[Tech1] Another fuel story

[dave.mdv]

We had a school visit to RAF Cranwell where they had some Meteors and 
various training planes. Apparently, the control tower was asked for 
permisson to land and they asked 'how much fuel do you have ?', '18 
gallons' came the answer. All hell broke loose and they deployed the 
emergency crews etc. Not long after, a Chipmunk landed with another 30 
minutes flying time left, not a Meteor running on empty! Cheers, Dave

On 08/11/2020 14:41, Puddifoot(Doug) via Tech1 wrote:
> I know the story, and had it confirmed by a couple of BA staff on 
> various visits when we went there for interviews. But my version is a 
> little different. It was the same pilot as my flight. My impression 
> was he was rather autocratic, so I can believe this. While waiting for 
> take-off, I was asked to leave the cockpit while he castigated the 
> loadmaster about a problem with freight distribution. I could hear the 
> shouting from the other side of the door. I heard that Concorde had 
> problems after take off from New York, so had to fly sub sonic most of 
> the way. This uses more fuel, so he was ordered to stop at Shannon to 
> refuel. I suppose that being Concorde Division chief exec, he thought 
> he knew better and carried on to Heathrow. When they arrived, 
> authorities were so concerned about how much fuel was left they dipped 
> the tanks. He would not have had enough to do a fly around if there 
> had been an emergency landing abort. As you say, never made public, 
> but he did leave BA shortly after.
>
> Doug
>
>
>
> -----Original Message----- From: Nick Ware via Tech1
> Sent: Sunday, November 8, 2020 11:20 AM
> To: tech1 at tech-ops.co.uk
> Subject: Re: [Tech1] Another fly-away story
>
> Two interesting things in this story.......
> I never got to fly on Concorde, but did work over several months on a 
> documentary about its design and development up to the time of 002’s 
> maiden flight. On that flight, the whole fuselage was so full of 
> computer equipment that there was no room for us and our 35mm camera 
> gear, so we flew alongside in a DC10.
> Moving all the passengers forward was probably because weight 
> distribution was crucial in Concorde in order to stop it going into an 
> uncontrollable climb as it burnt off fuel. An elderly local 
> Churchwarden friend of mine led the team who developed an automated 
> system whereby fuel was constantly moved around the aircraft during 
> flight to trim balance, etc. This was the secret that the Russians 
> never got hold of and why Concordski crashed in rather spectacular 
> fashion.
> And..... I’m wondering if you might have unwittingly been on the 
> flight back to Heathrow that had to declare a fuel emergency, and ran 
> out of fuel as it touched down. It had been refuelled in New York in 
> US gallons which are smaller than UK gallons. A story that was never 
> to my knowledge made public at the time. No fuel = no hydraulics!
> Cheers,
> Nick.
>
> Nick Ware - Sent from my iPad mini 5
>
>
>