A Little VC10derness

Anybody out there witnessed Engine Shut Down on Taxi with booster pumps off during BOAC-British airways operations, if so which ECU position?

Any chance of a few more details as to what you are after. Are we talkning accidental or on purpose. We often shut one down during the taxi as it saves the brakes, especally if the ac is very light.

Tonks

Thinking more on the backing pump on the engine under suction may induce air into fuel line thus causing engine to wound down.

Hmm, interesting. So we're talking about a fuel feed problem when taxiing/operating with electrical booster pumps switched off.
Now is this something that you know has happened? Or could it have happened?

My guess, not based on working knowledge of operating the '10, would be that the current procedures/checklists would leave the fuel booster pumps on until shutdown. That would make sense considering the system and when compared to other jets. I'll leave it to Tonkenna to confirm that though.

As to someone seeing it happen during the BA/BOAC days, I'm not aware of many ex-crew from those days frequenting this forum, so you may have to face a long wait to get an answer on that. I'm hoping to be proven wrong on that though!!

There is sufficient fuel pressure to keep the engines going on backing pump pressure alone. It is unlikely that it would induce air into the fuel unless there was a leak somewhere. I have actually been on board a VC10 (as a co, where you can't see the panel!!) when it took off with all the pumps off!!!! (engineer cock-up) and it worked fine.

Tonks

The Conway does have a record of shutting down on taxi. Most times it can be put down to a low idle set up or an incorrectly adjusted Sub Idling in the FCU. Although it was relatively rare occurrance I had it happen to me on a few occasions when down route, all of which did not re-occur. The most notable was just after touch down at IAD on a VIP! (Panicsville by the captain, chilloutville by the engineers)!

Must have been an easily paniced captain as its no drama Never had a Conway do that though I did have a Spey do it once on a Nimrod.

Tonks

I think he was worried that he would have to spend time sorting out rev-itins and lose out on time down 19th & M

It came to nothing, the old Conway started up as usual.

I never had an engine shut itself down but on the ground there was the possibility of the Conway going into sub idle. This was not normally recoverable so the only option was to shut the engine down. Fortunately this condition was only known to occur after landing and may have been related to the use of reverse thrust.
The engine backing pumps were sufficient to run the engines on the ground up to full power without the use of electric pumps and even in the air up to around 17000ft, which a certain BOAC FE demonstrated many years ago on takeoff from JED if I remember correctly. No names no pack drill!
BOAC happy days....

RAF VC10's on 10 SQN suffered this in the past. If memory serves me correctly it was traced to old seals in the fuel lines (airrfame not engine side)allowing air into the fuel feeds. It wasn't on all aircraft only certain tail numbers.

I remember one airframe on 10 Sqn used to do this - I think it was the number 3 engine.

I had to divert into Shannon one day when a cabin compressor blew, filling the aeroplane with smoke on an eastbound flight from Dulles to Brize - and as we taxied in, the engine shut down in a huge plume of fuel "vapour", causing ATC and the fire crews to get very excited for a while.