Eagle Air Iceland 720-047B ex-Air Malta

[Tony Madge - HJG]

Cross over livery

[aerofoto - HJG Admin]

That's "A NICE CATCH" .... and it's nice to see these traditional HJG types making appearances again .... after the past couple of years concentration on B727's, DC9's, and more recently the L1011's too .... as much s I've enjoyed working on all of these projects

Mark C
AKL/NZ

[Dan K. Hansen]

Another Masterpiece from Dr. Madge!

[tristar]

Mar 25, 2011 17:11:39 GMT Tony Madge - HJG said:

Cross over livery

Hi Tony.

Good old TF-VLB.

I have a story to tell of that old bird.

It was not ex Air Malta, just leased to them for the summer of '78 if I remember correctly. Yep, found my log.

OK, back to the story.

On a cold wet day, March the 23rd 1978 is the date in my log, I was at hog row spotting.
I am in one of the hotel car parks overlooking 28 Right.
Back in the days before they did their best to stop you seeing the planes.

Its now afternoon. Old TF-VLB had been in earlier in the day.
In basic Air Malta scheme but no titles or logo as the lease had not started yet.
It was operating for Air Lingus this day.

Que very heavy rain shower. Rain stops. Old VLB is on finals and asks the tower if the runway is wet.

The replay was the runway is wet, but the breaking action is good.

VLB comes in with a typical heavy prop nose down attitude.
All the time I'm watching this through my "bins".

Nose wheel hits the runway and bounces, then for a second time and on the third attempt to land on the nose gear only, the gear disappears up wards, and as as I found out later, into the cockpit and injuring the flight crew.

I grab my camera, which is showing 35 taken out of 36 and leg it across the road to get closer to the runway.
Light is poor, and I only have a 100 ASA print film but I managed to get the following shots through the fence and all the obstacles in the way.
These are from the original faded prints.

I managed to get 38 out of the 36 print film. I only had a 200mm lens as well, so they are a bit distant.



Fire service starting to arrive along with the ambulances.



Ran down further and got a bit closer.



As close as I could get and its now getting crowded around the stricken 720.

The pilot and co-pilot had leg injuries. VLB was repaired and put back in service.



Taken a few years later, again at hog row.

And the morel of this story is to remember to flare BEFORE touchdown.

Paul

[Dan K. Hansen]

Thank you very much for this story that gives more life into our aircraft .... and once again, thanks to Tony for making both livery version...

[Tony Madge - HJG]

Great story many thanks for the pictures

[Herman]

Hello Paul;

Now that is quite some story. One nose wheel first touchdown is plenty.
Now on doing it the third time, that nosewheel strutt should have gone right up the pilots a.. ;D ;D ;D

Herman

[tristar]

Jun 29, 2011 2:52:57 GMT Herman said:

Hello Paul;

Now that is quite some story. One nose wheel first touchdown is plenty.
Now on doing it the third time, that nosewheel strutt should have gone right up the pilots a.. ;D ;D ;D

Herman

Hi Herman.

Yep, not be recommended!!

If you look at the pictures it could have been allot worse.

You can just see the turn off a bit further up on the runway.
The 720 has veered left, but just remained on the runway. A bit further on and it would have ended up on the saturated green stuff

This would have been a nightmare to remove without doing major damage to the airframe.

I remember in the hot summer of 76, A JAL 747 taxied onto the grass in front of the Queens building.
The ground was baked hard, but it still took them a day or two to remove it due to how far it had sunk in.

Somewhere in the loft I have the 1977 UK schedule book.
The photo on the cover was an aerial of LHR, and it was obviously taken to show the position of the 747, which was clearly visible on the grass.
And they just happened to use it as it is a good photo of LHR.

Paul