With the release of the press release from British Airways as related in the two Cosford threads (1, and 2) the future of the BA Collection at Cosford has now been decided, or so it seems. The Viscount and BAC 1-11 will move to East Fortune as a whole, while the 707, Trident 1C and VC10 will be reduced to a forward fuselage only with the VC10 probably moving to Brooklands and the other two following the Viscount and BAC 1-11 to East Fortune’s Museum of Flight. Ant Harrington already posted a thread about the imminent demise of the Trident, so I figured that I might as well do something similar here for the VC10.
The development of the VC10 resulted in two major variants, the Standard and Super VC10 with several sub-variants in those families. For the Standard the first version was the type 1101 which was delivered to BOAC. The last of these was G-ARVM. In later variants the Standard VC10 grew a new wing with different wing fences and an increase in wing chord and therefore wing surface, and for the RAF the type got the more powerful engines and fin fuel tank from the Super version. Many of these changes were too late for incorporation in the 1101 version, and because of this the economics of this type were never very good, even when compared to other Standard VC10s.
G-ARVM flew for years as part of BOAC’s Standard fleet, until in 1974 the merger of BEA and BOAC into BA introduced some changes, which resulted in the removal of the Standard VC10 from the active fleet. This was not the end of G-ARVM’s career though. She had been the favourite training aircraft of the fleet and after the other VC10s had been stood down she remained in this role, and also acted as a standby aircraft for the Super VC10 fleet, thus becoming one of the few, if not the only, Standard VC10(s) to ever wear full BA colours. After five more years of active flying she was retired in 1979, with her final destination being Cosford where she was preserved..
With G-ARVM now being reduced to a forward fuselage only, the only other type 1101 is in Hermeskeil, Germany as part of the private collection there. This aircraft (G-ARVF) has been converted to an executive layout for the United Arab Emirates and is preserved in this layout. The Standard VC10 at Brooklands is a type 1103 with the newer wing and main deck cargo door that was ordered by BUA. This aircraft is also an executive conversion, this time for the Sultan of Oman. The only airliner configured VC10 will now be G-ASGC at Duxford, one of the Super VC10s that flew for BOAC and BA. I’m sure that in the future one of the RAF VC10s will be preserved as well (probably at Cosford?), but since these are no longer civil airliners but serve a very different purpose it will not replace G-ARVM.
I guess that there is not much we can do to change the fate of this aircraft. With the airliners being evicted from Cosford it is a matter of money and available space and it appears that no better options were available. A VC10 (or a Trident or 707 for that matter) is also not something you can easily transport on any lorry so the decision to preserve only a small part may also be related to transportation issues and costs. I for one am happy that at least a part of the aircraft is being preserved, although given the fact that this is the last airliner configured Standard VC10 and with the history of the airframe it is sad that it will only be the forward fuselage. If the other option would be to scrap it, obviously saving a section is always preferable.
What we can do is use this thread to collect as many photos and memories of this aircraft as possible. I will not be able to visit Cosford soon but perhaps someone else can go there and take photos while the aircraft is still complete. I’ll bet though that many readers will have photos of this aircraft lying around, so go on and post them here. I’ll start with these three:
1. At London Heathrow in BOAC colours in 1969
2. A very impressive flypast at White Waltham in 1977
3. At RAF Museum Cosford in 2003.
By: Arabella-Cox - 30th April 2010 at 10:56
Rafflesnh………..
Welcome to the Forum……… Great to see the shots of RVM at NBI, thks for sharing them.
Have sent you an e-mail………
Planemike
By: Halcyon days - 29th April 2010 at 20:24
I had been working in ops and crewing for Court line-when I was offerred a job with BOAC as cabin crew.
Court line were struggling even then and I decided it would be a good chance to see the world at someone elses expense-and do some serious travelling (read spotting!!) around the world before I settled down and got married etc.
I was over the moon to be allocated on one of the very last VC10/707 courses-as most new crew were going on to the 747.
We were rostered to fly on the Standard and Super VC.10s/ the 707-436 and 336-plus the cargo 707s too.
I kept a regular log of my flights and have looked up RVM and noted that I only did the one trip in it (they were already phasing the Standards out at that time).
My log shows me as operating Heathrow/Nairobi on 17th Nov 1973-Captains name was Hawke-and according to my log-we only had 34 pax.
I also logged trips on RVC/RVE/RVF/RVG/RVH/RVI/RVJ and RVK.
Last recorded standard VC.10 trip was on 24/07/74 in RVE operating
Dubai/Bahrain/Kuwait/Heathrow-pax loads were just 7,11 and 24 (in economy).
No wonder they didnt make a profit with those pax numbers.!!
Though I say it myself-the cabin service was second to none-in those pre-B.A days.
By: Arabella-Cox - 29th April 2010 at 20:01
a friend of mine experienced the same BOAC, experience of sitting on taxiway at Behrein while the steward brewed fresh tea for the captain. He failed his wunderful BOAC training because of his comments(suggesting 3 motors be shut down) and was forced top work for Cathay.
By: Rafflesnh - 29th April 2010 at 18:47
Nairobi to Dar-es-Salaam on G-ARVM
Thought you might like a few more images of G-ARVM I have just come across, whilst archiving family slides to digital media. Not the best quality, but they are well over 40 years old! I have no exact date, but believe them to be somewhere between 1965 -1967.
They were taken by my late father who was a frequent business flyer within East Africa, and he took these expressly for me, as I was already an avid fan of the ’10, especially in BOAC colours. On this occasion, he was taking the ’10 from Nairobi Embakasi to Dar-es-Salaam. The last photo was taken as VM was on final approach to DAR, and the harbour and town can be seen below.
Although only around 13 years of age at the time these were taken, I ended up working for BOAC in Sales at Victoria Air Terminal, my first job on leaving school in 1972. Around 1973/4, I was reunited with VM when I was lucky enough to get a jump seat position on a training flight doing circuits and bumps at Stanstead from LHR. I’ll never forget eating sandwiches and sipping hot coffee with the crew during a rest break half way through the exercises whilst VM sat stationary on the runway with all 4 engines running on idle for around 10-15 minutes, as though we were on some exotic picnic!
By: pogno - 10th April 2006 at 15:07
I have fond memories of G-ARVM as during my Apprenticeship at BA I went along on several training flights, sitting in the jump seat, great fun helped by the huge flight deck, with its large windows, especially compared with the 707. The power was tremendous especially when the a/c was light during training which could cause the trainee great difficulty during the transition from rocket like climb to noise abatement throttle back, I and the others lolling around the cabin, not strapped in would all float up from the floor.
I have a confession to make as at the end of RVM’s in service life I instigated the removal of numerous flight control surfaces and their replacement with units that were suffering delamination of the metal skin, tap testing with a coin found the failed area’s and the super VC10’s had common parts and several years of service left. By that time I had a planning role for the workshop that repaired the offending parts but it always was in the back of my mind that I had sent RVM to a museum for posterity with sub standard components.
Which brings me to comment on the keeping of any aircraft out of doors in the UK, eventually corrosion takes hold and they get scrapped, our damp climate can be held back by painting the exterior but internally the rot sets in, so carefull decisions need to be made about what gets a roof over it or not. Should we be housing very large aircraft from another county while ours rot away?
By: cestrian - 7th April 2006 at 09:56
And here is my shot of Victor Mike in his hybrid scheme pounding the Prestwick circuit in 1976.
By: Short finals - 7th April 2006 at 00:04
I have fond memories of “Speedbird Victor Mike” circuit-bashing intensively at Shannon and sometimes Dublin in the late 1970s. For quite a while it wore the hybrid colours consisting of BOAC cheatline and BA tail colours. Sorry that it is finally being “chopped” to a much-reduced state.
By: PaulR - 6th April 2006 at 12:00
Hmmmm… I’m heading over to my mother’s for lunch, must ‘borrow’ her shots of QEII and hubbie alighting from a Super VC10 in Khartoum and scan them.
Sweet memories of VC10 flights, thanks for the nostalgia, I loved the aircraft and was always disappointed if we were lumbered with a Sudan Airways Comet!
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April 6, 2006 at 9:14 am