Nigel's real world ramblings no7

[britfrog 180]

My father was a battle of Britain pilot who after the war was lucky enough to be seconded into BOAC and many years later he was still a pilot as I grew up. I always wanted to fly aeroplanes having had my first flight when I was only a couple of months old, so it was no surprise that I wanted to follow in my fathers footsteps. The first time I touched the controls of a DH Dove I was hooked, the next plane that I "flew" was a Grumman Goose, followed quickly by a DC3 and a DH Heron all before the tender age of 14.

     I undertook my training in Florida at Opa Locka airport (near Miami) and 3 days after getting my Cpl/IR I walked into a job with Eastern airlines in Miami, the flying school “had an arrangement” with Eastern at the time.. My first flights were in a 727/100 to Georgia and Texas however before long we were given a new 200 series a/c and started on the run to Newark ,JFK and O'Hare on a daily basis. No sooner had we started on these longer runs than my pilot shared some info that he had been given by the company chief pilot. Once we were established in the cruise around  FL360 he turned around in his seat and pulled a fuse out, I cannot remember which one it was but either 38 or 41 seem to ring a bell. After which he took the flap lever and put it into the first (2deg) position. After he saw my incredulous expression he told me that the company had quietly informed him that if we flew like that (when close to coffin corner) we could save up to 12% if not more fuel . And as we were paid bonuses on what we saved, who were we to argue?

 

    A 727 has 3 engines at the rear and when you are approaching coffin corner there is little margin for error between stall or overspeed the huge weight of engines at the rear tended to exasperate the situ and give the a/c a rear c-of-g making the a/c fly more nose up causing more drag so it can easily fall off the backside of the flight envelope and stall .Now normally the slats and flaps are operated in unison but by pulling the fuse out it deactivated the leading edge slats. The end result was that with the flaps extended to 2degrees it effectively moved the c of g forward bringing the nose lower , reducing drag (hence the saving , plus with the extra lift it offered we could fly higher (another saving). In actual fact we were extending the flaps at an indicated air speed that was authorised for their normal operation due to the thinner air. Although this was not mentioned in the operations manual , we had been assured that the Boeing test pilots had indeedntested this regime and could find no fault with it but as no-one was willing to pay for the whole host of test flights necessary to ratify this configuration it had to be kept on the QT.

 

     Over the years It became common knowledge amongst 727 pilots of all airlines and many of them used this dodge So it was a win/win situ for most . As long as you remembered to retract the flaps and push the fuse back in on descent. I have flown across the rockies at FL470 in a lightly filled a/c when the normal maximum ceiling was FL 410 , and the fuel savings could amount to several tons, the benefits of which would be shared by the crew.

For a whole host of reasons I decided a couple of years later that flying a plane and living out of a suitcase was not my idea of fun besides I also discovered girls were far more interesting, and so I left the world of commercial aviation for many years. I seem to remember some years later when I was in the UK that a crew had been drawn over hot coals by the FAA because they were suspected of flying in just this manner it was either a twa flight or air canada but from what I heard the plane had done a barrel roll when they had extended the flaps because they forgot to pull the fuse out and they lost a leading edge slat on one wing.

Needless to say all the airlines denied ever authorising such a procedure and that it was limited to a few maverick pilots . However it is interesting to note that in later years when the 727 was being phased out because of noise and fuel economy, several aircraft mods were created by a few companies to lengthen the service life of the venerable 727 and one of these mods effectively reproduced the flap dodge by modifying the wing , of course they also added winglets and a whole host of other mods including hush kits, most of these a/c became corporate hacks for well off large companies., as 727's can now be bought for sensible money, which is why they are still so popular, especially in 3rd world countries, but it is the really savvy businessman who still owns a 727 because it can outperform any of the current crop of business jets for a fraction of the money, excepting fuel consumption.

However as the saying goes I learnt about flying from that.

[hifly 925]

Great post Nigel, I must try that trick at home.

[allardjd 1,853]

I'm familiar with the event you describe toward the end. It's documented here...

http://www.fss.aero/accident-reports/look.php?report_key=163

As I understand it they were trying your little trick but didn't pull the breakers, so slats extended too. When retracted one didn't go back in - or something along those lines.

John

[britfrog 180]

Thanks for that John, I always wondered what had happened

[allardjd 1,853]

It happened only a few hundred miles from where I lived at the time and got a lot of play in the newspapers, though there were not many details at that point. The pilots were initially treated as heroes for getting the AC back under control - I think they lowered the gear at some point to help stabilize it. I'm sure someone knew what had happened early on but it was a long time before that became known to the general aviation-minded public.

John

[mutley 4,498]

Fascinating Nigel!

When is you autobiography published? I would buy a copy 

[Gunner 69]

Another good story, love them.

[Quickmarch 488]

Thanks for the story, Nigel. Most entertaining, as usual.

 

I'm wondering if the incident referred to in John's post was used as the basis for a book by Michael Chrighton called "Airframe". It was a good read.

 

Ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airframe_%28novel%29