DerekF wrote:...took measures to to ensure that the aircraft wouldn't beome airborne accidentally. Not setting take-off flaps, setting the elevator trim nose-down, using reduced thrust and setting strict control over the maximum speeds, well short of the scheduled VR, all of these would have stopped the aircraft becoming airborne - if that's actually what they wanted of course.
Just as well it wasn't a Jaguar, it needs all of the above to get airborne (PLUS a strong headwind and the curvature of the Earth)...
ChopsyOpsy wrote:Supposing it had enough fuel, I wonder if the frame, engines would have had it in them to fly a circuit?
Not sure how long had passed between its final flight and its final final flight that day but I'm not sure an in depth airframe inspection would have taken place to the same extent as her service days.
She was delivered into Bruntingthorpe on her official final flight on 19th November 1993...so 14 years near as......as far as I'm aware all remaining Victors were fast approaching the end of their fatigue life when what was left of the fleet in 55 Sqn were retired in 93
It shouldn't have had take-off flaps selected. The pilot/co pilot should have snapped the throttles back to idle as soon as things got "Exciting" No excuses. I have run aircraft engines for years and at no point have I ever been flying. I have had to shut engines down quickly, who hasn't? This incident should not have happened and could have been a lot worse. BTW If ever you hear about an A330 flying around Manchester with an engineer at the controls, dis regard this post!
made matters worse was that she had a lot of the instruments in the cockpit not working. They didnt know how much fuel she had in her.... so many things could have gone wrong.
DerekF wrote:So close to being a total disaster. I remember thinking at the time that letting such a thing happen suggested a total lack of preparation.
Why have take-off flap set, why let it go so fast, if the wind was so important, knoock a few knots of the speed, set a bit of nose down trim to stop it auto-rotating - all simple stuff. The pilot said that the copilot froze and didn't close the throttles - why didn't he close the throttles himself?
It made me wonder at the time whether it was deliberate.
Completely agree with you Derek, and I've never been convinced they didn't actually mean to do a small hop that got well out of hand. Could have been the end of all operations there due to their stupidity.
As I recall there wasn't even any proper fire cover on the day as the fire truck went u/s, so they chased it up the runway in a transit van!
Tommy wrote:Presumably lessons learned from it - it hasn't happened since?
Regardless of the whys, hows et al, that it was all resolved harmlessly and investigated fully, this post is pretty cool!
I agree 'whole hartedly' with the above quote .... It happened nobody got hurt .... and I assume lessons were learnt ??
Keith
This is all good news! Soooo, if on the next (if ever?) XH558 fast taxi-run @ 'Doncaster Dead-Duck Finningley Sheffield Airport' the crew could freak-out & accidently rotate, then execute a precautionary divert to a more accessible location... well?? What are they gonna do?....make 'em fly it back!
Many thanks reheat module ! I rather hope these photos, unique as they may be, remain as a one of and this doesn't happen again .... Black Buck celebrations upcoming so another chance to see aircraft in action ???
Spiny Norman wrote:Never noticed before but there seems to be an amount of brown stains under the cockpit area.
The circular marking on the side of the nose? I would suggest it's where remove before flight tags have worn the paint over many years blowing around in the wind. It's been repainted since then.
