Just Flight Standard VC10 Operation Manual page 92

As we taxied in we were marshalled to a red carpet at the foot of door #1 Left. The Ceremonial Guard and
Band leapt to attention. Chiefy flung the front door open and a couple of hundred semi-frozen Tampax rolled
out all over the place! Off went the African VIP. The station manager then arrived and demanded an explanation.
Expressions like 'Diplomatic Incident' were flung around. We told them the story. After a bit everyone saw the
funny of things and we went off to the hotel and went off to bed.
The affair of the gold watch that never appeared
Not all that long ago, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia passed away, passing the throne to his half-brother
Salman. Nev Boulton sent the following story about one of their brothers who preceded them on the Saudi
throne...
On the 29th of September 1972 we were operating a Gulf Air Service 008 with G-ARVC under the command of
Captain Clarke from LHR to Dhahran. At the time Gulf Air were (as I remember) operating a mixture of DH Doves
and Skyvans and had started to rent BOAC VC10s for the long-haul services to London. These services were
frequently favoured by many rather rich Arab oil sheikhs who, wanting to avoid their hot summers at home, would
spend their summers in England. These gentlemen were well known for their generosity to the BOAC crews that
carried them. Usually around ten envelopes would arrive on the flight deck to be distributed amongst the grateful
crew.
There was one exception to the norm and it was the late King Faisal of Saudi Arabia who was known to give
away gold Rolex watches, each of which had a picture of the King's head at the 12 o'clock position on the dial.
Hopefully that night it was to be our turn, because we had him and his entourage in first class.
About an hour into the trip I noticed that the oil temperature on one of the generator constant speed drive units
(CSD) was starting to gently rise, eventually getting into the caution range. After consulting with Captain Clark,
I took it offline, giving it the opportunity to cool down, but eventually had to disconnect it when the frequency
started to hunt. The remaining three generators were now in parallel and well within their load limitations. The
VC10 flight engineers were always very much aware of the electrics on the VC10 because all eleven of the flight
control surfaces were powered by three-phase AC motors. In the event of total generator failure we had an
electrical ram air turbine (ELRAT) which could be dropped out of the belly, which was driven by a propeller in the
slipstream. The checklist was completed and we pressed on towards Dhahran.
About an hour or so later, as we were passing overhead Rome (the sky was clear and the lights of Roma
beautifully visible), another generator oil low pressure light came 'on' and the generator dropped offline as the
frequency dropped below limits. Once more I did the drill from the checklist and Captain Clark asked me what I
wanted to do. As we were down to two generators – I wasn't very happy – I remember pointing at the lights of
Rome and suggesting that we all should go down there and drink some Peroni! Captain Clark decided that we
should return to London as there were plenty of funk holes to drop into in the event of further Constant Speed
Drive problems. A careful eye was kept on the AC loads and we headed back towards Heathrow. Obviously
the other (unspoken) consideration was the political complications of dropping King Faisal unexpectedly and
unannounced into another country.
I called up company on the HF single sideband, gave them an ETA, reminded them about our VIP passengers and
put engineering in the picture. We landed uneventfully – chock to chock 5 hours and 35 minutes. Unsurprisingly,
unhappy King – no gold Rolex!
All together now!
As BOAC was the primary VC10 operator, it wasn't unusual for new airlines who bought VC10s to have
BOAC crew seconded to them for training. BOAC Duty Officer John Anderson recalls a curious event that
happened while he was posted in Bangladesh...
In late 1971 there had been a devastating independence war, closely followed by a series of natural disasters
in what was a desperately poor country. At the time there was a large number of aid workers in the country
and numerous charter flights carrying inbound cargo on a daily basis. The country was desperate for any aid
and the proper scheduling of aircraft movements into the airport was virtually non-existent. Dacca International
Airport was in a bad state with war damaged facilities; this included filled-in bomb craters on the main runway
and taxiways, bullet holes in the terminal walls, broken windows and a complete lack of basic ground handling
equipment. At times the relatively small aircraft ramp area could become very congested.
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VC10 Professional – Operations Manual