Re: The really boring and totally pointless snippets thread IV
Posted: Tue Jan 08, 2019 10:14 pm
Here's one for Jimtherev , a little ditty entitled "If men go to Hell, who cares?". Alas, I don't know from which hymnbook this is taken!
A Convivial Aviation Discussion Forum for Aviators, Aviatrices and for those who think Flying Machines are Magic.
https://ops-normal.org/
Hmmmmm. Reminds me of a mealtime conversation with a couple of our Moderators (Bishops, if you like) a few years back. One expressed the wish to appoint a Synod Assassin, t'other offered to arrange a jobshare, as he needed a Synod Arsonist. They were both staring at me at the time; really can't think why.ricardian wrote: ↑Tue Jan 08, 2019 10:14 pmHere's one for Jimtherev , a little ditty entitled "If men go to Hell, who cares?". Alas, I don't know from which hymnbook this is taken!
Boac sits and fondles his globe and some sexy young flibbertigibbet!
When I was operating out of there there was NO on top of the NHT gasometer. LH on the one by LHR. The biggest problem at night was the A40 the lights were brighter than the runway lights and it was very tempting to line up on the road. No ILS.ExSp33db1rd wrote: ↑Tue Jan 08, 2019 9:23 pmRemember when PanAm landed at Northolt instead of Heathrow ? After that they painted arrows on top of a large gasometer ( gas holder ) to the North of Hounslow (?).........to look at the signs on the overhead gantries on the motorway ...........
Thank you, I stand corrected, I think my reference to arrows on one gasometer was an early suggestion, ( probably by Roger Bacon, in Flight mag. ) the individual, local ones eventually came about. 'course, I only ever saw the LH one occasionally, landing on 23L was a rare event. Nb. On my final Command check, on the 707, we were cleared for a visual approach to 05R, unheard of, visual ? you mean no ILS ? Not even sure of they had VASI's either ( probably did, anyone remember when they were introduced ? ) The Check Captain in the RHS fumbled the VHF change and we were NORDO for most of my circuit ! I passed. Imagine that today !..........there was NO on top of the NHT gasometer. LH on the one by LHR.
Before our trip to NZ the NZ Tourist organisation supplied me with a load of free maps of NZ.ExSp33db1rd wrote: ↑Tue Jan 08, 2019 9:23 pm
I still have a load of maps in the car, NZ not being embedded in my brain, like my pre-teen memory of Yorks. and Lancs., none of this in-car GPS nonsense. A visiting friend got lost recently, having inserted "Direct to" in his GPS, and was eventually totally lost in the midst of farm tracks and semi-rural roads that the GPS had used instead of the more prominent, but not as direct, main highway. Nor do I get a constantly nagging "Digital Doris" telling me to turn left in 78 Km. ( Mrs. ExS does that ! )
Which reminded me again of the sad story of LHR, the A4, and poor Capt William Glen Stewart.Ex-Ascot wrote: ↑Wed Jan 09, 2019 5:02 amWhen I was operating out of there there was NO on top of the NHT gasometer. LH on the one by LHR. The biggest problem at night was the A40 the lights were brighter than the runway lights and it was very tempting to line up on the road. No ILS.ExSp33db1rd wrote: ↑Tue Jan 08, 2019 9:23 pmRemember when PanAm landed at Northolt instead of Heathrow ? After that they painted arrows on top of a large gasometer ( gas holder ) to the North of Hounslow (?).........to look at the signs on the overhead gantries on the motorway ...........
Getting that 707 out was a major operation. They had to strip it out put a teaspoon full of fuel in stand on the brakes with full power and get permission to land at LHR before take off.
NHT has a fascinating history. It apparently should have been built to the north of the railway line. The story is that the army got their map upside down. It ended up where it is but the area is marshland resulting quite often very localised fog. During the black plague they brought the dead out from London and dropped them in the marsh. When we were revamping defence plans for the station we were not allowed to dig trenches along the perimeter because of the bodies so they gave us armoured vehicles which were much more fun than trenches.
Southall recently.
If you buy a ticket on the world’s most expensive pounds-per-mile train journey, aka the Heathrow Express and you happen to sit on the right hand side of the train on the way to Heathrow, you will pass a large gasholder just after Southall station. On the top of the gasholder are the letters LH and an arrow. What most people don’t realise is that there is some significance in this.
Back in 1960, a PanAm 707 (N725PA) inbound from New York began an approach to Heathrow, but seeing what they thought was the main runway slightly off to their right and without the benefit of ILS in those days, the crew began to descend and landed on Northolt’s only runway at the 26 end. There was some consternation in the Heathrow tower when the aircraft didn’t actually appear on the runway and initially they thought it might have crashed. At about the same time, Heathrow got a call from Northolt asking what a PanAm 707 was doing on the runway! Bear in mind that at that time Northolt was the home of the VIP squadron and was used by visiting heads of state, so security was normally very tight. In fact it was effectively closed to civilian traffic for this reason.
There was much head-scratching all round, because the runway at Northolt was (and still is) only 5,500 feet long and on landing the PanAm 707 had finally stopped only 100 yards from the end of the runway. A decision was taken to remove anything that was removable from the aircraft, so that it was as light as possible for its short ferry flight to Heathrow. So, out came the seats and the carpets, most of the remaining fuel was offloaded, with just enough to cover the flight to Heathrow (plus reserves) remaining on board. Rumour has it (though I have never seen it confirmed officially), that the same crew were used for the ferry flight, on the basis the ‘You put it in there, you get it out!’
As a precaution, the A 40, which runs past the bottom of the easterly end of the runway, was closed to traffic until the 707 had taken off, but in fact the aircraft was airborne very quickly, as the photograph in this link shows:
www.abpic.co.uk/popup.php?q=1001607
Surprisingly, there was very little in terms of an investigation into what had happened, and then, in 1964, the same thing almost happened again. This time a Lufthansa 707 found itself on finals to Northolt, before it was alerted by Heathrow ATC, who were watching it on radar. But this was not the last incident. Just a few days later, a Spanish Air Force C-54 which was bound for Northolt, almost landed at Hendon.
This time an inquiry was launched, not least because even pilots familiar with Heathrow were saying that having two gasholders of very similar proportions on the approach to both airports was causing confusion. Among the ideas put forward was to paint them in different colours, or to paint warning signs on the threshold of 26 at Northolt. At this time Northolt did not have an ILS system and it was suggested to the MoD that the expense of fitting one would be justified if it prevented a potential disaster. In the end it was decided to paint letters at the top of the gasholders. NH was painted on the Harrow gasholder and LH was painted on the Southall gasholder. However, after a while it was considered that the two could easily be confused simply from a glance and the Harrow gasholder was changed to NO. The Harrow gasholder was demolished some years ago and is now, surprise, surprise, a retail park.
In the diagram below, the Southall gasholder is on the left and the Harrow one on the right.
And so the Southall one remains to this day, complete with its markings, which are apparently renewed from time to time owing to weather damage. Just how much notice is taken of it in these days of automated landing systems is, of course anyone’s guess, as is the score of how many mistaken approaches to Northolt have been avoided. Incidentally, there are many who think the letters are actually LHR. This is incorrect - they are simply LH, as the photo clearly shows.
You've met the wife, then, Ian.4mastacker wrote: ↑
Tue Jan 08, 2019 5:01 pm
Where's the bit marked "Here be dragons"?
In Lancashire.
then, again, Octo, who's going to argue with you?It may also take my mind off the fact that when I smile I look like Jaws from the Bond movie...
I was stationed at RAF Northolt 1964-65 in between tours at Sharjah & Akrotiri. I worked shifts in MOD Main Building and had a season ticket on the Tube, very handy when off duty as I could get into town for free, rock up at the Malcolm Club and get free tickets for the shows. The downside was that when coming off night shifts you tended to doze off and instead of getting out at Ruislip Gardens you'd wake up at Ongar and have to travel all the way back down the Central Line! Nice RAF camp though, lovely ladies from the AIDU and one or two from P&SS.Ex-Ascot wrote: ↑Wed Jan 09, 2019 5:02 amNHT has a fascinating history. It apparently should have been built to the north of the railway line. The story is that the army got their map upside down. It ended up where it is but the area is marshland resulting quite often very localised fog. During the black plague they brought the dead out from London and dropped them in the marsh. When we were revamping defence plans for the station we were not allowed to dig trenches along the perimeter because of the bodies so they gave us armoured vehicles which were much more fun than trenches.
And Isaac Watts was a prolific writer of hymns but had a strange obsession with bowelsjimtherev wrote: ↑Tue Jan 08, 2019 10:38 pmHmmmmm. Reminds me of a mealtime conversation with a couple of our Moderators (Bishops, if you like) a few years back. One expressed the wish to appoint a Synod Assassin, t'other offered to arrange a jobshare, as he needed a Synod Arsonist. They were both staring at me at the time; really can't think why.ricardian wrote: ↑Tue Jan 08, 2019 10:14 pmHere's one for Jimtherev , a little ditty entitled "If men go to Hell, who cares?". Alas, I don't know from which hymnbook this is taken!
But as the sainted 'hymn' writer says, 'who cares'?