Today I Learned

MY ABNORMAL OF ALL ABNORMALS PILOTING CONCORDE DFW - IAD -JFK

Thanks to my good friend Shaun English for reminding me of this adventure!

It was May 17th, 1980, and Braniff Concorde Flight 54, operating an Air France Concorde, had just made a scheduled departure of 9:30 from DFW International Airport with a destination of Washington Dulles Airport. There were always many observers for our departures and arrivals as Concorde was so unique to Texas. It wasn’t long after Concorde rotated, then at 35 feet above the runway began the first segment climb, that hushed concerns could be heard throughout the various groups of those who were watching. Something was wrong. Well, it was a Saturday morning, and I was at home in Duncanville, TX, finishing my coffee and “looking forward to the honeydew list” that Lindy had prepared for me. If I hurried, I could catch qualifying for the Formula One, the IndyCar, and the NASCAR races. I was literally saved by the bell from Lindy’s “honeydew list” when the Bell Telephone rang (pardon the pun). I can’t remember which of the kids beat me to the phone, but the one turned to me and said, “It’s Braniff, Daddy!” I answered the phone and Captain Dale States, Vice-President of Flight Operations said, “John.” I was surprised he would be calling me, let alone on a Saturday morning. My curiosity quickly vanished when he said, “54 has had a problem. I need you to meet Jerry (White) and Bill (Dugan) in Operations right away.” In a monotone, l bluntly said, “I’m on the way!” I had no idea what to expect. Obviously, Captain States did not have the time to brief me on the phone. Do I wear my uniform? Do I pack a bag? Once I gathered my wits, I knew that it was prudent to error on the safe side, so now the race was on to get out the door. Once I got into the car, it was about 50 minutes to arrive at our Operations facility. My mind was reeling, “What is going on? What has happened?” I reached Operations and met up with Jerry and Bill. The Lead Maintenance Supervisor appeared and greeted us with a smile, which was the first reassurance that the worst had not occurred. The Lead briefed us that the crew of Flight 54, after takeoff, could not retract the landing gear. After unsuccessful attempts using the abnormal checklist to retract the gear, the crew returned to DFW for an uneventful landing and taxied back to the gate. We were advised that Maintenance had worked on the problem for over 2 hours and discovered that the problem was the nose gear hydraulic actuator, and it could not be repaired. Braniff did not carry a spare, so with no repair, the three of us assumed that Concorde was grounded until a spare nose gear hydraulic actuator could be flown in. About that time, Captain States arrived in Operations. He said he called us because what we were doing required a Supervisory Crew. Jerry, Bill, and I were in the Training Department, all of us Concorde Check Airmen and FAA Concorde Aircrew Program Designees. Then Captain States broke the news that the three of us were going to fly the broken Concorde to JFK with the gear extended. Concorde had never been flown on a gear down ferry flight before, and has never been flown on a gear extended ferry flight since. Well, we glanced at each other, I don’t remember if it was in shock or amazement. We had never heard of a gear down ferry, let alone how are we going to execute this mission. As if Captain States had read our minds, he produced a Braniff Airways Gear Down Ferry Manual, which none of us had ever seen, let alone knew that it even existed. He handed it to Jerry, and as if it was a hot potato, Jerry immediately handed it to Bill, and I guess it was still hot because Bill immediately handed it to me. I think their parting words were, “Let us know what you figure out!” As I recall, I think they went for coffee to calm their nerves! Well, I started turning pages, your typical spaghetti charts with all the performance requirements, weight, fuel, altitude, airspeed and all the other limitations and restrictions you would expect. I had a good handle on the manual when Jerry and Bill returned, so we went through each page as I briefed them. I had planned on a fuel stop in Dulles since the Manual said we were fuel/distance limited to reach JFK. When we got to the fuel burn page, “brilliantly” l said, take a look at this. If we extend the spaghetti lines beyond the graph, we can add enough more fuel to make JFK. Like I said, “BRILLIANT!” So we called in our fuel load, and accepted our gear down ferry release. As soon as we completed our briefing, I hightailed it to Concorde to proceed with my 1 1/2 hour exterior and interior preflight inspection. We were now Braniff Concorde Flight 563F, designating a Ferry Flight. After all the necessary preparations for a flight that had never been attempted before, we were off the gate at 3:30 PM, on our way to JFK. The unfamiliar “call out” just after rotation was, “Positive Rate,” instead of “Positive Rate, Gear Up.” We could tell a huge difference in our initial performance, even with the afterburners. The noise level on the flight deck was significantly louder as well. Our cruising altitude was lower as well as our Mach number. Not far into the flight, red faced, I said, “Hey guys. The extra pounds of fuel that we added, for every pound of fuel we added, we burned that pound of fuel to reach our cruising altitude. We have to stop at Dulles for fuel.” (I told you I was brilliant!) The moral is, don’t second guess your performance spaghetti charts. Our flight to Dulles took 2 hours and 50 minutes. We landed at 7:20 PM ET. It was as if we had driven a Maserati through a school zone! Well, our refueling in IAD was uneventful. (I got it right this time!) We left the gate at 8:30 PM. We were comfortable now that we had the first leg under our belts. It was only a one hour flight for us in route to JFK, so it was a little busier. Once we arrived at the gate, we completed our post flight checklists and duties and then turned Concorde over to the Air France Station Manager to deal with the inoperative nose gear hydraulic actuator. We were gathering up our bags when the galley door opened. It was catering to offload the carts. He ask where we were going, and for the second time today, we had to admit we had no idea. He asked us if we were in any hurry. We told him we guessed not. Then he told us Concorde had been catered for 100 passengers and he was going to just throw everything out, including food, bottles of wine and champagne, everything. He said to us, “knock yourselves out, eat all you can, and take with you all you can carry. I’ll be back after you’ve gone and unload the carts.” We hadn’t eaten, and we were in disbelief. Jerry, Bill, and I took turns playing Flight Attendant, and because Braniff served only the finest cuisine and libations on our old buddy Concorde, we had the feast of our lives. John