Flying the four-engined Greyhound

Hal Stoen, 2000

Years ago I flew for a small commuter airline. We used what might be called an abortion of an airplane- the de Havilland Heron. The Heron was a 4-engined affair originally made in Great Britain, powered by Gipsy engines. The two that our little airline owned had been converted to Lycoming powerplants....I don't recall the horsepower.

The Heron made for a nice plane for the purpose though. The flying public wasn't too keen on flying with "little commuter airlines" so the four engines hanging out there on the wings
reassured them. The cabin was high enough to allow a person to stand up. Inside, seating was for 17 passengers, with a single row of seats on either side of the isle, and large windows. Baggage was stored in an aft compartment with an additional smaller area in the nose.

The front office was very narrow. Ingress (as those NASA boys would say) for the crew required a lot of physical gymnastics as we struggled to climb into our chairs without kicking the knobs off of the radios.

There was a little bit of a "ground stance" problem with the Heron. We found this out early in the game on our first passenger flight. At the time there were two passengers in the aft part of the cabin, and two were on the steps boarding. This was too much aft weight for the old gal, so she gently rolled back and settled on the tail skid with her nose pointing up at the sun.

This was not a passenger friendly maneuver.

After that incident we had a tail brace made up. It was the duty of the copilot to make certain that the brace was installed prior to any passengers entering or leaving the aircraft. Even with passengers aboard it was necessary to carry sandbags in the nose compartment. We had 25 pound bags of the stuff at every station and added these as necessary, depending on the passenger count.

Lastly, the Heron was a "pneumatic airplane". Gear, flaps and brakes were all operated by pressurized air. There was a compressor on one of the engines that kept this whole thing charged. As we taxied around on the ground, each time we used the brakes you could hear the air being released. Damn thing sounded like a Greyhound bus. Under the copilot's chair was a "flapper valve" that released any excess air pressure from the system. Every time it went off it sounded like the copilot had eaten a bad breakfast.

Those were the days....

Hal Stoen

click to return to the index