Newsgroups: sci.aeronautics.airliners Path: news From: rdd@cactus.org (Robert Dorsett) Subject: Aha! The three-man 767 rears its ugly head... X-Submission-Date: Sun, 20 Dec 92 05:36:50 CST Message-ID: Approved: kls@royko.Chicago.COM X-Submission-Message-Id: <9212201136.AA13911@cactus.org> Sender: kls@royko.Chicago.COM Date: 20 Dec 92 16:08:08 CST I knew I wasn't going mad... In a recent post, I commented on a three-man 767. Karl hadn't heard of it, which surprised me, so I went looking for it--and couldn't find it--which surprised me even more. I finally ran across this blurb. I have no recollection of a picture of one of these critters, though. Can someone clear up this matter? FI, 3/20/82, p. 685: "So far, most of the "live" flight-test experience has been with a three- pilot-configured flightdeck on the first four 767s. [...] All 757s, and the fifth and many subsequent 767s will have a two-pilot-configured cockpit. In the two-man flightdeck, the early 767's conventional bank of engine instruments on the center panel is replaced by the two CRT screens. These are the display element of the engine-indicating/crew-alerting system (EICAS), which replaces normal engine instruments and continually scans the aircraft systems for abnormalities, relaying any findings." I interpret that as meaning the three-man ships had electromechanical in- struments, which means there had to be a real, live, flight engineer. I am certain three of the four were retrofitted to two-man configuration, but am almost certain the first one lingers on, somewhere. Memory suggests it's Boeing's 767 testbed. The maddening thing is, I read an article within the last two or three years, which went into all this in great detail, but I can't remember where it was published... This article seemed to indicate that the customer (UAL, I THINK) which initially wanted three-man ships saw the two-man configuration, fell in love with it, and abandoned all plans for three-man operation. R.