I doubt it was the war that stopped the MEA order…many airlines ordered Concorde and cancelled because of the general economics of the time.

Many of these airlines had ordered simply because they had to because others had and were more than happy not to have to buy it.

Some orders for types were cancelled because of financial problems with the airline like Capital with their order for DH Comet 4A and Britannias, others because the aircraft itself failed, like Pan Am’s order for DH Comet 3 and sometimes the order went ahead but the airline has been taken over or merged in the meantime like British Caledonian Airbus 320 (which got as far as test flying in BCAL) and BEA TriStars.
Others were ordered but never confirmed like the Cambrian Airways order for a single HP Dart Herald.

This is something that happens all the time, airlines order but by the time it come to confirm or if confirmed, take delivery, things have changed in the sometimes years since the original order and they no longer need the aircraft, perhaps can’t finance of even something else becomes better because to the airlines development.

Politics can also prevent an existing order going ahead.

Airlines are no different to anyone else in the fact that there is what they want, what they need and what they can afford and somewhere in the middle is reality. Things can change very much as they are trying to asess their requirement in 5-10 years time in many cases when it can be hard enough to see what’s going to happen next month.

Thanks

I do have some Vanguard plans scanned in in bits to use for a Flight Simulator model I can send to you if it helps at all for the details like undercarriage.

Garry

I’m 55 and most of those types I’ve never seen flying and some never even seen

Can I ask please where you got the vacform from

I’ve heard about it but not where it can be obtained

Thanks

I don’t myself class G-ARPI as a Heathrow incident, it had flown away from the airport.

One that is missing is Skyways Hermes G-ALDH, written off in an undercarriage collapse on landing LHR 8th March 1960

But all this is not a Heathrow thing. Most airports in the UK see a similar trend as aviation has got a lot safer. I think it mimics aviation safety in general in the UK at least.

Compare for example, the amount of crashes BEA and BOAC had with British Airways who have had only three write off incidents I can think of in their existance and only one of those was fatal.

Trident 3B G-AWZT in a mid air collision over Zagreb was the fatal

The other two were Trident 1E G-AVYD (technically still Northeast then) in a overrun on an aborted take off at Bilbao and the of course G-YMMM the Boeing 777 coming down short on 09L.

There was of course the high profile One-Eleven window blow out and emergency landing at Southampton with the captain hanging out of the window, but full blown crashes are less common now.

This despite the tremendous increase in air traffic over the early days.

I didn’t include the Boeing 737 of British Airtours at Manchester as that was a seperate airline, of G-APFK the KT Boeing 707 that csarshed landed on a training flight, but if you do it’s still impressive.

OK there have been numerous runway excursions, burst tyres and wheels ups etc., but such incidents although major news now…like the recent Blue Islands ATR at Jersey, would not have got more than a brief mention if at all in the past.

So if anything aviation looks a great deal safer than it used to be but is actually even safer than it appears due to the raised profiles of contemporary minor incident.

G-BOPO is flying in the UK and there are supposedly two in the US, two in Australia and two in storage in the UK.

G-BOPO is said to be a demonstrator, presumably to generate interest in new production.

A timeless livery:cool:

Thanks for those:)

When you see a 747 parked up at an airport not really geared up for it shows just how big the thing is.

Large airports with 747 scaled facilities veiwed at some distance spoils the effect