what became of the 3 Aer Lingus 747s ?

kona

MYOB wrote: »

The book he's referring to covers more than just the era they used Iolar; so I'd assume he was referring to a 747...

Id be very suprised if that was the case, perhaps there was a technical issue, but Im dam sure 4 P&W Jt-9D would have the power to clear the wicklow mountains.

Dacian

kona wrote: »

Id be very suprised if that was the case, perhaps there was a technical issue, but Im dam sure 4 P&W Jt-9D would have the power to clear the wicklow mountains.

Actually I just checked and the story was from "Shamrocks from Seattle" NOT "Flight of the Iolar". This was a pamphlet published by the Irish Air Letter.

Again I do not want to cast any spurious negativity over the EI B747. The tale refers to a fully laden B741 on take off from Dublin with the captain being cautious. There was no question of them NOT CLEARING the mountains, the captain just wanted to ensure he was completely clear of them. The tale was framed in relation to the EI search for a replacement for the B747 in the early 1990's.

donvito99

Just thought I would bump this with a great video...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QYX3ztYdqkM

McWotever

Very dirty from the business class emergency exit. Is that where they threw out the mop bucket water?

drdeadlift

I cant recall were i read it.An ei 74 was going from Dublin to Beirut carrying troops,they reached fl280 over dover.
Did ei get a good deal purchasing these early 741s as i know Boeing had announced the improved 200 when it was still on the drawing board.

roundymac

Did they buy/lease a 747 from Lufthansa? I know they bought the first 2 new from Boeing, but where did they get the third 747?

Blue Punto

roundymac wrote: »

Did they buy/lease a 747 from Lufthansa? I know they bought the first 2 new from Boeing, but where did they get the third 747?

EI-BED(19748) came from LH being D-ABYC before it was with EI
Jan 79 was when it joined the Aerlingus fleet.
During its career with Aerlingus it also went out on a number of leases to
Air Algeria(who never had their 747's delivered to them) Air Jamaica,Qantas and Lan Chile
Withdrawn from use in Marana in 1995 and broken up in August
In 2008 this is all that was left

http://www.airliners.net/photo/Aer-Lingus/Boeing-747-130/1412609/&sid=542dbdc21ab053d608567d3f58c0caff

A little off subject but just read that LH have flown D-ABVA to FRA to be scrapped.I think this is the first LH 747-400 to meet the axe.
And they have also replaced the ground trainer at FRA Viscount D-ANAF with 737-500 D-ABJI

EchoIndia

Blue Punto wrote: »

A little off subject but just read that LH have flown D-ABVA to FRA to be scrapped.I think this is the first LH 747-400 to meet the axe.
And they have also replaced the ground trainer at FRA Viscount D-ANAF with 737-500 D-ABJI

D-ABVA was last recorded on LH465 MIA-FRA on 31 December.

EchoIndia

drdeadlift wrote: »

I cant recall were i read it.An ei 74 was going from Dublin to Beirut carrying troops,they reached fl280 over dover.

I may have posted that somewhere in the past. He was at FL090 at LIFFY, 190 or so at WAL and estimated making 290 by DVR. I have the notes somewhere that I made at the time.

Blue Punto

EchoIndia wrote: »

D-ABVA was last recorded on LH465 MIA-FRA on 31 December.

Must have been its last flight in service
Just reading a thread about it on airliners.net at the moment also now being reported on skyliner

xflyer

Can't understand why I never read this thread when it was current. Oh wait it was in April, I was permanently in the air that month:(

I can back up the comments about the JT9D-7A, my area of expertise at one point. I can easily believe the story of the 747 over Wicklow. I remember every 747 take off from Dublin was a major event. ATC checked in with everybody in the vicinity. The fully loaded Aer Lingus 747s took a long time to get high and could easily find it mixing itself with C150s near Weston. I lived ten miles from the airport a couple of miles north of the hills but could easily get a good view of it as it clawed it's way to altitude.

I flew on EI-BED back from the USA, I think ASI outbound.

Dacian

xflyer wrote: »

.....I can back up the comments about the JT9D-7A, my area of expertise at one point. I can easily believe the story of the 747 over Wicklow. I remember every 747 take off from Dublin was a major event. ATC checked in with everybody in the vicinity. The fully loaded Aer Lingus 747s took a long time to get high and could easily find it mixing itself with C150s near Weston. .....

Thanks for that confirmation.


As an aside can I ask how many flight hours you would do a year? Does it vary greatly year to year? (I assume you are under the same 900 hrs per year rule of airline pilots)

xflyer

Yes it's the same but realistically you would never reach that. It does vary but in and around 300 to 400 hours is realistic. But there's an additional eight hour daily limit which airline pilots are not subject to. Eight hours in the cockpit amounts to a long old day when you consider duty time, a few days in a row like that and the glamour of aviation wears off very quickly!

Tea 1000

xflyer wrote: »

Can't understand why I never read this thread when it was current. Oh wait it was in April, I was permanently in the air that month:(

I can back up the comments about the JT9D-7A, my area of expertise at one point. I can easily believe the story of the 747 over Wicklow. I remember every 747 take off from Dublin was a major event. ATC checked in with everybody in the vicinity. The fully loaded Aer Lingus 747s took a long time to get high and could easily find it mixing itself with C150s near Weston. I lived ten miles from the airport a couple of miles north of the hills but could easily get a good view of it as it clawed it's way to altitude.

I flew on EI-BED back from the USA, I think ASI outbound.

Why didn't they fill them with fuel in Shannon seeing as they had to do the stop-over anyway?
I flew on them 3 times, but I don't recall the registration. have a pic somewhere, must dig!

Tenger

Tea 1000 wrote: »

Why didn't they fill them with fuel in Shannon seeing as they had to do the stop-over anyway?

They did. But there were a few DUB-USA flights. (SNN-DUB-ORD).

xflyer

Yes there were. I remember asking a colleague who was flying to the States to get me one of those little models they sell on board but at the time you couldn't get elsewhere. The morning he flew out I heard his 747 coming, the distinctive motorcycle sound, and without getting out of bed lifted the curtain and saw it overfly at about 4000 or 5000 thou. I was tickled pink at the idea that the little model he eventually handed to me actually overflew my bedroom.

As I said I lived miles from the airport. BTW he was the JT9D Engineer.

Tea 1000

Tenger wrote: »

They did. But there were a few DUB-USA flights. (SNN-DUB-ORD).

I see.
@xflyer: I had two of those models at one stage! Can't find either now!

Tenger

Tea 1000 wrote: »

I had two of those models at one stage! Can't find either now!

This one?
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Inflight-500-Aer-Lingus-1-500-B747-100-EI-ASI-/320813507453?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item4ab1f9a37d

I have one of these, but want to find a B747 in the older white livery. (Same as the current retro A320)

Tea 1000

Tenger wrote: »

This one?
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Inflight-500-Aer-Lingus-1-500-B747-100-EI-ASI-/320813507453?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item4ab1f9a37d

I have one of these, but want to find a B747 in the older white livery. (Same as the current retro A320)

Actually no, I didn't have that one! It was the same size as that though, but came in a much smaller box, long rectangle box. It had just all grey wings and no undercarriage, but had the holes where the undercarriage would go, but had that gammy plastic stand for it instead.

Edit: - I had the 747 equivelant of this one: http://www.airlinemuseum.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=1957
It was plastic, not die-cast metal like yours. Yours looks a lot better!! Didn't even know they existed!

Irish Steve

Going back a few messages now, the issue with the Wicklow hills wasn't clearing them, it was being still able to clear them in the event of an engine failure on takeoff, which is a requirement on all commercial aircraft, there has to be a plan in place that is automatically carried out in the event of an engine failure, and there are many aircraft, both 2 , 3 and 4 engine types that would have to make an emergency turn out over the Irish Sea if departing from Runway 16 and then suffering an engine failure.

If an engine fails when low, slow and heavy, if at all possible, the only things done in the early stages of the take off are to put the wheels up to reduce the drag, and then maintain very accurately a specific speed, which for the load, the day etc is individually calculated. A few years ago now, a similar 747 had an engine failure due to the strength of the cross wind when departing from Gatwick, and as a result, they were only just able to clear the high ground that's several miles from the end of the runway, and it's nothing like the height of the Wicklow hills. From memory, the stick shaker, which is an indication to the captain that the speed is low, and needs to be increased, was operating for several minutes before they were able to get things back under full control.

The last thing you want to have to do in that case is start any sort of turn unless it's critical, as that reduces either the climb rate or the speed, and if things are already marginal, and the 747 200 was marginal, you don't want to upset it any more.

A report on such an incident in Bogota only recently was a report on a crash, as one engine failed as it rotated, followed a short while later by another, partly due to mishandling of the power, and the loss of 2 engines was enough to prevent it being able to climb away successfully.

Having said that, a long time ago, I was at Shannon for a few days, and one of the Russian heavy lifters took off on a dirty wet day on a trans atlantic trip. When he was cleared to take off, he was told to report passing 1500 Ft. It duly thundered down the runway in a cloud of spray, and eventually lumbered into the air, and very quickly was lost to sight. I was listening on the radio, and after several minutes, I remember thinking, "he's forgotten the 1500 Ft call". He hadn't, in the end, with all the engines working, the performance of the aircraft was such that it took 7 MINUTES to get to 1500 Ft, which is a very long time indeed, and below the ICAO standard for commercial aircraft operations, under normal requirements, an aircraft is supposed to be capable of a minimum climb rate of 500 Ft per minute in normal operation.

The heavy lifters are clearly a special category, and I suspect that was why he was told to report through 1500 Ft, so that ATC knew there was no longer any possibility of conflict with traffic that was under the zone boundary.

roundymac

There's a video on you tube of an IL 76 taking off in Australia, it really shows how slow a lifter these aircraft are, the comentery from the atc's in the tower are pricless. The vodka burner is rolling.;)

xflyer

Tea 1000 wrote: »

I see.
@xflyer: I had two of those models at one stage! Can't find either now!

I had two as well, might still have them somewhere.

I asked another collegue to get me a model when he was on a visit to SAS. He arrived back with a large scale travel agent type model SAS DC9. Not sure where that is either.

Reading Irish Steve's comments, it really never occurred to me before that the drift down after engine failure would be factor over the Wicklow hills,:eek: even during take off. When I was studying Perf A, somehow I was thinking more of the Alps.