Bird strike on circuit bumps.
Posted: Fri Oct 28, 2005 8:24 am
As a young airman I used to colck up as many hours as I could in the 10. Being on shift I used to spend most of my off days flying. On one such day I was invited on a routine 'circuits and bumps' crew trainer with a freshman co pilot behind the stick doing some IFR . It was an evening flight with a dry runway and a warm summer evening,n o clouds.
We lit the fires and taxied out for our initial take off for what was to be an eventful flight. Our captain was what I classed (as a young wetback airman) a true ACE VC10 pilot, thank god [more later] We did what we call a 'rolling' take off, taxi straight out onto the runway straighten the nose wheel and throttles to the firewall! No stopping or blowing cars off the Bampton road (which crosses the threshold)
A lovely clean rotate, stick the legs up and we were away. We spent maybe an hour on touch and goes, gear down feel her onto the runway nose high, hit the noise and back up again to please the neighbours. Anyway. I am in the jump seat and we are passing over Witney and we feel a small bump. Eng checks the dials all OK. We drop the gear and this time we are cleared in for an assymetric landing (2 engines on idle) these happened to be 3 and 4. We are on finals and the captains doing the long legged tap dance to keep the rudder trimmed over and calls me on the headset telling me he has a bad shimmy.
All this happening only 500 or so feet up on 2 engines. The eng is getting reds on the board and I am ordered down the back on the long lead to have a look see. I unbuckle and still on approach number 2 fire warning comes up. Oh bum. It starts clattering and spooling down as I head to the back of the cabin by the ALM's desk. We had no ALM on board as it was training. I was told I was the honorary ALM for the trip!
Meantime the captain is booting 3 & 4 to the firewall as we are now on ONE engine at 250 odd feet dropping fast. I look out the porthole and can see sparks and rubbish flying out behind us from number 2 engine which I relay to the captain. He throttles back and declares an overshoot as the other engines wind up and we climb out.
We complete another circuit declaring an emergency. As we pass the control tower they inform us we have 'reheat' on number 2! We also sound like a doodle bug as we splutter over Witney. Finally the captain T handles the engine and shuts it down.
He carries out a superb 3 engine trimmed landing, so smooth I barely felt it. Taxi back to the dispersal closely followed by blue flashing lights, and expectant fireman posied like vultures to jump on our smoulering sircraft.
We shut down and I go and drag a work platform over to number 2 (after they decide its safe) Rather a lot of parts were missing. The inlet guide vanes were blood spattered so we had taken a bird and shed a turbine blade. Ther was no sign of the missing blade and all the others had serrated edges. The rear of the engine was a mess. The blade had gone though and smashed everything.
It goes to show how tough the Conway is as this engine was rebuilt later and put back into service! A real exciting flight
We lit the fires and taxied out for our initial take off for what was to be an eventful flight. Our captain was what I classed (as a young wetback airman) a true ACE VC10 pilot, thank god [more later] We did what we call a 'rolling' take off, taxi straight out onto the runway straighten the nose wheel and throttles to the firewall! No stopping or blowing cars off the Bampton road (which crosses the threshold)
A lovely clean rotate, stick the legs up and we were away. We spent maybe an hour on touch and goes, gear down feel her onto the runway nose high, hit the noise and back up again to please the neighbours. Anyway. I am in the jump seat and we are passing over Witney and we feel a small bump. Eng checks the dials all OK. We drop the gear and this time we are cleared in for an assymetric landing (2 engines on idle) these happened to be 3 and 4. We are on finals and the captains doing the long legged tap dance to keep the rudder trimmed over and calls me on the headset telling me he has a bad shimmy.
All this happening only 500 or so feet up on 2 engines. The eng is getting reds on the board and I am ordered down the back on the long lead to have a look see. I unbuckle and still on approach number 2 fire warning comes up. Oh bum. It starts clattering and spooling down as I head to the back of the cabin by the ALM's desk. We had no ALM on board as it was training. I was told I was the honorary ALM for the trip!
Meantime the captain is booting 3 & 4 to the firewall as we are now on ONE engine at 250 odd feet dropping fast. I look out the porthole and can see sparks and rubbish flying out behind us from number 2 engine which I relay to the captain. He throttles back and declares an overshoot as the other engines wind up and we climb out.
We complete another circuit declaring an emergency. As we pass the control tower they inform us we have 'reheat' on number 2! We also sound like a doodle bug as we splutter over Witney. Finally the captain T handles the engine and shuts it down.
He carries out a superb 3 engine trimmed landing, so smooth I barely felt it. Taxi back to the dispersal closely followed by blue flashing lights, and expectant fireman posied like vultures to jump on our smoulering sircraft.
We shut down and I go and drag a work platform over to number 2 (after they decide its safe) Rather a lot of parts were missing. The inlet guide vanes were blood spattered so we had taken a bird and shed a turbine blade. Ther was no sign of the missing blade and all the others had serrated edges. The rear of the engine was a mess. The blade had gone though and smashed everything.
It goes to show how tough the Conway is as this engine was rebuilt later and put back into service! A real exciting flight