My favourite planes have come from British Manufacturers. I loved the elegant VC10, the noisy Trident, the long-serving 1-11, the 748 budgie and its successor the ATP and the unique beauty that is the 146/Avro RJ.
I am so sad that civil aircraft production has ceased in the UK. Our designs were among the best and certainly the most beautiful.
Its always struck me as rather odd the way these British aircraft have been treated by the airlines who chose to operate them, as second-class fleet members. They were all retired way before their time with the exception of the 1-11. The VC10 and Trident in particular were took out of service way too early. Why were we not more proud of these gorgeous aircraft!
By: mongu - 19th September 2004 at 22:22
Only 20 or 25% I think. A minority interest.
By: Ren Frew - 19th September 2004 at 21:10
Britain produce the wings for Airbus
There are still British interests in commercial aviation manufacturing in a number of ways, even if there’s very little in the way of indigenous civil aircraft to view. Just how much of Airbus is owned by BAE Systems… quite a large chunk is it not ?
By: Papa Lima - 19th September 2004 at 16:48
KLM Constellation
It works! Thanks for the link, tenthije!
By: Grey Area - 19th September 2004 at 16:10
Ooooh! A KLM Viscount!
Nice…… :D:D:D
By: tenthije - 19th September 2004 at 15:58
boys, boys, do behave! 😉
photo from http://beeldbank.nationaalarchief.nl/. be sure to check this site out, it has Dutch news photos from 1880 to 1990! Lots of old plane photos, though finding what you want may take some time considering the site is Dutch. Using some Dutch keywords may be required, but just entering Boeing, Fokker, Schiphol, etc will bring up nice old results too!
By: mongu - 19th September 2004 at 14:27
I wouldn’t be too quick to blame the airlines. BAE basicallly does not like airliners and did not want to be involved with them. They pretty much gave up after the Viscount and VC-10:
748: never taken seriously by BAE (or else the ATP would have been better).
ATP: ridiculously poor effort.
J31: Good start, but too uncompetitive compared to the B1900D.
J41: Good start, but no incentive to use them as no J31 commonality.
1-11: Good start, but not taken seriously. The rival DC-9 evolved to the MD-80/90 and thus survived.
146: A joke.
To be fair to BAE, they never wanted to make airliners in the first place, and inherited it all from various mergers/takeovers.
Given that the French/Italians (ATR), Canadians (Dash, CRJ) and Brazilians (EMB) can be successful in the 30+ seat market, there is no intrinsic reason that the UK could not have achieved the same success. But no effort was ever really made.
British aircraft are as good on the world scene as British cars are (ie. not very!)
By: Grey Area - 19th September 2004 at 14:24
OK, let’s forget Cyprus and Air Charter Service because they weren’t “1st hand operators” even though one of the Cyprus machines was delivered directly to them. I have to say that this is a rather artifical distinction, rather like your insistence on only including fixed-wing machines in the “An24 Equivalent” thread. No matter.
However, since the PLAAF and China United Airlines were “1st hand operators” of Chinese Tridents, the number of operators still stands at 10.
Run out of fingers yet? :diablo:
By: Bmused55 - 19th September 2004 at 13:41
Hmmm…… let me see now:
BEA
Channel A/W
Iraqi A/W
Air Ceylon
Kuwait A/W
Cyprus A/W
CAAC
Air Charter Service (Zaire)
PIAI make that 9 operators, 10 if you include Northeast (which you really should as they were a distinct company from BEA).
Just how many fingers have you got on each hand, Sandy? 😮
Ok, I was talking more about 1st hand operators.
Not the likes of Cyprus AW who bought them second hand for example.
By: steve rowell - 19th September 2004 at 09:49
The highest number was the Vickers Viscount with 445 built with 67 VC10’s and 117 Tridents, Trident 1C, 24 built Trident 1E, 15 built Trident 2E, 50 built Trident 3B, 28 built
By: kev35 - 19th September 2004 at 09:21
Grey Area
Yes, ten operators, but still only 117 aircraft sold…..
Just out of interest has any British Manufacturer of airliners ever produced more than 500 aircraft?
Regards,
kev35
By: beistrich - 19th September 2004 at 09:11
I am so sad that civil aircraft production has ceased in the UK.
Britain produce the wings for Airbus
By: Grey Area - 19th September 2004 at 08:56
The fact that so few were built and that your can literally count the number of operators on one hand shows that the Trident was just not up to matching the competition.
Hmmm…… let me see now:
BEA
Channel A/W
Iraqi A/W
Air Ceylon
Kuwait A/W
Cyprus A/W
CAAC
Air Charter Service (Zaire)
PIA
I make that 9 operators, 10 if you include Northeast (which you really should as they were a distinct company from BEA).
Just how many fingers have you got on each hand, Sandy? 😮
By: bmi-star - 19th September 2004 at 08:28
VC-10’s the one for me. My uncle got to test it back in the 60’s and he said it was a pleasure to fly. Ol;y time i’ve seen it, is in a museum, Duxford and Cosford, and at Aldergove, when it took off from there. Beautiful!
By: steve rowell - 19th September 2004 at 05:01
[QUOTE=kev35]Because they were inefficient. And money rules in business. Airlines are not run with the sole purpose of allowing the enthusiast to gawp at the prettiest aircraft are they?
Exactly right, if these aircraft were as efficient and technically advanced as they were esthetically pleasing, they’d have been snapped up in greater numbers by the world’s airlines
By: Bmused55 - 19th September 2004 at 01:20
Oh it was a very capable aircraft and very advanced for its time with the Cat 3 autoland capability. It did lack the required range and field performance though but it was a fast baby.
I loved the 3B and the booster engine. Unique!
The tridents buiggest failure was that it was too customised for BEA’s needs. As the pricinple launch carrier, BEA had a lot of say in the tridents development. Consequently the Tridant became more or less tuined to what BEA needed at the time and thus was less favourable for the entire aviation business.
The fact that so few were built and that your can literally count the number of operators on one hand shows that the Trident was just not up to matching the competition.
By: kev35 - 19th September 2004 at 00:27
Uniqueness, unfortunately, does not guarantee success. In fact, it often mitigates against it. I also liked the Trident but can also appreciate it was not the world beater it was hoped to be.
Regards,
kev35
By: danairboy - 19th September 2004 at 00:23
Oh it was a very capable aircraft and very advanced for its time with the Cat 3 autoland capability. It did lack the required range and field performance though but it was a fast baby.
I loved the 3B and the booster engine. Unique!
By: kev35 - 19th September 2004 at 00:20
Okay, I concede the point that the Trident was in service with BA until the mid 80’s but a record of 117 built as against 1700 727’s and God knows how many 737’s shows that the aircraft did not match the standards required by airlines.
How many fewer Comets built than 707’s?
How many 1-11’s compared to DC-9’s/MD 80 series?
How many VC-10’s?
F-27’s compared to Heralds?
That is why the British Aircraft Manufacturing Industry failed.
Regards,
kev35
By: danairboy - 19th September 2004 at 00:08
Listen Mr Dictatorial, the Trident passed into BAs hands and was operated by them for far longer than BEA!
By: kev35 - 19th September 2004 at 00:06
Because they were inefficient. And money rules in business. Airlines are not run with the sole purpose of allowing the enthusiast to gawp at the prettiest aircraft are they?
It wasn’t BA, it was BEA. I’m sure someone more knowledeable like Sandy, Matthew Murray or one of the aircrew on here can give us definitive information on why British Aviation manufacturers have lost out to those of other Countries.
And just out of interest it may interest you to know that the British Airways collection at Cosford cares for a Trident, 707, 1-11, Viscount and Comet and they might be responsible for the Britannia too.
Regards,
kev35
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September 18, 2004 at 11:43 pm