A Fishy Tail from Intra

Flying the Brittan Norman Trislander

Climb on board by the front starboard door and settle into the left seat, the cockpit is an ergonomic nightmare, identical switches randomly placed all over the place. You would expect the flight instruments to be behind the control column and in front of the pilot, no this is the Trislander, the basic six instruments are three inches offset to the left, you get used to it but it takes some time.

Engine starting was neat, and if sitting behind the pilot you had to pay attention, as it seemed just a blur of the left hand over a row of identical switches. After pushing in the green mixture levers at the top of the flight panel, unusual as they are nowhere near the other engine controls, and priming all three engines together by the throttle levers, no priming pumps, and after a thumbs up to the ground crew outside it start all three in about 15 seconds, no starting each in turn followed by checks just all three as quickly as possible.

Generators on then start taxing, the nose wheel is steerable, after a fashion, as it is steerable from the rudder pedals for a few degrees then became castering, all good in theory but on all the Trislanders this was incredibly stiff and no matter how hard you pushed nothing moved. Eventually, you got the knack, and you would always see Trislander pilots thinking ahead and parking with the nose wheel pointed in the way they wanted to go when taxing away.  

Take off is straight forward and only needs a short runway, however, the noise both inside and out is high. You may have thought the wings provided the lift, however, there is a theory apparently provided by BN:

How the Trislander flies is a question that has puzzled aerodynamicists and pilots for many years, the theory has it that actually its noise which causes the Trislander to fly. The vibration set up by the engines, and amplified by the airframe, in turn, causes the air molecules above the wing to oscillate at an atomic frequency, reducing their density and creating lift. This can be demonstrated by the sudden closure of the throttles, which causes the aircraft to rapidly descend. Theory of flight according to BN is, the lift is proportional to noise, rather than speed, explaining amongst other things the aircraft's remarkable take-off performance. To summarise throttles forward more noise more lift climb, throttles back less noise less lift descend.

Take off and climb performance when empty is reasonable but when heavy demands attention. Centre engine failure is hard to identify, monitoring climb performance and keeping an eye on the rearview mirror (1960 Triumph car part) will help. Port or starboard failure is far easier to spot, however, whichever engine it is vital to maintain the correct airspeed 80kts, if you became distracted and allowed the aircraft to slow below 80kts there was no way to stop the aircraft turning, it demands high concentration and discipline. Altitude is critical as at max weight you can only expect a two engine ceiling of 1750 ft. So identify then feather the engine otherwise you’re not going anywhere.

The three 260 hp Lycoming O-540 engines had carburettors, and many pilots developed the technique of applying carb heat on all three engines together. This resulted in many cut knuckles at first but did reduce the out of sync engine noise upsetting the passengers.

Engines were leaned at any altitude (BN flight manual instruction) and coupled with a constant need to sync the engines kept pilots very busy. Syncing the three Trislander engines was an art, one which I don’t think any pilot really mastered, but nothing is more satisfying than the three engines purring away in sync, even if only for a few minutes. Leaning the engines of course would produce out of sync engines, so do it first, and at night Trislander pilots have the joy of leaning the rear engine by the exhaust colour as seen in the rearview mirror.

Bring the aircraft onto downwind at cruise speed and slow as you come onto finals, selecting flap gave a high nose attitude so there’s an excuse to fly a “spitfire” curving approach. Flare for landing and hold off gave a smooth, if you were lucky, landing.  The challenging approach was an ILS to minima, as the pilot knew he had 18 eyes peering over his shoulder watching the instruments and looking for the runway. More than one had after a go around from minima, the passenger behind him tap his shoulder and say, I saw the lights why did you go around!

I heard over the years many clichés said about the Trislander, the last bastion of true aviation, bush flying with runways, the yellow peril,  however alas the Channel Islands have seen and heard the last Trislander.

For me, I look back at a great aircraft, a joy to fly, the single pilot operation was demanding but slick and an aircraft which even today, I would like to think I could jump in and fly.