Posts by user "bizdev" [Posts: 6 Total up-votes: 0 Page: 1 of 1]¶

I cannot think of a civil airliner where the nose gear retracts backwards - they all retract forwards. Except the Trident fleets where the NLG was offset from the centre line of the fuselage and retracted sideways. I remember my Avionic colleagues teling me that this was designed specifically because the Cat3b autoland was so accurate they didn't want the pax to have an uncomfortable ride as the nose wheels rolled over the runway lights on landing

A bit of thread drift - but the Trident had a main undercarriage with four wheels aligned laterally with the a/c - two on one axle and two on the other. This obviously would not retract into the fuselage so had to be swivelled through 90 degrees in the retraction process.

I think this was achieved by the oleo assy being driven down an outer barell with a helix in it. I think it had an A-frame mechanism on top of the gear which was fixed to the wing structure (rib 5?). As the gear went up the wheels rotated into the bay. PFM

"most of us 'here' have our own opinions about what really happened and why"

I for one would like to hear these opinions, especially if they differ from the official report and/or the documentaries that have followed.

I used to work for BA at BHX (Engineering). BHX was one of the BA diversion airfields for when LHR got fogged out.

A few of us were therefore trained on non BHX based aircraft types in case of diversions. On my shift, I was trained on the B747 and my colleage on Concorde.

Of course we didn't see these aircraft very often, but when we did we had to get out the old course notes to refresh .

However, whenever Concorde turned up, my overriding memory was of my colleage who was obsessed with 'keeping her warm" - at all costs. I remember an occasion where the GPU, that had been running for a few hours (connected to a Concorde), ran out of diesel and therefore the power dropped off-line. I thought my colleage was going to have a heart attack - he did not come down from orbit until power was restored and everything appeared 'normal' again.

I think that this was something drummed into him whilst on his Concorde training course

Do you have any more Trivia Quiz's?

Marvellous