BOAC in the old days

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TheGreenGoblin
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Re: BOAC in the old days

#61 Post by TheGreenGoblin » Tue Aug 04, 2020 6:04 pm

Bergerie 1 wrote:
Tue Aug 04, 2020 5:25 pm
You haven't slighted me in any way at all. I could tell you some stories about some gentlemen who had better not be named. I remember one, who was a supervisory captain, when receiving a letter from the flight training manager asking him to give S/O ........ (me) a landing who exploded, "It's not my job to teach bloody Hamble cadets how to fly a bloody aeroplane!" Why, I wondered, was he a supervisory captain? Good way to start a trip!!! But most were not like that at all.
Like all worthwhile activities and those who are the masters in these matters, sometimes those who seem to be the biggest Tartars turn out to be the best teachers, I guess, and don't go easy on the pupil, trainee, junior, inexperienced or the over confident and so on and are remembered with great respect subsequently. Others are just kind decent people who impart knowledge without any of the brusque impatience and then, happily in the minority, as you say, others are just total bastards! :)
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Re: BOAC in the old days

#62 Post by ExSp33db1rd » Wed Aug 05, 2020 6:23 am

As Captain Harte-Lovelace has been named as one of the instructors in the film, I can name him in an incident I have knowledge of. During our crew slip in Rome, my Capt. realised the H-L had arrived overnight, and would be asleep in the same hotel along with his crew. Not wishing to disturb him, but anxious to call him later, he called the hotel operator to enquire of H-L's room number. The operator said that no Harte-Lovelace was checked in.

My Capt. for reasons I can't remember, knew for certain that he was, and kept insisting, to no avail. Eventually he realised that he was in Rome, and said he wished to know the room number of Capitano Arty Love Ay Larchy. Ah !! replied the operator, Capitano Arty Love Ay Larchy is in room xxx. !

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Re: BOAC in the old days

#63 Post by Pontius Navigator » Wed Aug 05, 2020 7:01 am

TGG, apologies for deviation from BOAC but out deputy chief nav instructor was one such and much feared. I do not recall his name nor do I remember him flying with me. He was ex-transports and WW2. His nav bag always carried double the kit, computers, protractors etc.

One day he chose me to learn of his simplified method of creating air plot vectors. At this stage of training we were still using track and ground speed to calculate winds. Next trip I used his airport method.

When my trip was analysed the assessor could not account for my 'errors '. I was called in to explain.

My trip was reassessed using this better method. The assessor left cursing the DCNI 😁

I never forgot that lesson nor his other one regarding position lines - never plot them if the are printed on the chart. That also annoyed my instructors on refreshed in later years.

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Re: BOAC in the old days

#64 Post by ExSp33db1rd » Wed Aug 05, 2020 7:55 am

Next trip I used his airport method.
Airport Method ? Tell me more ? PM if not appropriate for the thread ?

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Re: BOAC in the old days

#65 Post by ExSp33db1rd » Thu Aug 06, 2020 3:41 am

Got the PM, thanx.

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Re: BOAC in the old days

#66 Post by TheGreenGoblin » Thu Aug 06, 2020 8:52 pm

So you chaps are not going to explain the "Airport Method"? You realise that this will worry for me every night from hereon in. Call me autistic if you will. ;)))
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Re: BOAC in the old days

#67 Post by Rwy in Sight » Thu Aug 06, 2020 9:24 pm

I think they want us to keep asking for it!

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Re: BOAC in the old days

#68 Post by ExSp33db1rd » Fri Aug 07, 2020 5:42 am

I think they want us to keep asking for it!


I'll leave it to the Master !

Surprisingly, only today whilst clearing out garbage to "hopefully" downsize sufficiently to contemplate moving, I came across a cache of books and manuals which included my 1962 purchased edition of "Flightdeck" "The story of Navigation and Intercontinental flight " by one Clifford Farnell BOAC Superintendent of Navigation. This is not a text book tutorial, but an easy to follow explanation of navigation techniques practised by pilots and navigators, available aids etc. and explains to the larger, non-aviating World readers what a BOAC Captain and crew had to consider, prepare and execute in getting one of then fairly new Boeing 707-420 aircraft from London to New York. Explanations and diagrams to explain Radio Range, NDB, VOR, ILS, Decca, Doppler, Consol, Loran and Astro. Mention of BLEU - Blind Landing Experimental Unit, but no mention of INS or GPS ! Easy reading, brought back lots of memories, and pictures of many old favourite BOAC and BEA aircraft. ( I'd forgotten the Vanguard )

It details Airplot techniques and procedures, but not "Airport Method"

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Re: BOAC in the old days

#69 Post by Undried Plum » Fri Aug 07, 2020 5:56 am

ExSp33db1rd wrote:
Fri Aug 07, 2020 5:42 am
no mention of INS or GPS ! Easy reading, brought back lots of memories,
Yeah! :YMPARTY:

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Re: BOAC in the old days

#70 Post by Pontius Navigator » Fri Aug 07, 2020 8:46 am

For Airport read Airplot.

For the pilots, it is easy navigation made difficult.

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Re: BOAC in the old days

#71 Post by FD2 » Fri Aug 07, 2020 11:18 am

We had a wonderful observer (navigator, RN fixed wing) called 'Darkie' Holroyd (imagine the offence that might cause today!) to teach us the basics of navigation during elementary flying training. A rather blunt instrument from Yorkshire, 'Darkie' opened his first lesson with the words "You can teach a monkey to fly but it takes brains to navigate". At times during my flying I thought he was right. 'Airplot' might have helped me!

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Re: BOAC in the old days

#72 Post by ExSp33db1rd » Sat Aug 08, 2020 2:55 am

"You can teach a monkey to fly but it takes brains to navigate"
As a barely 26 year old there was a certain satisfaction at the end of an Atlantic crossing, to know that for the last 5 or 6 hours you were the only one who really knew where we were at any given time.

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Re: BOAC in the old days

#73 Post by ExSp33db1rd » Sat Aug 08, 2020 3:50 am

There's been discussion about some of the WWII veterans who became BOAC's early Captains and their domineering, and sometimes downright bullying, attitude to whom many of them considered Lesser Mortals. Collectively they were nicknamed North Atlantic Barons, and this came about because of their insistence upon their seniority ensuring that they only flew the aircraft types that operated between the UK and North America, and this was not only because of retail opportunities available in New York, to please wives and girl friends, like Nylon stockings, and various cosmetic items that British women could only dream about post war. ( even in the 1960's my own wife demanded that I always return from New York with a can of the Alberto VO5 hairspray that she had become used to when flying to New York herself as a stewardess, and my kids demanded Iceberg lettuce, an American delicacy - in their eyes -a novelty largely unobtainable around Hampshire at the time. ) However the main reason was the payment of personal overseas cash allowances in New York in valuable US Dollars, because USA hotels only provided room, not room and board as was the habit in the British Empire style hotels available when flying East of Greenwich.

Flying East one had to partake of 3 meals a day in the hotel dining room, which apart from denying the need to give crew local cash for meals away from the hotel, meant that one had to be up and dressed after a long flight to suit the hotel dining schedule, despite the time zone change and need for sleep. Because of this possible disruption to one's essential rest, local allowances were eventually paid at all destinations World Wide, but until then flights to New York resulted in cash-in-hand to spend on food, beer, or nylon stockings, hence the demand of the more senior Captains to be allocated Western Routes, and the cash savings that could be made to take valuable US dollars home, led to them being called the North Atlantic Barons !

In the early 60's our allowance was US $10 per day for 3 meals, which included 25c to tip the hotel baggage boy, and I recall one of my early Captains telling me where to go for a full English breakfast ( his words ) for $1. Tad's Steak House provided tables with microwaves to cook one's own dinner, which cost $1.19c. Missing lunch therefore ensured that one had enough cash to spend in the bar ( or spend on nylon stockings, if not for wife or girl friend then to bribe the roster clerk to ensure that one returned to New York fairly quickly for a repeat infusion of $10 daily. That happened, too. )

One hotel baggage boy boarded the crew bus on departure and demanded the missing 25c from a crew of 10, having only reeceived a total of $2.25c. One steward admitted that he had carried his own bag and kept the 25c. Cheapskate, said the baggage boy, BOAC pay you 50c to check in and out, I want my rightful tip. He go it.

Imagine the plight of the NAB's when the only way BOAC were able to gain traffic rights to Accra, in Ghana, was agreeing to the insistence of Krame Nkrumah, President at the time, that BOAC's most prestigious aircraft of the time, the Stratocruiser, be used on the route. These gentlemen, who were the backbone of the Strat. fleet of course, to ensure their life in the USA, suddenly found themselves spending time in Kano, Lagos, and Accra, and having to convert their own Sterling to local rubbish to enjoy the bar in the evening. Quelle Horreur ! Fortunately the Britannia, Comet, and later the 707, came along to enable them to continue in the lifestyle that they had become used to.

How things have changed.

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Re: BOAC in the old days

#74 Post by Pontius Navigator » Sat Aug 08, 2020 6:46 am

ExSpd, barrons indeed. Good to know you were not that much better off than RAFAIR. We used to fly to Offutt via Goose, arrive Offutt Tuesday and depart Thursday if you didn't go u/s. Our crew chief used to bring his own spares, all u/s 😁

Early 60s we got something like $15.50 per day. We had to pay $5.25 per day for the VOQ outside the O Club. We shared, captain had a room to himself. Cost him an extra $. As you say, drinking tickets or shopping vouchers though using the BX and Commisary meant it did go a little further.

Still, mustn't get Ex-Ascot off on allowances. Could be a whole new thread

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Re: BOAC in the old days

#75 Post by PHXPhlyer » Sat Aug 08, 2020 2:06 pm

Thanks for the info and insights, Speedy! ^:)^ :-bd
Keep them coming. (*)

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Re: BOAC in the old days

#76 Post by TheGreenGoblin » Sat Aug 08, 2020 2:46 pm

ExSp33db1rd wrote:
Sat Aug 08, 2020 3:50 am
the Alberto VO5 hairspray
Worked for them in the early 90's and thanks to one of the senior managers there took up flying...

Alberto Culver had their own corporate jet in a share with Aon (who coincidentally I also worked for some years later) . That arrangement come to an untimely, unfortunate and very litigious end as a result of the accident noted below...

https://www.ainonline.com/aviation-news ... nt-go-away

https://reports.aviation-safety.net/199 ... _N23AC.pdf
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Your destination remains
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Re: BOAC in the old days

#77 Post by ExSp33db1rd » Sun Aug 09, 2020 12:12 am

Flew out of Idlewild to the Caribbean on January 1st 196? when they changed the name to Kennedy. The VOR ident changed from IDL to JFK at 00.01 hrs.

Much confusion on the radio that morning !

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Re: BOAC in the old days

#78 Post by TheGreenGoblin » Sat Oct 24, 2020 10:44 am

Another escapee from Denmark...

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Re: BOAC in the old days

#79 Post by ian16th » Sat Oct 24, 2020 12:57 pm

ExSp33db1rd wrote:
Sun Aug 09, 2020 12:12 am
Flew out of Idlewild to the Caribbean on January 1st 196? when they changed the name to Kennedy. The VOR ident changed from IDL to JFK at 00.01 hrs.

Much confusion on the radio that morning !
The day in 1955 when the 'new' NATO phonetic alphabet was introduced was quite hilarious.

At Lindholme in ARSF we had the VHF test sets that was called up by the guys on the Sqdns doing pre-flights.
The whole day was full of stuttering 'Able oh I mean Alfa' and 'Baker oh I mean Bravo'.

We eventually got used to it.
Cynicism improves with age

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Re: BOAC in the old days

#80 Post by ExSp33db1rd » Sun Oct 25, 2020 12:06 am

Living in Singapore, the non-aviation telephonists used geographical names, B for Brazil, M for Minnesota, F for France, S for Sydney etc. Novel !

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