Russell]

The Yogibair was applied to the Viscount but dates back to the Dakota

One night someone crept into the hangar and painted 'YO' in front of the Gibair on the Dakota's nose.

That was G-AMFV and was BEA's last DC 3 having been down there on lease since the rest were retired in the early sixties. It was replaces with Viscounts of the CI division on rotation win basic BEA Flying Jack with Gibair titles.

The Viscount after it's demise was replaced with the Trislander G-OCTA but that was not very successful and they moved on to the 737's all operating in their own right instead of Britannia 737's on rotation used after G-DDDV for the London route.