The Bluebird Project

Thoroughly enjoyed reading that... I did some flying a few years ago, helicopters, just for fun, but out of Newcastle airport. Even for us little guys the messing about was horrendous.

I remember once the pilot of the Police helicopter, an ex fast jet pilot with the RAF as well as special op's in helicopters and former pilot of the air ambulance too, was moving the entire aircraft (Eurocopter EC135) on a huge, hydraulic pallet truck sort of a thing that lifted it bodily by the skids then whirred it along on rubber wheels with the blades flapping lazily up and down. He was trundling it across the car park when I got there.

"What you up to, Jim?" I asked.

"Taking the aircraft to the bowser," he replied, indicating the warty old fuel bowser at the far end of the taxiway.

Don't forget it was about four million quid's worth of Northumbria Police helicopter he had on a pallet truck, the one he piloted in all weather and times of day/night - the bowser looked like it was left over from the sixties. I was incredulous.

"Why not just drive the bowser over here?" I asked.

"Don't have the ticket to drive it..."

No surprises there.

I won't bore you all day with old aviator's tales but there is one more episode that deserves a mention, just to illustrate a further example of how stupid can be the implementation of rules that are supposed to keep us safe:

Back in 1996, I was a Co-Pilot (although I preferred the grander title "First Officer") on a Jetstream 31 based at Leeds.
One day, whilst boarding passengers for a scheduled flight to Aberdeen, the Captain was informed that an armed police officer was due to travel on our flight. This fellow was fully trained in the use of firearms and trusted to protect VIP's; he was one of Prime Minister John Major's personal bodyguards no less, travelling to Aberdeen to meet the PM who was due to arrive later.

Next thing we knew, the despatcher handed us a box containing a loaded 9mm Glock with a spare magazine, and explained that they could not allow this officer to carry it in the airport or on the flight, as it was "a security risk". We then flew to Aberdeen with the Glock in the cockpit, separated from the passengers by nothing more secure than a curtain. On arrival, we explained the situation to the ground staff, whose reaction was: "Och, we cannae risk having a highly trained VIP police bodyguard carrying his weapon through the airport". So what did they do? -they sent for a baggage handler and gave him the pistol to carry through the airport and return it to the officer once he was outside the terminal. I have often wondered what the bodyguard thought of all this...

This is not one word of a lie; you could not make it up.

A significant incident involving the Red Arrows, unfortunately ...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-nort ... s-43476222

Nigel

One fatality, sadly, according to the information I have.

N.

Last Saturday. Left one wouldn't start (we know why) but the right one did. Shut down was due to a small hydraulic leak from the cast drain pipe of the EDP. First time it have been used in other12 years! We got righty into afterburn on PTR at 90 percent NH.

Looks and sounds great Al! Do you inhibit the engines for storage? Those pesky rubber bits don’t like being left in static fuel... this ( http://publicapps.caa.co.uk/docs/33/201 ... ision1.pdf )was issued following the Shoreham accident, and whilst not a contributing factor in that accident, reflected the fact that a similar directive issued following a Hunter accident in 1988 had been poorly implemented. The Adour engine is not listed in the MPD as there are no Jaguars or Hawks on the civil register.

Looks and sounds great Al! Do you inhibit the engines for storage?

Fantastic! I lways love to see old machines fired up and brought back to life - in case you didn't know that...

Congratulations on getting a tune out of her and very well done. Those pesky folks at a certain aerospace giant who don't help us at all scared the living bejesus out of me years ago with tales of modern, sulphur-laden fuels with no lubricity additives dissolving all the silvered bearings out of our pricesless fuel system in a heartbeat; so the moment we stop running an engine it gets sluiced through with Aeroshell #1 before it can start to decay. Expensive - but how much do you love your fuel system?
Anyways, I'm sure you know all this already but if not, this Stuart bloke seems to know his onions...

Hi Stu, yes the Aeroshell 1. The engines had been sat and abused at Cosford for 30 odd years. I would hope they had been inhibited out of the bay before they were turned into GI engines, but possibly not. We got the three years ago. To inhibit needs a rig and the fuild.. And the money to buy both. That is the hard bit, the Museum is not a big one nor one that gets a great income, so to justify forking out one is never going to get the paymasters on side. I do have 3 other guys who have many years working on Adours. Yes I am aware of that MPD on inhibiting engines not in use, but it is a bit late for these now. We will do regular anti det runs from now on. It does help that we are sticking F34 in as standard. This airframe is never going to fly again. Perfect world. Even Blubird fund raising post Bute suffered the effect that joe public loves seeing things, but will in general wish to pay FA squared for it.

Recently from the Wings Museum: firing up a restored Merlin.

WW2 Engine Reborn - Buried for 70 years the story of Halifax JD150

This crowd might appreciate the (claimed) low-loof focus of the project.

"We really wanted right from the beginning to keep everything as original as possible [...] whereas you could quite easily replace parts we would rather repair parts and use the original."
"We are proud to say that a lot of effort has gone into preserving the original engine - a lot of repairs done - and it is 90% that aircraft that engine."

Bravo chaps