BOAC in the old days

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BOAC in the old days

#1 Post by Bergerie 1 » Fri Jul 31, 2020 5:19 am

Do you remember the days when airline flying was glamorous, people dressed up to travel and airports were pleasant places to visit? Must be getting old!!
https://www.ops-normal.org/viewtopic.ph ... 65#p246027

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Re: BOAC in the old days

#2 Post by TheGreenGoblin » Fri Jul 31, 2020 5:36 am

I am sure, no matter how much the advent of LoCo operators and the consumerism associated with hoi polloi the great unwashed and would be vomiters in Benidorm have degraded the passenger experience, that flying on the Concorde would have been been a wonderful experience redolent of the glory days of Boac and it's forebears. Sadly even that last vestige of true luxury, and dare I say it, privilege, has passed!

Personally I would have loved to have been a passenger on board one of the Imperial Always Flying Boats. Being a Captain of one thereof would have been akin to deification. They truly were Sky God's!
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Re: BOAC in the old days

#3 Post by TheGreenGoblin » Fri Jul 31, 2020 7:30 am

Talking of Sky Gods, Boac, a photo of you as a gurning, but no doubt cute baby, would probably be appropriate here... :)

Funny old language English in that the old days might be somebody's young days... :))
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Re: BOAC in the old days

#4 Post by ExSp33db1rd » Fri Jul 31, 2020 7:46 am

They truly were Sky God's!
As some of them would remind us ! Quote ... " We DON'T use christian names on the flight deck MR Xxxxxxxx "

A psychiatrist died and at the Pearly Gates St Peter said " Glad you've come, we're having a little trouble with God, he thinks he's a BOAC Captain "

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Re: BOAC in the old days

#5 Post by Bergerie 1 » Fri Jul 31, 2020 9:19 am

Ah! But some remember those days with fondness and most were not as arrogant as that.
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Re: BOAC in the old days

#6 Post by ian16th » Fri Jul 31, 2020 11:48 am

Bergerie 1 wrote:
Fri Jul 31, 2020 5:19 am
Do you remember the days when airline flying was glamorous, people dressed up to travel and airports were pleasant places to visit? Must be getting old!!
https://www.ops-normal.org/viewtopic.ph ... 65#p246027
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Re: BOAC in the old days

#7 Post by Rwy in Sight » Fri Jul 31, 2020 12:18 pm

I am not sure if it is appropriate to say here but welcome.

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Re: BOAC in the old days

#8 Post by Pontius Navigator » Fri Jul 31, 2020 1:12 pm

I remember my father was given a carry on bag with his ticket when we flew back from India in a Comet.

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Re: BOAC in the old days

#9 Post by om15 » Fri Jul 31, 2020 5:12 pm

For those who haven't read this, enjoy the link

https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/ ... &q&f=false

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Re: BOAC in the old days

#10 Post by Pontius Navigator » Fri Jul 31, 2020 6:25 pm

Everytime I see the title I always think of a young BOAC if such was possible 😁

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Re: BOAC in the old days

#11 Post by TheGreenGoblin » Sat Aug 01, 2020 7:14 am

I suppose the term old is all relative and we all love looking back. I know I do even when my son asks me what it was like in the old days, these being the 1970's and 80's to him...

I was apt to wonder what the newly constituted BOAC, after the nationalisation and merger of Imperial Airways and British Airways Ltd in 1939 and commencing operations under that name on the 1st of April 1940, was up to during the war?

Flying politicians and the great and the good hither and thither as well as moving men and materials throughout the Empire while also delivering aircraft. These deliveries included operating Mosquitoes, it seems!
With the onset of World War2 most public flying was suspended and BOAC used its large fleet of flying boats to ferry government and military personnel around the world, mainly to and from the USA. Its pilots also undertook, using Consolidated Liberator bombers, the task of returning ferry pilots from Prestwick to Montreal after they had delivered new warplanes across the Atlantic to the UK. As an aside, this operation became the first sustained Atlantic crossing service by landplane, all previous crossings being by flying boats. A more unusual aspect of BOAC’s wartime effort was it supplying crews to operate a fleet of Mosquito aircraft that were used to fly from Scotland to neutral Sweden to pick up mainly cargos of ball-bearings for the war effort.
ball-bearing-mossie.JPG
ball-bearing-mossie.JPG (52.46 KiB) Viewed 6202 times
A lot of interesting stuff and some delectable photos to be found on this excellent Duxford related link.

https://www.britairliners.org/airliners ... boac&id=24
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Re: BOAC in the old days

#12 Post by Pontius Navigator » Sat Aug 01, 2020 7:37 am

TGG, I think they also flew passengers in the Mozzie in the bomb bay.

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Re: BOAC in the old days

#13 Post by TheGreenGoblin » Sat Aug 01, 2020 7:39 am

From the link above.

Pretty poignant reminder of an aircraft that is being written out of the inventory of all major airlines...
By 1965 with the departure of both the Comet and Britannia fleets the BOAC route network was served by just two types, the Boeing 707 and the Vickers VC10. Both of these aeroplanes would continue to operate side by side until the formation of British Airways PLC in 1974. In 1966 Boeing produced design details of a new mega plane it was going to build, the Boeing 747 Jumbo Jet. With nothing like it on the drawing board in the UK or anywhere else, BOAC was allowed to place an order for delivery in 1969. By 1968 the airline was doing well carrying 1.5 million passengers with a profit of £21 million pounds. Problems arose however when the first of the Boeing 747s arrived in April 1970 and the pilots refused to fly them unless they were awarded a “wide-bodied” pay rise. The company refused and the aeroplanes remained grounded until a settlement was reached a year later in April 1971. However with the unreliability of the early big fan engines, BOAC recouped some of its losses by leasing out the engines from its unused jets to other airlines.
BOAC 747.JPG
Though you remain
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"To be alive
You must have somewhere
To go
Your destination remains
Elusive."

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Re: BOAC in the old days

#14 Post by TheGreenGoblin » Sat Aug 01, 2020 7:42 am

Pontius Navigator wrote:
Sat Aug 01, 2020 7:37 am
TGG, I think they also flew passengers in the Mozzie in the bomb bay.
Yes, you are right. Didn't they fly physicist Niels Bohr out to Britain like that?

Yes they did...

Special Operations...
On several occasions important passengers were carried, locked in the bomb-bay with a supply of refreshments, reading material and oxygen. One such notable passenger was the nuclear physicist Niels Bohr who was evacuated from Stockholm in 1943. The flight almost ended in tragedy since Bohr did not don his oxygen equipment as instructed and passed out. He would have died had the pilot not guessed from Bohr's lack of response to intercom that he had lost consciousness. The pilot descended to a lower altitude for the remainder of the flight; Bohr's comment on landing was that he had slept like a baby for the entire flight.
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"To be alive
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Your destination remains
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Re: BOAC in the old days

#15 Post by TheGreenGoblin » Sat Aug 01, 2020 8:44 am

From the Special Operations link above...

Sad end for one crew...
Flight
Track between Leuchars and Gothenberg.

LG.jpg
LG.jpg (9.11 KiB) Viewed 6186 times

The flight described here was made by Capt White and Radio Officer Gaffney on the night of 28 Aug 1944. White/Gaffney left Leuchars for Stockholm in Mosquito G-AGKR and they were followed by two more Mosquitoes, Longden/Miller in G-AGKO and Carroll/Weir in G-AGGC.

When they approached the Swedish Grebbestad radio beacon, just short of Norway, the weather turned bad; it was the worst they had ever encountered on this route. They flew into storm clouds with lashing rain, strong winds and turbulence and they had about 60 degrees drift on track to approach the beacon. They changed course to the south for Gothenburg and so strong was the tail wind that they sighted the airfield beacon almost immediately. The airfield was experiencing a blustering gale with driving rain.

Whilst loading the aircraft the crews consulted the Gothenburg Met officer on the prospect of returning to Leuchars. White/Gaffney decided to return to Leuchars although their artificial horizon was unserviceable and Longden/Miller decided to follow. Carroll/Weir decided not to go any further.

White/Gaffney took-off for Leuchars and Longden/Miller followed fifteen minutes later. Longden decided to fly through the Skagerrak at 10,000ft instead of the usual 20,000 feet. However on reaching the Grebbestad radio beacon they were surprised to find the weather had cleared. Longden eased back and climbed to 20,000 feet; their flight time from out had been 3hr 8min but the return flight only took 2hr 30min.

When Longden/Miller landed at Leuchars they were surprised not to see White/Gaffney. Longden/Miller waited in the flying control room for news until they knew White/Gaffney would have run out of fuel. They then went to their lodgings.

What happened?
Likely return track
Gtonowhere.jpg
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Next day Miller, who had navigated Longden, went to the RAF radar centre who had reported an unusual plot of an unidentified aircraft approaching the north coast of Scotland from the direction of Norway but well north of the normal Mosquito track. Before reaching the Scottish coast just north of Aberdeen, the aircraft had altered course 45deg to starboard and headed for Wick. It disappeared from the plot about three-quarters of the way there about the time White’s Mosquito would have run out of fuel. It seemed quite incredible that White’s aircraft would have been so far off course and heading on a north-westerly track.

The Swedish airline ABA was agent both for BOAC and Deutsche Luft Hansa DLH. The BOAC representative unofficially asked ABA to ask DLH to ask Luftwaffe HQ in Oslo if they had shot down White’s Mosquito. Very quickly came the reply that Luftwaffe had not taken any action that night but the same night the Luftwaffe station at Lister, on the southern tip of Norway, reported hearing an aircraft flying westwards very high in bad weather. The time of the report seems to indicate that it was White’s Mosquito.

Miller later said, in an interview just before he died, that he thought the White/Gaffney Mosquito flew as if it had no nav-aids. This would be the case if they had lost electrical power. The battery had a nominal endurance of 30 minutes but Miller said that in his experience the battery would not power the radio for more than 5-10 minutes; the aircraft would then lose the artificial horizon and the ability to take radio bearings. The instrument lights would probably fail within the half hour and the compass would then only be readable with a torch.

Miller thought that, when north of Rattray Head, they may have expected to be in sight of Scotland. Seeing nothing they presumably thought they were way south of track so altered course northwards. It looks as if the Mosquito missed Scotland altogether, ran out of fuel and crashed in the North Sea.

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Your destination remains
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Re: BOAC in the old days

#16 Post by TheGreenGoblin » Sat Aug 01, 2020 8:54 am

Carroll/Weir decided not to go any further.
Call me a "pap of nat broek" (Afrikaans literally for "a weak or wet pants") a term used scornfully for those who lack the right stuff, but I would have followed Carroll/Weir in waiting the storm out and certainly wouldn't have headed off with a non-operational artificial horizon.
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"To be alive
You must have somewhere
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Your destination remains
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Re: BOAC in the old days

#17 Post by Woody » Sat Aug 01, 2020 9:15 am

The Wood family contributions to BOAC :D

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Re: BOAC in the old days

#18 Post by TheGreenGoblin » Sat Aug 01, 2020 10:37 am

BOAC VC10, maiden commercial flight to Johannesburg.

When even an economy class passenger felt like a VIP! :)

A 16 hour flight to Johannesburg via Nairobi and Blantyre vis a vis the 11.5 direct flight to Cape Town in more modern aircraft.

Though you remain
Convinced
"To be alive
You must have somewhere
To go
Your destination remains
Elusive."

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I won't fly without Captain Jones at the controls!

#19 Post by TheGreenGoblin » Sat Aug 01, 2020 11:31 am

The piratical O P Jones who originally flew with Imperial Airlines became one of the earliest BOAC pilots to fly the Royals and became an early celebrity pilot, a bit like Ex-Ascot I guess! ;)))

OJones.jpg
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The Silver Wing flights from Croydon to Le Bourget, Paris in the 1930s were a feature of the celebrity lifestyle of the time and the pilots involved became celebrities too. Foremost among them was Capt. Oscar Philip Jones, known simply as 'O.P.' to his friends and colleagues but certainly not to the other staff of Croydon Airport and Imperial Airways where he was viewed with awed respect and a tinge of fear.

His flying career had begun at the age of 18 towards the end of WW1. At the end of the war, he became a pilot in a firm offering ‘joy rides’ to passengers and then progressed to acting as a pilot for Instone Airlines which was one of several which joined forces in 1924 to form Imperial Airways. He flew many routes and, indeed, in 1926 was the first pilot to transport a member of the royal family when the Prince of Wales (later Edward VIII) flew from Paris to London.

When Imperial Airways launched their new, glamorous cross-channel Silver Wing service at the beginning of the 1930s, OP was among the first bunch of pilots who had to put away their old, stained leather flying suits and adopt the new image of a pilot captain resplendent in a dark blue uniform and peaked cap reminiscent of a Navy captain.

OP appeared to relish his celebrity status. By this time he had adopted a ‘piratical’ beard (which he kept for the rest of his life) and enjoyed the frisson of recognition which greeted his appearance at the airport just fifteen minutes before take-off was due. He would give a cursory glance to the weather charts and then stroll onto the tarmac, often pausing at the top of his entry ladder for a photo opportunity.

At that time, he lived in Purley and would drive to Croydon for this last-minute entrance in his Daimler. On one occasion when a road accident had blocked the road, he hailed down a milk-float to complete his journey on time. Though famed for his skill and expertise in the air, Jones always insisted that his main interest in life was breeding bulldogs of which he owned many. He loved dogs and was known to ‘rescue’ them from freight passage and sit them beside him during a flight to give them some company in the air. I don’t think that would be allowed these days!

The flying public adored his charisma and often asked for him by name when booking flights. He was also well-known for his skill and calm in tricky situations and this probably was another reason that he was so popular with his passengers.

http://croydonairportcalling.blogspot.c ... jones.html



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Re: I won't fly without Captain Jones at the controls!

#20 Post by G-CPTN » Sat Aug 01, 2020 11:48 am

TheGreenGoblin wrote:
Sat Aug 01, 2020 11:31 am
The flying public adored his charisma and often asked for him by name when booking flights.
You can't get that sort of service nowadays.

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