WHBM

That first passenger jet service was a prototype Vickers Viking G-AJPH, fitted with Rolls-Royce Nene jets (and generally known as the "Nene Viking"), which started a series of London to Paris flights for BEA, with 24 passengers on 25 July 1948, in place of normal piston-powered Vikings. The Nene Viking was quite a substantial redesign from the normal Viking. It first flew four months earlier, having beaten the De Havilland Comet prototype by well over a year as being the first jet airliner to fly. The aircraft was loaned by Vickers, the manufacturer.

http://www.flightglobal.com/pdfarchi...0-%200401.html

http://www.aer.ita.br/~bmattos/mundo...iking-nene.htm

Vickers did the same thing two years later with the prototype Viscount G-AHRF, lent to BEA it started a twice-daily London to Paris operation as flight BE329 on 29 July 1950, with 14 passengers. After two weeks on the Paris run it was transferred to Edinburgh, making the world's first domestic turboprop flights.

https://www.facebook.com/VickersVisc...78552892160565

I'm not quite sure what would be thought nowadays if Boeing had given the prototype 787 to an airline just four months after its first flight and said "here, give it a shot on a couple of Seattle to Portland flights per day, and let us know how you get on".

jlemon

Ah, and perhaps the Vickers Viking could be thought of as the "world's first regional jet" long before RJ aircraft came into vogue. It certainly beat the Canadair CRJ by quite some time!

mr chub

Yes and much roomier!

WHBM

Too true !

http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?imgur...d=0CCQQMygAMAA

Note that's "Tourist Class", not First Class. No self-respecting airline in those days would have shown children in First Class.

Can you have a child on your knee with a book open, and model aircraft laid out in front of you, in a Canadair ?

The Nene Viking was only a prototype jet, the other 170 civilian Vikings built (so more than the contemporary Martin 2-0-2/4-0-4) were piston engine. Surprisingly, despite its significant differences, an independent airline, Eagle Airways (forerunner of British Eagle) bought the jet when Vickers were finished with it, and converted it to a piston engine one in their own shops. The main buyer of Vikings was BEA, but when in the mid-1950s they sold them off as the Viscounts came along they became an absolute mainstay of multiple small independent carriers (Eagle and others), principally in Britain but also in Germany, Netherlands, etc, on the first holiday flights down to the Mediterranean.

Bonus question

The Viking (piston, not jet) was little known in North America, but there was one US airport which saw them for the best part of 10 years in the 1940s-50s. Which airport, and what was the airline ?

Indelaware

POS-New York, BWIA. Also sometimes on POS-MIA.

WHBM

Yes, Miami was actually the place to see them, I don't believe New York was within BWIA's range until their Viscounts came along later. They operated to Nassau and Kingston, continuing from there along the island chain right down to Guyana. The first of their eight came in 1948, and the last left after the Viscounts came on line in 1958, so for Vikings they lasted quite a long time. They were all secondhand from BEA, where they had done just a couple of years, and they went on to various UK and colonial carriers afterwards.

One of them had an engine fall off near Homestead FL, presumably it fell into a swamp as it was never found afterwards.

The Viking was a civilian fuselage on the aeronautical parts of the Wellington WW2 bomber and maritime patrol aircraft, which Vickers had rolled out over 10,000 units of, and it was a bit dated. The older ones had fabric-covered wings and tail, like the Wellington, but there was a later all-metal modification, which BWIA did before they went out to the Caribbean.

jlemon

10. I'll guess that BA was primarily using the B767-300 between Heathrow and Paris CDG and the B737-200/300 between Gatwick and Paris CDG.

WHBM

Correct for Heathrow, the BA 767s in 1990 were new at the time, and although no longer scheduled on the Paris run, do occasionally appear on the route nowadays, as much for freight capacity if there is a heavy load to move as for passengers, when a rugby tournament in Paris or weather dislocation at Heathrow demands it. I think this is the only operation on the route where the actual same aircraft can appear as 25 years ago in 1990. After the 1994 Channel Tunnel opening the 767 disappeared from the route and smaller aircraft came along. The 10 x daily 767 operation in 1990 was quite some capacity.

Regarding Gatwick, BA was not even on the route at the time. They had taken over British Caledonian in 1988 who did this run, but it had gone by 1990 as loss-making. Two years later they merged another operator on the route, and thus were back, but I'm impinging on question 13 now.

BA always had (and still do) two distinct sub-fleets of 767, just like the L-1011 previously, one with long-haul F-C-Y seats, and the other with European Y seats, the ones at the front convertible to C in varying proportions dependent on the load. A few were changed over time, generally from short to long haul, only done at times of major overhaul, and of the remaining ones a good number have kept their original configuration, one sort or the other, throughout their lives.

Some years ago BA put the long haul 767s through a major overhaul with new cabins, but not the short-haul ones, which just were not touched and became distinctly down-at-heel. Eventually a major campaign right here on a thread on the BA board at Flyertalk, notably by regulars on the Heathrow to Moscow route, began listing all the longstanding defects, particularly with the lighting and entertainment systems, specifically aircraft-by-aircraft. G-BZHC got the nickname "The Disco" because of it's constantly flickering lights, and there were also safety equipment shortfalls covered. Eventually the thread came to the attention of the BA main board and there was a sudden descent on BA engineering management from above and it was sorted out. I heard it cost them a considerable amount, but it was needed, and several years later the aircraft are still in the fleet.

WHBM

Right, anyone want to have a shot at the WHOLE LOT of remaining questions, otherwise I'll stick the remaining answers up in a couple of days.

jlemon

I believe we also previously discussed the appearance of Boeing 767-200ER aircraft in British Airways livery some years ago with these airplanes being used to operate CLT-LGW and PIT-LGW transatlantic services. However, if memory serves me correctly, these 762s were not actually flown by BA. They were instead operated by USAir but branded at British Airways flights back when US and BA had a comprehensive marketing agreement in place. And, of course, the CLT-LGW route was inherited by USAir when Piedmont was acquired with PI purchasing new B767-201ER aircraft primarily for its one and only transatlantic route. As I've mentioned before, PI's first class service was very nice on its 767s on the domestic run between LAX and CLT.

WHBM

There were three 767s of USAir in BA livery in 1993-96, N652/4/5US. They were not ex-Piedmont aircraft but had been new to US after the merger, and then repainted as part of the joint arrangement. BA expanded into a number of these branding deals with other carriers across the world in the 1990s, almost all of which they have retrenched from since - the Comair domestic/regional flights in South Africa with BA-branded 737s continues as one of the few left, while every day I can still see Dornier 328 prop aircraft of Sun-Air Denmark turn up at London City in full BA livery, it being a type that BA themselves never operated.

I recall the initial Piedmont advertising on billboards across London when they started the service in 1987, it was presumably done by a USA agency as an extension of a campaign in the USA, and didn't really seem to communicate the message over here (a recent one by Delta seems to have done the same thing). Once the route passed on through a USAir-branded operation to the BA one, two of the 767s were required for the daily flights from London Gatwick to Philadelphia and to Charlotte. The aircraft retained their USA registrations, crews were all USAir, the cabin crew, presumably a select subset with special training, were issued with BA uniforms (but were given away by their accents !), the pilots retained their own uniforms. Given the three aircraft but only two daily flights, did the aircraft in BA livery ever get used on US domestic flights ?

If you've never flown BA, one of the pilots almost always comes and stands by the forward door on disembarkation and says goodbye to all the passengers as they leave. I wonder if the USAir pilots did the same.

** I'll just add that the RAF Red Arrows display group of 9 aircraft have just roared across our house here literally as I type the above, it's the 70th anniversary of the end of WW2 in Europe and there are plenty of events in London. Unfortunately the wonderful old airworthy Avro Lancaster bomber that was going to fly over had an engine fire a few days ago and is probably out of action for the summer. Yes, Rolls-Royce still support those engines, done in a corner of the plant where they put together engines for the 787 and A350.

jlemon

Ah, I wondered about that....and while the Piedmont aircraft were B767-201ERs, I believe the USAir aircraft were B767-2B7ER models.

And perhaps at least one of these British Airways branded 762s did show up on a domestic route operated by USAir as there is a photo of a B767-2B7ER in the BA livery at LAX on airliners.net.

In addition, the following flight was listed in the Dec. 1, 1992 USAir timetable, although it appears this service was being operated before the BA-US marketing agreement took effect...

US 1160: LAX 8:35a - 4:03p CLT 6:10p - 6:55a LGW
Op: Daily
Equip: 767

jlemon

Deleted (due to operator error)......

jlemon

9. Well, I really want to say it was the Trident on the London-Paris route in 1980.

However, I will guess the principal type was the L-1011 TriStar during this "pre-Chunnel" time....

Seat 2A

Awright - just fer variety's sake I'll go wit da Trident! Even though the L10 makes more sense - what the heck - let's get some diversity here!