Philbky

Inhabiting the world of "whatifery" as we are, the radiator moulding and grille could stay. Behind it could be a couple of fans to pull in air to cool equipment and to supply air for the heating system. The grille and surround would be a design feature of the Routemaster brand. As far as kerbside visibility is concerned, the trolleybus with a full width front had an advantage over motor buses, especially those with "new look" fronts where the width of any, possibly vestigal, mudguard was difficult to judge. Thus the addition of those little aerial like stalks with a round knob on the top as seen on vehicles of a number of fleets. In a full fronted vehicle the front corner pillar gives an excellent idea of the position of the vehicle in relationship to the kerb. A knee window is a good idea for seeing cyclists.

Deleted as unfinished - see below

The opening side window and lift up cover would be excellent solutions but be aware that the cover went all the way to the floor. Some departments specified an opening top and partial front hinged from the front so the top and the part of the front folded forward. Others had a two piece solution where the top and the whole of the front panel came off in two pieces. The space wasn't dead as such. Maintenance needed space to work, especially if a fix was required at the roadside and then there is the question of having enough air around the components to dissipate heat. Many operators which didn't specify a nearside door to the compartment had the whole window hinged to open. They also had small sliding window to ventilate the cab. Many nearside photos of trolleybuses don't clearly show the opening window, you have to look closely for handles and hinges (!) and it was almost invariably the rearmost of the two cab windows. Some operators (including LT) didn't have any opening on the nearside much to the chagrin of the maintenance crews. You have the chance to ease a great deal of backache! One other point you should take into account is the effect of water and dirt from the trolley poles ending up on the roof. This was particularly a problem around the rear dome but London had dark roofs from the rear of the first upper deck bay rearwards. I don't know how you'll match the colour but reference to David Bradley's site might help. http://www.trolleybus.net/

Your spats solution is neat but I bet the maintenance department in your "what if" world will find ways of getting them on the scrap pile after a few wheel changes!! As for the free space, you shouldn't use it for luggage. The cover I referred to in a previous post gave access to electrical gear (see this photo http://blackcountryhistory.org/collections.../GB149_P_3627/) and this was attached to the bulkhead on every UK built double decker trolleybus, precluding access from the saloon and leaving little room for anything else. Most operators specified either a nearside door or large opening window for access to this equipment to avoid engineers having to reach or climb over the driver's seat to carry out maintenance. I can't recall seeing seeing in life, or in photos, the space being used for driver instruction - there just wasn't space for another seat, instruction being carried out, as on motor buses, by removal of the bulkhead window behind the driver.

Weight distribution is certainly a factor in determining the number of axles. Weight distribution on modern rear engined vehicles, both single and double deckers, is unbalanced with the bulk of the weight to the rear but there are many 12 metre chassis where some operators specify 2 axles, others 3. There has been harmonisation in the EU with regard to length, weight distribution and manoeuvrability. As I previously mentioned there is no legal requirement for more than 2 axles on buses over 30 foot in length in the UK. Weight is a different matter so axle loading comes into play and, given the weight distribution of longer vehicles, anything above 12 metres (39 foot long) is highly likely to need three axles for that reason alone, though there is no theoretical reason that a 15 meter rigid, lightweight, couldn't have two axles as long as the axle loadings didn't infringe EU, and thus UK, Construction and Use axle loadings. It is at this point that manoeuvrability comes into play and a third, steerable, rear axle is needed for use in almost all UK and most European cities for anything above 13 metres. Indeed Stagecoach and National Express 15 metre coaches are route limited, even with rear wheel steering. Anyway, we are drifting from the topic. As for the spats, it's up to the builder. All I would say is that the Routemaster was designed for ease of maintenance and any theoretical trolleybus development would surely have followed that ideal so spats or valances would have been out. A final sidelight. Given the pursuit of ease of maintenance, there was a debate at Chiswick about fitting of rear wheel embellishers that LT had pioneered on the RT - an idea which had been followed by a number of operators, large and small. Every time a rear wheel needed attention the "dustbin lid", as one depot manager of my acquaintance in Manchester called those fitted to his charges, had to come off and then be refitted. They were subject to damage, scratching or even loss at this stage. They also increased brake wear due to the heat from braking being trapped in the void between the embellisher and the wheel itself. It was decided to keep the embellishers on the Routemaster as it gave the vehicles both a "London look" and commonality with the RT, RF fleets. They started to be discarded during the mid to late 1960s, by which time most other fleets had long discarded theirs.

There has been no legal requirement in the UK for a third axle for any length since the 30 foot rule was amended - today's crop of three axle coaches and double deckers being the result of the need to spread the weight for vehicle rigidity/stability and to allow rear wheel steering. When 36 foot long single deckers became legal in 1961, the length of double deckers remained constant at a maximum 30 feet, mostly due to union unhappiness at various operators regarding crewing large capacity deckers which inhibited builders and operators from moving up to the 36 foot maximum which had accompanied the change for single deckers. Gradually Atlanteans and Fleetlines gained first the odd six inches, then grew to 31 feet with some operators, eventually being offered and widely used as 33 foot chassis, partly contingent upon the then upcoming change to metric measurements becoming mandatory in the industry. By 1968 Ribble Group had 36 foot long Bristol VR coaches and the original Bristol VR stage carriage bus with a longitudinal engine was 32 foot 9ins long. At the 1968 Commercial Motor Show Daimler exhibited their CRC6-36 (see http://www.flickr.com/photos/8050359@N07/5680499662/) which was also 36ft. After the introduction of the PTEs in 1969 many, led by SELNEC, reduced the length of their standard double deckers to around 31 foot 6 inches The current maximum length for a rigid chassis double decker in the UK is 49 foot 3 inches. Whilst there is no requirement for a third axle the tight corners in many cities dictate that a rear axle with some degree of steering is universally offered and almost universally taken up. I hope this places this great piece of "whatifery" in an historic context. If it scales up to 30 feet it would have been legal with two axles. If it scales up to 32 foot 6 inches it would have needed a special dispensation, prior to 1961, no matter how many axles it had - but their is a precedent. Glasgow operated 34 foot 5 inch single deck trolleybuses on specific routes from 1958 under a local Traffic Commissioner's dispensation.

What is it with USAF crew? Over the years they've displayed at Blackbushe instead of Farnborough, at Manchester instead of Woodford and have made many embarrassing en route navigation errors in Europe despite state of the art navigation aids. If I remember correctly the Pan American driver who landed a 707 at Northolt in the 1960s was either AFRES or ANG in his spare time.

Sorry, I know I'm coming into this late and I certainly don't want to pour cold water on your brilliantly modelled piece of "whatifery" but, if we accept that for some reason there would have been a three axle vehicle in the late 1950s - and in fairness there was a great deal of old fashioned thinking underlying some amazing technical advances at Chiswick during the period - the twin rear axles would have only needed single wheels under the then Construction and Use regulations. Had the drive been to the second axle, it may have had twin wheels but the third axle would only have had singles as is the practice, in the UK and elsewhere, with motor and trolleybuses today. The reasons are weight, cost and maintenance.

Must try and get hold of that book. A few more thoughts for you. The retention of the radiator is reminiscent of the vestigal radiators on early British trolleybuses but, from the point of view of maintenance, you should replace the grille with blanking plates. With no need for an air intake the grille will just be a dirt trap with just a blank behind it. The cooling fan on a motorbus keeps the air flowing round a radiator and there is space for any dirt/leaves etc. to fall, not so on a trolleybus. Again the valances over the rear wheels are a maintenance nightmare. Apart from the fact they trap far more dirt than normal wheel arches, they either have to be removed or the vehicle has to be jacked up far further than with normal wheel arches when changing a wheel. The routemaster was designed to make maintenance easy, as would have been any trolleybus based on the design. The most accurate filler for the nearside blank space where the engine would be on a Routemaster would be a curved casing ahead of the bulkhead between the front seats and the compartment. This was standard on BUT (the trolleybus alliance between AEC and Leyland at the time of the Routemaster's introduction) trolleybuses and housed control gear. You can just see it here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:British_...uk_-_559504.jpg painted green and carrying the fleet number in white

Thank you very much

A fascinating project demonstrating a great deal of imagination and skill. The Routemaster was, of course, introduced as part of the trolleybus replacement programme so this model is a sort of history reversal. It is interesting just how much the Routemaster resembled the Q1, given the former was the result of "blue sky" thinking. It just shows how traditional Chiswick was and how organisations in days gone by were reluctant to ditch templates that worked. There is a historical note that does jar with this project. Had LT decided to replace trolleybuses with a new version on a one for one, seat for seat, basis there would have been no need for a third axle as, by the time the 27ft 6in Routemaster hit the streets, two axle 30ft buses of all types were legal.

Presumably the VARIG livery is to mark the fact that their L188s were the last in scheduled passenger service

The DHL is a B767. Interesting to see just how advantageous it was to be on the opposite side of the runway to the crowd line. Your RAF transport/tanker flypast shots are so much better than mine and those of most others who were shooting against the light with the sky and the paint schemes giving no contrast.

To celebrate my 65th birthday I visited Blackbushe, Fairford, Kemble, Farnborough and the Mosquito Museum between 7 and 10 July. Out of over 700 photos, I've put over 200 up on Flickr. Go to http://www.flickr.com/photos/philbky/ navigate to page 13 and go forward to page 1 for photos and comments. It is very evident that the trade days at Farnborough are a very different show to the public days. One omission from the Mosquito Museum is a shot of a Mosquito (!) due to the cramped conditions and work being done on the aircraft which precluded any meaningful shots.

Since writing the above I've briefly scanned the AAIB report on the crash. Three items stand out which totally rubbish the article other than the points I made. 1. The time from the secondary radar return disappearing until the British Geological Survey recorded an 1.6 Richter Scale tremor at Lockerbie was 46.5 seconds plus or minus 2 seconds. The tremor was caused by the centre section impacting and exploding at a vertical speed in excess of 400 mph from 31000 feet. No airliner yet built or conceived is designed for such a descent rate. A TWA B727 survived a slightly faster descent rate when it fell from 39000 feet to 5000 feet in 44 seconds and was landed safely with major structural damage, but the fuselage was whole at the start of the incident and though bits came off the wings and the skin was wrinkled no bursting of the fuselage took place and the pressurisation remained intact allowing the crew to remain conscious. Even a crew battling a badly damaged 747 should have been able to put out a MAYDAY call were they still conscious at low level. They weren't conscious, they had died when the nose separated as one of the first consequences of the explosion. 2. In the same timescale the centre section accelerated to in excess of 400 mph whilst the nose section landed at only 120 mph on a totally different trajectory proving there was no chance of control. 3. The body impact trail defies any idea that the aircraft was in one potentially controllable piece at low level.

That article is utter rubbish. During the 1990s I devised a number of international conferences on cargo security in the light of Lockerbie and these were sponsored and attended by a wide range of experts from airlines, governments, security services and companies, airports and explosives manufacturers - including experts from Explosia, the Czech makers of Semtex. In addition to everything I learned from the people I dealt with, I also spoke to the BA crew who witnessed the 747 explode above and ahead of them and reported it as descending in pieces. There has been a long held belief in airline circles that the bombing was Iranian retaliation for the Vincennes shooting down of the Iran Air Airbus in July 1988 and the Libyans were happy to be involved due to their wanting revenge for the 1986 attacks of their country by UK based USAF F-111s. Whether those individuals implicated in the bombing actually took part or were put up by the Libyan Government when it suited its purpose is a matter of conjecture. The aircraft broke up at altitude and anyone who knows anything about airframe break up could not believe that the aircraft was under control at low level. The massive debris trail,eastbound across the width of the country from the point of the explosion, is indicative of high level break up as a break up at a lower level would not have led to such a widespread debris trail. The distance between the landing point of the nose section and the centre section,the latter causing the devastation in Lockerbie, is also indicative of a high level separation given the winds on the night. Citing the United 747 fuselage failure to back up an idea that the aircraft could have been controlled is a sick joke. The United aircraft suffered a skin failure with no added force to that of the pressurisation. That was bad enough but the area damaged was small enough to be survivable - just - for all but an unfortunate few as no control runs or vital systems were incapacitated.. The Aloha 737 was similarly survivable as it was the roof that tore off and no vital controls were damaged. Aircraft are amazingly resiliant to fuselage damage as many WW2 bomber crews will attest - but you have to be lucky. Bombs, mostly home made, have over the years either brought down aircraft or failed to do so depending on the explosive used and the position of the bomb. Pan Am 103's passengers were triply unfortunate. Semtex and the pressurisation system combined, plus the position of the bomb, not only tore a hole in the airframe but, according to the flight data recorder which stopped precisely at the moment of the explosion due to total electrical failure, destroyed all the aircraft's vital systems as the airframe began to break up instantaneously. Semtex is extremely powerful and later on ground tests (especially the one at Bruntingthorpe) showed just how destructive a small amount can be. The radar plot showed multiple returns blossoming from the main return immediately the squawk was lost and the controller handling the flight immediately reported multiple large radar returns, which re-runs of the recording affirmed. It is also known that a BA shuttle crew reported a large fire on the ground whilst the second largest return was still showing on radar - indicating the heavier centre section, including the wings, landed whilst the lighter nose was still drifting down. Indeed the damage to the nose from its impact with the ground clearly indicates a comparatively softer landing than that of the centre section with no discernable horizontal motion. The nose landed vertically on its side in a location which would not have been possible had any controlled descent been maintained given the site of the centre section impact. The centre section, not previously on fire, exploded on impact with the ground due to the fuel remaining in the centre tank. Had controlled descent been achieived, the crew would have donned their oxygen masks as the explosion happened at 31000 feet and they could not have flown a damaged aircraft down to 12000 feet or so in an emergency descent without passing out in the process. The crew oxygen masks had not been deployed and in any case, an emergency descent at the speed logged for the centre section radar returns would have torn the aircraft apart. The article ranks with other conspiracy theories, such as the one that denies the American Airlines B757 attack an the Pentagon but can't explain the disappearance of the airframe from the fleet or the crew and passengers disappearing from the face of the earth. Governments and their agents have been proved to lie, cover up and perform all sorts of illegal and immoral deeds but the article is nothing but nonsense, perhaps involving misplaced wishful thinking in order to make the crew into heroes and is totally denied by radar, eyeball evidence from two other crews, physics, medical fact and the laws of gravity, meteorology and aerodynamics.

Built this circa 1959. 1/96th if I remember. It came complete with a fully seated interior, galleys and toilets - a total waste as, as soon as the fuselage went together, nothing could be seen and, worse, the whole floor was a fraction too wide. Yet the box art made much of the interior! In those days removing excess plastic meant cadging sandpaper from Dad's toolbox and removing just enough to make the thing fit. I seem to remember that without the floor the rigidity of the fuselage was a bit suspect. The fuselage then needed a great deal of glue, Frog recommended their own, a large number of rubber bands and a great deal of patience lining up the edges correctly!

With regard to 'RPY, as can be seen from the photo earlier in the thread, it landed pretty much at zero forward speed, as had happened with 2 BAC 1-11s during test flying and happened later to 'RPI - all victims of the deep stall phenomenon whereby the wings of a T tail aircraft blank off the airflow from the elevators at and above a given nose up angle. This had been observed in the 1950s in military and experimental types but the knowledge was not applied by either Hawker Siddeley or BAC when installing safety systems in their aircraft. After Felthorpe, stick pushers became mandatory on T tail aircraft in the UK and the US followed as later did everyone else. The AAIB report is now held in the National Archive at Kew and a hard copy can be ordered from there. So why did 'RPI fall victim to the same problem? Certainly a large number of errors occurred on the fligh tdeck in the 140 seconds or so from take off roll commencing to landing vertically in the field adjacent to the A30. The speed on climb out was too slow, the flaps were raised as speed was decaying and speed decayed further as for noise abatement power was reduced. The droops were retracted some 68 knots below the placarded minimum speed and whilst the aircraft was in a turn, something BEA standard ops forbad. The stick shaker worked and would have alerted the crew to a stall as did the stick pusher but someone switched off the system, presumably believing it to be operating in error. No cockpit voice recorder was fitted (the accident led to British airliners being so fitted) but it has always been assumed that Capt Key suffered a major traumatic cardiac event at or immediately after rotation which distracted the rest of the crew. However BEA operated a three crew monitoring system to ensure errors were picked up - an early form of cockpit resource management. But even with a fourth crew member on board, the system failed - possibly because of Captain Key's incapacitation - possibly because he was still in command, the other crew members being unsighted regarding his actions as he was becoming more incapacitated, or possibly because each was busy with their own tasks. The time scale of this accident was so short that, whilst the AAIB report makes it plain that the situation could have been retrieved had the errors been picked up and rectified, the retraction of the droops and the switching off of the anti stall system made disaster inevitable as the aircraft entered a deep stall. Steps were then taken to fit extra devices to ensure premature droop retraction could not be made.

One point those who espouse closed blinds and windowless aircraft miss is that of safety and security. There is a very good reason that blinds cannot be closed for take off and landing. It is essential that in the event of an accident survivors can see out and rescue teams can see in. In these days of aviation terrorism closed blinds in flight do not aid visual inspection when aircraft go radio silent and chase aircraft are sent to identify and report (and this happens more often than the media and general public realise)

Usual over dramatisation by the Daily Wail. Aircraft have crosswind limits so approaches are made within those tolerances. In such circumstances the tower calls the wind regularly on approach so the crew can abort the landing if the tolerances are exceeded, as was the case in one of the landings. The problem comes with crosswind gusts and windshear. Landing at Heathrow on Thursday morning there was a 40 degree crosswind, 20-25 mph with 35 to 40 mph gusts. Very bumpy on the way down and a slight wing down landing. When viewed from the ground the aircraft would be seen to be crabbing but nothing exceptional. More interesting was the fact that we had to wait 65 minutes sitting on a 777 on the gate prior to take off. The crew apologised for the rocking of the aircraft which was abeam the wind, the captain pointing out that the aircraft at the time weighed 250 tonnes!

Grumpy? Don't think so.

Of course not, but most pax travelling Sydney to Singapore and on to Europe are on through plane flights. As for being aware of passenger movement, before retirement I earned part of my living working with airlines on airline security so am totally conscious of the statistics of pax movements. You seem to have missed the facts of my trip this week. The drive from home to Shannon is 75 miles on country roads. Then a 1 hour wait before boarding, followed by 1 hour sitting on the aircraft due to flow restrictions at LHR. What should have been a 60 minute flight was a 75 minute flight due to the hold at Woodley. In the almost 5 hours on the ground before boarding at LHR for Houston we had to transfer from T1 to T5. After boarding we had 65 minutes sitting on the ground awaiting a slot. Then the flight, US Customs clearance, a car pick up then a drive to my daughter's. It would have been harder with children but, being of grandfather age, I don't understand your comment re grandparents. As far as dealing with children is concerned, we regularly flew to the US, both east and west coast, with my daughter from her being 8 years old - from the early 1980s onwards - and the fact that in those days most blinds weren't closed didn't seem to bother her. In the last 3 years she has flown LHR - Rio return 3 times, one LHR- Rio one way and Rio - Houston one way - some of the trips on her own, others with her husband with a child between 6 months and 24 months. She has also done two Houston - LHR returns with the same child between 30 months and 36 months plus a second child between 6 months and 11 months. In terms of daytime flying she finds daylight doesn't make much difference until the child is around 12 months old. Once the children reach a year old she would prefer them to stay awake for most of the flight as she finds the more tired they are on arrival, the quicker they adjust to local time.

As a rider to my previous reply to this point, 55 years ago the DC7C, Lockheed Starliner and Bristol Britannia had all cracked the problem of non stop westbound trans Atlantic flights. In July 1958 TWA scheduled 60 flights each week from Europe to New York, of which 30 were Starliners, including seven nonstops a week from Paris, five from London, four from Frankfurt, two each from Madrid, Lisbon and Geneva, one from Zurich and one from Rome. Three 1649s a week flew the Polar route Europe to California, sometimes nonstop. At a maximum speed of 377 mph and an economic cruise of 290 mph these non stops were marathon journeys. No window blinds in those days and the curtains that were provided weren't that good against the sun. Add to that the vibration and noise and sleeping was a great deal harder.

Woodley was a bit of a shed. I once worked for Chris Tarrant's dad who was MD of Huntley Boorne and Stevens who took over the old factory which then passed to Lin-Can. HP certainly did plan to build both types side by side and stated so publicly. At the time it was seen as rather a volte face on the part of HP which had steadfastly stood by the Leonides version until it had no orders. Once the Dart engined version was flying, the Leonides was quietly dropped. With regard to the production, the shortage of orders and the staggered way the orders came in meant that many ancillary items (i.e. other than the major airframe component for which jigs did exist) were individually fashioned

Boeing once toyed with a blended wing-body, a sort of flying wing, to produce dramatically better aerodynamics and fuel efficiency. Passengers would have sat in a wide cabin, rather like a small amphitheater. But tests with a mock-up produced such a negative reaction that the company dropped the technology, except for military refueling aircraft.