No puff in my BAC 111

[Silversim]

Caledonean version was one of my faves to spot from 'handbrake hill' in Gütersloh

Where was that? I was a Mover there, 70/72 and don't remember "handbrake hill", but do remember PSI flight 1-11's from Caledonian, and sweating my nuts off in the belly hold when the Captain requested a QTR and the "gast arbeiters" were on a go slow

Just love the 1-11, shame it is now no longer shattering my peace and quiet in West Sussex on climb out from EGKK (Except of course on my trusty FS9)

Geoff

[J0hn]

Hello Geoff

1977-1980

Handbrake Hill was between 18sqn hangar and the runway. The taxiway actually went around it - there was a concrete bunker on top and the Rock Apes used to set up their Rapier on it during exercises.
I used to set up my coffee on it during holidays

That's where I sharpened my recognition skills - which the Rock Apes should have done (couldn't even recognise a Monarch 707 that was taxiing past!).

It got its name (obviously, perhaps) because it was used by MT section to test the vehicle handbrakes as it was very steep to drive up.

JD

[Garry Russell]

Chances are the Monarch 707 was a 720

[NigelC]

Okay, you keep saying the 1-11 is more pocket than rocket.
Do we really need to discuss that? If so, I'll throw so-called "progress" into the pot:
Remember, they killed the Concorde, they ceased to produce the TU154 but they let the Dash8 survive.
See it that way and you got enuff puff to be back in business in a 1-11 2011 flight sim environment.



Nick

I am as big an advocate of the 1-11 as anyone, but the 1-11's performance was pretty appalling by modern standards. Once the temperature was above 20 degrees generally you started losing take-off weight rapidly. De-mineralised Water Injection restored the performance slightly but still didn't give you full weight. At the Start of the summer season, we used to ship 50kg barrels of De-min water in the hold to all the locations we were programmed to visit during the summer for stockpiling, these mainly being Spain, Italy, Greece, Malta, Portugal and North Africa, where temperatures would be considerably higher than 20. The First Officer would spend the turnround sweating over a wobble-pump to get the required 300-350 kgs into the aircraft's tank. Bear in mind that the improvement in performance had to be greater than the amount of water required or you had a net decrease in performance!

50% of our return flights from Athens would tech-stop at Brussels or Ostend for a comination of headwinds and being unable to lift max weight off Athens because of the temperature. Sometimes they didn't get that far and would lob into Munich or Milan.

One route was to Skiathos. Here there was no fuel available, so the planned route was Gatwick-Skiathos-Thessalonika-Gatwick. The idea was to arrive at Skiathos with enough fuel to get to Thessalonika. If you couldn't do that you went into Thessalonika on the way in and uplifted fuel to go to Skiathos and then Gatwick. One memorable hot summers day, the aircraft was weight limited out of Gatwick, stopped at Thessalonika on the way into Skiathos for fuel, because of the temperature at Skiathos they couldn't uplift enough fuel to get to Skiathos and back to Gatwick so stopped again at Thessalonika on the way back and then because of the temperature there, had to stop again at Munich, so the actual route was Gatwick-Thessalonika-Skiathos-Thessalonika-Munich-Gatwick!!

If BAC had stretched the aircraft into the 500srs sooner, it might have had more success against the DC-9-30 as Douglas stetched theirs first even though the -200 flew first. As to re-engining and the Romanians re-opening the production line, BAe were somewhat concerned about the effects a re-engined 1-11 would have on their 146 sales.

But after all that, the 1-11 was a wonderful aircraft. To quote one of our Captains who went on to fly the 737 with Air Europe, "The 737 is the better airliner, the 1-11 is the better aeroplane."

Nige

[Garry Russell]

If they'd left the Trident alone that would have been competiton for the 727 which may not have been built as Boeing were having trouble and considered building the Trident under license

That would also have given us the RR Medway which should have given the One-Eleven the power it needed for developed versions

[WhisperJet]

Hi Nigel,

I actually didn't mean that too serious...

However thanks for these backgrounds - great fun, I always love to read stories that tell how it really was! Now searching for some good freeware scenery - and then I'll have to run down that Skiathos-Thessaloniki-Gatwick route in my FS9 when I get the time... yees I will..

All the best,

Nick

[NigelC]

I know, but it gave me the chance to tell another 1-11 story

[Silversim]

Hi Nigel,
Wonderful story, they don't make 'em like that any more, and as whisperjet says must do that route very soon.

By the way, whisperjet, look at the following, you will get all the Greek scenery you need:

http://www.greeksim.com/magazine/ it don't come much better and all for free

Geoff

[WhisperJet]

By the way, whisperjet, look at the following, you will get all the Greek scenery you need:

http://www.greeksim.com/magazine/ it don't come much better and all for free

Great link, didn't know that one, many thanks!

Cheers,

Nick

[J0hn]

Now I can finally show where Handbrake Hill was.

In post number 108, with the screenshots, the one showing the Rwy 27 threshold has an F-16 on the grass (actually, it's on final finals, but if you look where it is against the background grass...) - that is where the man-made 'hill' was.

http://www.friendlyflusi.at/index.php?p ... e7ef7a10ce

This all looks a little bit closer together than I remember it, but close enough.

JD