Nice article on the history of the Aer Lingus B747s

Strumms · 07-09-2019 1:27am

nthclare wrote: »

Name the next one after Michael Nugent

The St Michael Nugent

Smiles35 · 07-09-2019 2:17pm

I like all the little stories people have put in the comments section.

Nijmegen · 07-09-2019 6:35pm

The comments thread in that article is full of gold. No wonder they couldn’t make money on the things cycling them to LHR and Shannon! Although I guess the fares were nicer back in the day, the utilisation didn’t seem all that efficient. A different era.

john boye · 07-09-2019 8:45pm

I see a comment in it from someone who flew on an EI B747 to the Canaries and I've seen pics of them in the past in Tenerife, Did EI often operate them on short-haul sun routes?

0lddog · 07-09-2019 10:10pm

( not an answer ) many operators used 747s for runs to the canaries. The infamous accident ( mid 1970s ) at TFN involved two 747s. ( IIRC TFS did not exist at that time )

Davidth88 · 09-09-2019 3:12pm

Nijmegen wrote: »

The comments thread in that article is full of gold. No wonder they couldn’t make money on the things cycling them to LHR and Shannon! Although I guess the fares were nicer back in the day, the utilisation didn’t seem all that efficient. A different era.

Hmm Being a spotter from LHR back in the late 70s and 80s I don't recall seeing the 747 except just before Christmas when T1 would have more EI aircraft than you could shake a big stick at.

EI BAC 111 , and 737-200 were the norm the former disappeared of course.

Later you had the odd Shorts SD ( flying bread boxes as we called them )

tc20 · 17-09-2019 3:19pm

0lddog wrote: »

Pat, you gave me the idea to do a little search

First up from the search engine

https://ifiplayer.ie/radharc-blessing-the-aer-lingus-fleet/

@ 0lddog, many thanks for posting this -my dad worked in AL (Tech Stores) from '46 to the early 80s. I thought I might even have spotted him in the Radharc doc but he mustn't have been on that day. Seeing the maintenance boys n their white boiler suits brings me back - I recall my dad having a few of them and the heavy white shop coats.

jippo nolan · 17-09-2019 4:49pm

tc20 wrote: »

@ 0lddog, many thanks for posting this -my dad worked in AL (Tech Stores) from '46 to the early 80s. I thought I might even have spotted him in the Radharc doc but he mustn't have been on that day. Seeing the maintenance boys n their white boiler suits brings me back - I recall my dad having a few of them and the heavy white shop coats.

If he worked in tech stores, I probably knew him!

tc20 · 17-09-2019 4:56pm

jippo nolan wrote: »

If he worked in tech stores, I probably knew him!

PM sent

Captain_Crash · 17-09-2019 5:13pm

tc20 wrote: »

Seeing the maintenance boys n their white boiler suits brings me back.

Haha blast from the past!! I remember being a kid and running a round in one of my dads ones, a whole 6yo me could prob have fit into the arm of one of those bad boys!! Wouldn't surprise me if he still had a couple of them in his garage

0lddog · 18-04-2021 6:02pm

tc20 wrote: »

...my dad worked in AL (Tech Stores) from '46 to the early 80s.....

jippo nolan wrote: »

If he worked in tech stores, I probably knew him!

Thanks to Samantha Doyle's work, I stumbled across

while looking for a YT clip so thought I'd tag onto the end of this rather old thread ( seeing as its AL in the past )

( it is part 1 of 4 parts on YT )

Skyknight · 20-04-2021 12:57pm

john boye wrote: »

I see a comment in it from someone who flew on an EI B747 to the Canaries and I've seen pics of them in the past in Tenerife, Did EI often operate them on short-haul sun routes?

EI-BED was leased to Air Jamaica from November '86 to April '87

tc20 wrote: »

@ 0lddog, many thanks for posting this -my dad worked in AL (Tech Stores) from '46 to the early 80s. I thought I might even have spotted him in the Radharc doc but he mustn't have been on that day. Seeing the maintenance boys n their white boiler suits brings me back - I recall my dad having a few of them and the heavy white shop coats.

I think the boiler suits came in Blue as well?;)

EchoIndia · 20-04-2021 8:43pm

I can recall IT Flights by the 747s to Las Palmas and Faro and to places like Lourdes on occasion too. If you search for images on-line they did appear at other European airports from time to time.

Astral Nav · 24-04-2021 6:41pm

Fond memories, my first ever flight to SNN on one and my first ever transatlantic flight some years later. Towards their last few years they got quite busy in the Summer and all three would arrive in DUB an hour or so apart.
The Simple flying article is a bit... too simple. ASJ and ASI both ended up in Roswell NM (yes, that Roswell), at least one was apparently used as a static special forces/police trainer and then it seems both went to soft drinks cans. Sad that a cockpit couldn’t have been preserved.

They had the original JT9D engines, never upgraded. Very limited on a hot day. Noise compliance was achieved by gliding over the known noise measurement sites and having to descend in order to accelerate to flap retraction speed was not unknown.

HTCOne · 24-04-2021 9:19pm

Astral Nav wrote: »

They had the original JT9D engines, never upgraded. Very limited on a hot day. Noise compliance was achieved by gliding over the known noise measurement sites and having to descend in order to accelerate to flap retraction speed was not unknown.

I'm told if their NAT track started at one of the Oceanic points nearest to Shannon they would often have hold prior to entering Oceanic airspace in order to climb to their assigned cruising level. Notoriously underpowered.

EchoIndia · 24-04-2021 9:26pm

HTCOne wrote: »

I'm told if their NAT track started at one of the Oceanic points nearest to Shannon they would often have hold prior to entering Oceanic airspace in order to climb to their assigned cruising level. Notoriously underpowered.

Never heard that happen but maybe it did occur. At the other end of the scale I did hear an Aer Lingus 747 at FL410 at the end of its eastbound oceanic crossing. I also flew on a Virgin -100 from LGW to Orlando which was up at FL390 as it flew down the US East Coast.

Comhrá · 24-04-2021 9:49pm

An atc neighbour of mine once told me the EI 747s out of Shannon would often struggle to make FL 330 by 53n 15w and they would sometimes request a dog-leg to make their assigned level at the oceanic entry point.

HTCOne · 24-04-2021 10:04pm

There's a story I read elsewhere from a former Swanwick controller of having one in his sector bringing troops from Dublin to Lebannon. It was struggling through FL280 as he handed it off to the French.

EchoIndia · 25-04-2021 12:12am

HTCOne wrote: »

There's a story I read elsewhere from a former Swanwick controller of having one in his sector bringing troops from Dublin to Lebannon. It was struggling through FL280 as he handed it off to the French.

That rings a bell. I have my notes of that somewhere, flight number might have been EI4941 and IIRC on climbout from Dublin they estimated to make about FL190 by WAL and 290 by Dover. Pre-Swanwick, LATCC was at West Drayton, of course.

NickNickleby · 25-04-2021 12:40am

Not sure how relevant to the thread this is, but the thread title immediately triggered a memory...

I somehow learned that Aer Lingus were taking delivery of a 747, so on the appointed day I cycled out to the airport, abandoned my wreck of a bicycle somewhere and went up on the roof of one of the buildings to watch it come in. I was a young teenager at the time, but cannot say what year it was. But I was thrilled to bits. Many years later, I got the opportunity to explore one in the hangar when all the seats were out. It felt like being in a football stadium.

despite the above, I'm in no way an aviation buff. Just got lucky twice ,

HTCOne · 25-04-2021 1:15pm

EchoIndia wrote: »

That rings a bell. I have my notes of that somewhere, flight number might have been EI4941 and IIRC on climbout from Dublin they estimated to make about FL190 by WAL and 290 by Dover. Pre-Swanwick, LATCC was at West Drayton, of course.

Always appreciate reading something that makes me feel young for a change! West Drayton indeed.

NickNickleby · 25-04-2021 1:32pm

NickNickleby wrote: »

Not sure how relevant to the thread this is, but the thread title immediately triggered a memory...

I somehow learned that Aer Lingus were taking delivery of a 747, so on the appointed day I cycled out to the airport, abandoned my wreck of a bicycle somewhere and went up on the roof of one of the buildings to watch it come in. I was a young teenager at the time, but cannot say what year it was. But I was thrilled to bits. Many years later, I got the opportunity to explore one in the hangar when all the seats were out. It felt like being in a football stadium.

despite the above, I'm in no way an aviation buff. Just got lucky twice ,

Just looked it up there, March 1971, I was 15, just before my Inter Cert.

duskyjoe2 · 25-04-2021 2:19pm

Astral Nav wrote: »

They had the original JT9D engines, never upgraded. .

they were allegedly on a small point and I need someone from the hangars to confirm. Allegedly EIN 747s used a hybrid engine in later years using core components from the 200 series in the hot section whilst obviously retaining the original 100 fan sections .... AL were the only operator to do this .... irrespective they still groaned but sitting in the cockpit with those Pratt’s at full chat was a sound to behold. Can some one confirm the above ?

Turbulent Bill · 26-04-2021 12:07am

I had the privilege of going to the cockpit of EI-ASI on a flight to JFK. Was only a kid (and an aviation nut), the crew were incredibly nice and it was a complete surprise for me. I remember being awe-struck by all the analogue dials and the glow of the sun through the (orange?) sun visors.

Will never forget it.

smurfjed · 29-04-2021 5:13am

Non-EI. We tried to replicate -100 takeoff / performance in a full flight simulator. We never managed to stop on the runway. As they were usually limited by the ALL ENGINE 115% takeoff distance, you would see them crawl off the end of performance limited runways, usually with the EGT of all 4 engines in the red, and the flight engine doing his best to control them. After that, a 300 fpm climb on all engine was usual.

Tried the same stunt in the -400 FFS, that thing was an absolute rocket and stopped on a dime.

Stovepipe · 29-04-2021 11:03am

They drank fuel and oil and leaked everywhere. first job on the turnaround was to open all four cowlings and let them cool down and then top up fluids.

Irish Steve · 29-04-2021 2:49pm

smurfjed wrote: »

Tried the same stunt in the -400 FFS, that thing was an absolute rocket and stopped on a dime.

Long time ago now, we "borrowed" a 747-400 sim for some research work, and during the session, decided that it would be "interesting" to try a landing at the famous Flight sim airstrip, Chicago Meigs. we did it with minimum fuel, and some of the SOP parameters were massaged a little, but we did get in and out again with the 400. The only things that got broken were some of the commercial rules about distances, and for sure we went over the fence a good bit lower that normal, on both the landing, and the departure.

They were fun sessions, and made a huge contribution to getting the flight model of the PC based system we were working on to more accurately work as a heavy jet should, rather than being a thinly disguised C182 that was made to look like a 747, which was the case for years with Flight Sim.

How times have changed!

jippo nolan · 29-04-2021 2:57pm

Stovepipe wrote: »

They drank fuel and oil and leaked everywhere. first job on the turnaround was to open all four cowlings and let them cool down and then top up fluids.

And the wheel wells reeked of Skydrol!

HTCOne · 29-04-2021 8:41pm

jippo nolan wrote: »

And the wheel wells reeked of Skydrol!

Wasn't there a storage area down there often used by EI Spanners to send their coffee machines down to Shannon to be repaired by the manufacturer? Fairly sure I read that elsewhere....it was called "the lower 45" or something.

Skyknight · 29-04-2021 10:00pm

HTCOne wrote: »

Wasn't there a storage area down there often used by EI Spanners to send their coffee machines down to Shannon to be repaired by the manufacturer? Fairly sure I read that elsewhere....it was called "the lower 45" or something.

It was 'The Lower 41' or the 'Hell Hole', and that was on the 720 and 707's (and the 1011's) Its a hatch in the floor of the cockpit, which allowed a member of the crew to climb down and check to ensure the nose gear was locked in the down position. You may have read about it in relation to the crash Eastern Airlines 401, as it was where the crew members were, discussing the position of the gear when the aircraft.

Nice article on the history of the Aer Lingus B747s

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