Many thanks
to the
members who
responded to
my
“download”
plea in the last
edition of the
newsletter.
6, Knightwood Close
Reigate, Surrey
RH2 8BE
01737 221814
stevechairman@icarusba.org.uk
stephen@wand.fsworld.co.uk
ICARUS NEWSLETTER
Autumn 2010
Website http://www.icarusba.org.uk
We send our condolences to the families of the following absent friends:
“Alex” Alexander
Tom Freer
Sam Baker
Bob Fyfe
Steve Coleman
C.W.Hobbs
“Mac” MacDougall
“Spike” Milligan
Martyn Saunders
“Tiny” Ward
Arthur Jurgens
Don Probyn
George Watson
Mary McAteer, Steve Coleman’s daughter, sent a nice appreciation following his death and
advised that his widow still enjoys reading our newsletter. As is the case with many of our
absent stalwarts, Steve obviously enjoyed his many years of flying with the RAF, Silver City
Airways and BEA, ending up on the German internals flying 1-11s.
*****
Committee News:
If you attended our function in April, you will know that Cuth Wakefield, who has
administered our address database for many years, wished to step down from the task. I am
very pleased to advise that Captain Nick Edgley, who was presented with his retirement gift
at the April meeting, has volunteered to join the committee and has taken over the database
from Cuth. Many thanks Nick and a big thank you to Cuth on behalf of the membership for
his past contribution.
Dennis Southgate is struggling manfully with his on-going ankle injury, following a fall in
the wintry conditions last January. He was poorly served by the NHS at Frimley, having
spent a week as an in-patient following the incident, during which time the operation was
cancelled six times! A manual realignment of the joint was eventually carried out but was not
very successful, leaving Dennis with an on-going joint defect that requires him to use a
walking stick. Fortunately he can now drive, but finds that about 100 yards on foot is all that
he can manage without a rest. Dennis recently visited Terry Lakin, who also now relies on a
walking stick owing to balance problems and the two stalwarts enjoyed a chat and a cuppa
together in Bournemouth.
My thanks to those who responded to the download nagging- piece in the posted edition of
the last newsletter. It certainly bore fruit and resulted in a fair number of members agreeing
to cancel their posted hard copy. Keep up the good work and let us know if you can manage
to obtain your issue electronically.
People News:
Ron Skinner, who retired from the Airline and TriStars in 1982, was inspired to get in touch
with us, following Stan Lawrence’s health piece in the last Newsletter. He writes:
“On the last day of a walking holiday in Saas Fee, Switzerland, last September I had a heart
attack whilst ambling back to our hotel. It came on very suddenly and I hoped that it was
indigestion but the pain built up very quickly and intensely extending down both arms. I was
quickly at the local doctor’s house which, in true Swiss fashion, had a well equipped surgery.
She immediately had me wired up to an ECG, oxygen supply and a drip, at the same time
summoning the helicopter. Her aim was to get me to hospital in Sion within two hours which
was achieved and we landed on the roof of the building before being transported to the
cardiac department on the top floor. A procedure called primary angioplasty was duly carried
out during which time two stents were inserted and I was able to see the whole procedure on
the monitors as I remained fully conscious throughout. A week in hospital then followed
prior to the flight home.
There are a few lessons in all this; the first one being that it can happen to you, even though
you don’t consider yourself to be an obvious candidate. Secondly, try to be in Switzerland at
the time as our health service cannot always match the Swiss standard, time to treatment
being the primary requisite. Thirdly, good travel insurance is obviously a must and in our
case RBS were superb and most helpful to my wife from the moment she phoned them from
Saas Fee. It cost them a lot of money, particularly paying Zermatt Helicopters. Finally having
returned home, NHS rehab is necessary and first-class in rebuilding one’s confidence.”
Roger Hendry, a recent joiner, updated us on his whereabouts. He had a spell with SIA
Cargo and is now settled in Sydney, Oz, and offers himself as a contact for anyone venturing
down-under (rojhendry@hotmail.com). He has been visited by several ex-Highland Division
mates and reports that on the visa application it states “Please give details of any criminal
record”. The authorities are getting fed up with Brits responding “I didn’t know it was still a
requirement”! He recently visited the HARS museum in Wollongong and witnessed the
Connie flying at a recent open day. It started its recreation as a C121 full of pigeon droppings
in the Arizona desert and is testimony to all the ex-Qantas engineers who worked on her, to
get the machine airborne again. Roger has also joined a dual-control P51 syndicate (actually
an Oz built CA18), so visiting mates may well be able to get into the air with Roger at cost.
Gordon Woodward wrote with some observations relating to items that he had read in
previous newsletters. He lives in Bournemouth and sadly misses several local Icarus
members who have passed away, which has decimated the group who periodically booked a
table for lunch at The Queens Hotel. He is however always busy with charitable work
relating to his local prostate-cancer support group which he set up, and is now the largest in
the south. He also assists with his wife’s Alzheimers Committee work.
His first observation related to the story that John Wright told when John was a copilot on
German routes. Gordon was the captain of the 1-11 flight in question to Cologne and on
landing, a Lufthansa 737 was seen to be landing in the opposite direction on the same
runway! The touchdown and roll-out must have been the shortest-ever 1-11 landing in
history. As he was number 2 to land, the 737 captain had actually been told to overshoot but,
as John had said, an inquiry would have been a messy business and there was nothing better
than a few choice words directed at the culprit!
Gordon was coincidentally also the captain on John’s other story where the intrepid aviators
were descending through thick cloud in the Munich holding pattern. Upon breaking cloud on
approach to this major civil airport they were confronted by a hot-air balloon in full cry with
a couple of German balloonists in the basket, with horrified expressions on their faces.
The landing was completed without further sighting of the balloon. Gordon presumed that the
gas had quickly been let out of the bag! Lastly he told of a phenomenon that occurred on a
dark, clear night in 1962 when Gordon was in command of a BEA Comet between Athens
and London. Passing about 60 miles to the west of Spezia at 31000ft Gordon noticed a very
active cluster of CBs over the Italian coast that were being continuously illuminated by
lightning. Suddenly from the top of the end cloud of the row, a bolt of blue/white lightning
shot straight up to an enormous height at which point it seemed to meet an invisible barrier,
probably the ionosphere, whereupon it exploded into orange filaments that spread out to form
a huge coloured dome or canopy, 30 or 40 miles wide, which lasted about five seconds
before disintegrating. Although a report was filed at London, no notice was ever taken of it –
it was as if the phenomenon didn’t have a name, so it couldn’t have happened. Things have
changed in recent years and a lot of interest is now being shown internationally in “transient
luminous events” such as upper atmosphere lightning, known as big jets. Gordon now does
his own research on the subject, although pilot reports tend to be very rare, and has a website
www.pukkagen.net if anyone requires more information. He failed to keep a record of the
actual Comet flight in 1962 so, if anyone recalls being copilot that night, Gordon would like
to hear from them – his email is gwoodward@talktalk.net
Flights to Remember…. (or forget!):
Again, not a BOAC/BEA/BA incident, but a terrifying experience for a European Air
Transport/DHL crew in an incident, akin to the UAL DC-10 landing without flight controls
at Sioux City in 1989.
22nd November 2003, Airbus A300 freighter loaded with 7 tonnes of general aviation cargo.
Due to the light load the aeroplane was 60 tonnes under MTOW. Baghdad-Bahrain, having
operated Bahrain to Baghdad earlier that morning. Weather and visibility good.
Captain Eric Gennotte, Belgian, with 3,300 total hours and 1,786 on type.
First Officer Steeve Michielsen, Belgian, with 1,275 total hours and 199 hours on type.
Flight Engineer Mario Rofail, British, with 13,423 total hours and 1,709 on type.
Runway 15L was used for take off, with the captain handling. There was a requirement
ex-Baghdad for a maximum-angle climb to gain as much altitude as possible before reaching
the airfield boundary, so the take off configuration was no-flaps, slats-only and max power.
Climb was straight ahead to waypoint LOVEK. Passing through 8,000 feet an explosion
rocked the aeroplane and aural warnings and lights came on for multiple systems failures.
The flight engineer warned the pilots that two of the three hydraulic systems had lost all
pressure, followed 20 seconds later by a total pressure loss for the third system. The flight
controls went limp in the slipstream, the spoilers retracted and were unavailable, together
with the flaps. The horizontal stabiliser froze at the trimmed position for 215 knots.
The crew were aware that something had hit the aeroplane but were unsure whether it
involved a missile strike or a collision with an unseen aircraft or UAV. The engineer
described the aircraft as being “like a piece of paper performing a series of steep banks and
dives, throwing the crew against their harnesses”.
By the time that the crew had explored the amount of control that was available, using
throttles alone, they had managed a gradual, violently pitching and rolling left turn towards
the airfield. ATC and a helicopter circling nearby were able to confirm that the aircraft’s left
wing was on fire, trailing a 50m flame and, although not visible from the flight deck, the
crew knew that they would lose control of the plane if part of the wing was to separate.
Fortunately the missile destroyed the outer left wing tank so comprehensively that the fuel
simply fell out of it – there was no explosive ignition of the fuel because the tank was full
and so had no fuel/air vapour inside. Had there been, the wing would have been blown off
the aeroplane. For various reasons, fuel management was complicated for the flight engineer,
and he was fully aware that any interruption to the fuel flow would cause an immediate loss
of control for the pilots. The engineer also had to free fall the landing gear which involved
both he and the copilot moving their seat positions. Luckily the gear locked down at the first
attempt and made control of the aircraft noticeably more stable (Airbus subsequently advised
that, had the crew attempted or been forced into a gear-up approach, they almost certainly
would not have succeeded).
Gradually the aircraft was flown outbound from the airfield and then inbound at 3000 feet to
establish in more or less level flight, on a 20 mile final approach to runway 33L at Baghdad,
with a surface wind of 290/20. Early on in the long approach the first officer reminded Capt
Gennotte that counter-intuitively, he must not retard the throttles before touching down,
recalling the problems that had been caused in the Sioux City accident when the throttles
were closed. By 1000 feet, on a reasonable descent path, the aircraft was roughly stable but at
400 feet surface generated turbulence complicated the handling with the response to throttle
manipulation being agonisingly slow. Nevertheless the crew were able to get the aeroplane
onto the runway for touchdown, but with its heading eight degrees to the left of the centreline and right wheel first. The aircraft departed the runway into the sand to the left.
The wheels and thrust kicked up a plume of thick sand and dust as the engineer slammed the
throttles into full reverse thrust. Several tyres burst and jolts of 7.5g buffeted the aeroplane.
They then careered on through a razor-wire fence to the left of the runway and carried it with
them, until the aircraft stopped.
Straight away the engineer opened both forward doors and the three crew members exited
down the slide on the starboard side, believing that the fuel tanks could explode at any
moment. As they ran away from the crippled aircraft they were stopped by soldiers,
screaming that they were running through a minefield!
Subsequent to the event it was determined that the leading edge of the wing remained intact
throughout, but the fire gradually destroyed the outer wing, creeping forward from the
trailing edge. At some stage before landing the rear wing spar separated, with the remaining
structure being held together only by the forward spar.
After the incident the following comments were reported by the crew:
Handling-wise in pitch, using only the engine thrust, it took the captain 10 minutes or so
before he could maintain the aircraft in an acceptable attitude. During this time the airspeed
varied between 180 and 300kts and any speed variation, above or below the fixed 215kt trim
speed, resulted in a counter-intuitive secondary effect to every power change.
In roll, asymmetric thrust provided a degree of control but it was found to be painfully slow
and unresponsive compared to the almost instant effect that a power change had for pitch
control. The flight recorder showed that the captain had managed to land the aircraft, using
only engine thrust, at a normal touchdown descent rate with 10 degrees right bank and a
nose-up attitude.
The fight engineer remarked that “situations like this are unique every time and the rulebook
goes out of the window. You cannot train for them and you cannot write a checklist for them.
All you can do is to apply common sense and try to stay calm.” After the incident the two
pilots were back flying with DHL within a week but the engineer, who was a lot longer in the
tooth, decided that it was a good time to call it a day!
Three lucky chaps who, when the chips were down, managed to perform in harmony and to
the best of their ability.
******
What a turbulent year it has been for BA! The process of dragging the industrial agreements
applying to our cabin crew colleagues into the 21st century has been a tortuous period and the
scale of disruption caused to our passengers over the last year must have damaged our breadand-butters’ loyalty to the Airline. With large orders for new A380s and 787s in the pipeline
it is inevitable that some of the restrictive practices that have been a hurdle to the efficient
operation of aeroplanes to date, have needed to be sacrificed. Most considered opinion has
branded the union’s action in trying to retain these out-dated rules unjustified and selfdefeating so, it is hoped that reason will prevail, allowing the Airline and its workers to
compete effectively with the likes of Emirates, who seem to be going from strength to
strength, with 90 A380s and 101 777s joining their fleet.
On a lighter note, for those who don't know about history ... here is a condensed version:
Humans originally existed as members of small bands of nomadic hunters/gatherers. They
lived on deer in the mountains during the summer and would go to the coast and live on fish
and lobster in the winter. The two most important events in all of history were the invention
of beer and the invention of the wheel. The wheel was invented to get man to the beer. These
were the foundation of modern civilization and together were the catalyst for the splitting of
humanity into two distinct subgroups - Real men and New men.
Once beer was discovered, it required grain and that was the beginning of agriculture.
Neither the glass bottle nor aluminium can were invented yet so, while our early humans
were sitting around waiting for that to happen, they just stayed close to the brewery. That's
how villages were formed. Some men spent their days tracking and killing animals to BBQ at
night while they were drinking beer. This was the beginning of what is known as the manly
pursuit. Those who were weaker and less skilled at hunting learned to live off the men by
showing up for the nightly BBQ's and doing the sewing, fetching, moisturizing and hair
dressing. This was the beginning of the new man. Some of these new men eventually evolved
into women. They became known as girlie-men. Some noteworthy new man achievements
include the domestication of cats, the invention of group therapy, group hugs, and the
concept of democratic voting to decide how to divide the meat and beer that real men
provided. Over the years real men came to be symbolized by the largest, most powerful land
animal on earth, the elephant, whereas new men were symbolized by the jackass.
New men like imported beer (with lime added), but most prefer white wine or imported
bottled water. They eat raw fish but like their beef well done. Sushi, tofu, and French food
are standard new man fare... Another interesting evolutionary side note: most of their women
have higher testosterone levels than their new man. Most social workers, personal injury
attorneys, journalists, safety reps and group therapists are new men. New men invented the
no winners or losers rule because it was deemed fairer to a child to learn that no-one wins or
loses in life - it’s the taking part that counts. Real men drink domestic beer, mostly John
Smiths, Guinness or Newcastle Brown. They eat red meat and still provide for their women.
Real men are big game hunters, truck drivers, lumberjacks, construction workers, firemen,
medical doctors, police officers, engineers, corporate executives, athletes, members of the
military, airline pilots and generally anyone who works productively. Real men who own
companies hire other real men who want to work for a living. New men produce little or
nothing. They like to govern the producers and decide what to do with the production.
New men believe Europeans are more enlightened than us British which is why most new
men want to remain in Europe, whereas real men want a more independent UK.
New men crept in after we joined the common market and created a business of trying to get
more for nothing, including our pension funds. Here ends today's lesson in world history!
It should be noted that a new man may have a momentary urge to angrily respond to the
above, but a real man will simply laugh and have another beer.
*****
Now a warning to those men who may be regulars at B&Q, Homebase, Wickes or other
D.I.Y. stores. I’m embarrassed to say that this one caught me by surprise. Over the last
month I became a victim of a clever scam while out shopping, and simply going out to get
tools or materials has turned out to be quite traumatic. Don't be naive enough to think it
couldn't happen to you or your friends. Here's how the scam works:
Two seriously good-looking 20-something girls come over to your car as you are packing
your shopping into the boot. They both start wiping your windscreen with a rag and window
cleaner, with their breasts almost falling out of their skimpy T-shirts. I found it almost
impossible not to look. When you thank them and offer them a tip, they say 'No' and instead
ask you for a ride to McDonalds. You agree and they get into the back seat. On the way, they
start undressing. Then one of them climbs over into the front seat and starts crawling all over
you, while the other one steals your wallet.
I had my wallet stolen on August 4th, 9th, 10th, twice on the 15th, 17th, 20th, 24th, & 29th.
Also September 1st & 4th, twice on the 8th, three times last Monday and very likely again
this upcoming weekend. So tell your friends to be careful. What a horrible way to take
advantage of older men. Warn your friends to be vigilant. Tesco has wallets on sale for £2.99
each. I found cheaper ones for £1.99 at Sainsbury's and bought all they had. Also, you never
will get to eat at McDonalds and thus I've already lost 11 pounds, just running back and forth
to B&Q, Homebase and Wickes. Let this be a lesson to you all!
*****
Ex-students from the College of Air Training at Hamble are reminded that next year’s
reunion of former staff and students will take place on Friday May 7th 2011 at the old BAE
social club building in the village, to commemorate 51 years since the opening of the college.
The organiser, Phil Nelson (p.a.nelson@btinternet.com), will provide details, if you wish to
attend.
We welcome the following colleagues: Peter Blake, Phil Bright, Roger Hendry, Steve
Lorraine, Phil Somerville, Brian Swift and David Thomas who have recently joined Icarus.
The committee hopes that we will be able to welcome them to a function in the near future.
Our retiree guests at the October meeting will be:
Howard Barber
Ian King
David Lewis
Richard Wilmot
777
777
777
744
The committee look forward to welcoming you all to the Autumn Meeting at
The Concorde Club, Pavilion Suite
Thursday 14th October 2010 at 1930hrs.
If you arrive early visit the main club building for a meal, snack and/or drink where you will
meet several other members who use the facility prior to the meeting, as does the committee!
Should you not be able to attend this time, make a note in your diary that the next function
will be on Thursday, 14th April 2011 and we’ll hope to see you then.
Best Regards,
STEVE WAND on behalf of the Icarus Committee.