Vickers Viscount pilots, cabin crew and engineers.

[rog747]

I had a most wonderful time being Duty officer pax & Ops and Traffic Coordinator for BMA at LHR 1977-1985

(my first experiences of Viscounts was as a boy going to SEN on a Friday night with mum and dad to have gammon steak egg and chips in the airport restaurant and watch all the Channel Airways Viscounts in the 1960's loading up for PMI JER GRO RTM OST and more.


At BMA we had a large fleet of Viscount 814's and one 836
(that being G-BFZL one of two Viscounts that TAA ordered, but didn't take delivery of, were specified with the optional lounge aft of the rear door, which had accommodation for 4 passengers, instead of the baggage hold and complete with a small window on either side, and an extra window forward, we removed the lounge)

All of our VC8's carried 73Y pax and the seating was pretty comfy, fabulous views and we could serve hot breakfasts (or hot dinners on the night charters)
As for engine noise - it could be irritating if the prop sync was out.
Depends where you sat but it could be quieter down the back.

crew was 2 pilots and 2 cabin crew
a jump seat was available in the flight deck - always handy if we had BMA or BA staff on standby tickets commuting home up North after their duties.

Technically during my time the fleet behaved well - the aircraft that were more often tech with snags than the others were the ex Nora/LH fleet of 4.
there was never anything that was ever a regular tech issue - the engines rarely caused issues

BMA Viscount fleet in my time were:
G AZNA/NB/NC
G AZLP/LR/LS/LT (LT was rebuilt and re-reg'd G-BMAT after a nasty prang at LBA using the wings of BAPD)
these 7 were ex SAA

G AYOX
G BFZL the 836 series was youngest viscount flying for us and was built for TAA NTU
G BAPF/PG (we also had PD and PE) all ex Nora AS/LH

Re: the 7 South African Airways viscounts: Mike Bishop was in Israel 1972 when he noticed in Flight Magazine the advert for the viscounts. He then went down to S.Africa and was told the fleet was to be sold as a whole and not separately. He only had Board approval to buy 1 or 2 viscounts and not 7! Unabashed he decided to offer the same cash amount he had board approval, but for all 7. As we now know, the offer was accepted and the rest is history. He also got the spares and the Sim.
Those 7 a/c set up BMA for the big time

Re the 4 ex german viscounts. These were never as reliable or corrosion free as the SAA ones and they appear to have been less successful overall.
PD and PE were spares donors.
They all def went Tech more often!


our prime LHR Viscount routes then were to LPL MME LBA BHX EMA and the IOM
we did also go LHR to NQY and Strasbourg too but we gave those routes up just before I joined

From EMA and BHX the viscount flew to CDG DUB AMS FRA GLA and BRU plus JER and GCI (at weekends JER and GCI was super saturated!)
The (ex BCAL) LGW-BFS route was operated by both Viscount (and DC-9) but once we got the LHR-BFS licence in 1984 the LGW route was dropped.

the viscount even up to 1981 did regular IT summer holiday charters
LPL-PMI and BHX-MAH on night flights.
a 5 hour trundle through the night but great for staff travel - nip up on the last LHR-LPL of the day, stay onboard and pop down to Majorca for beers.

At LHR one could often see 4, 5 or even 6** Viscounts on the Terminal 1 alpha/bravo domestic pier especially on a summer Saturday or Sunday evening.
**As all the DC-9's and the other Viscounts were away at weekends off flying in and out of JER and GCI from the outstations.
One Friday evening 4 Viscounts went tech and all AOG at LHR, we lots of fun that night

we also did night weekend charters from LPL and MME to PMI & ALC or PSA & RMI but on the DC-9's.

in 1982 BMA were awarded the LHR to GLA and 1983 the EDI routes followed in 1984 by the BFS thus thrusting us head to head with BA to compete with their super shuttles.
The Viscount AFAICR did not ever get used on these routes (a 707 did sometimes get put on the GLA when either BA or BR went on strike)
edit -
my grey cells recalls maybe a Viscount subbed for a DC-9 LHR to EDI or GLA once - pax were not happy as we could not get the hot catering trolleys onboard - i think we put the hot meal containers in the loos.

We leased Viscounts to Cyprus AW

photos C of a pal and taken on G-BMAT LBA-LHR iirc

I was lucky to fly on the Viscount maybe a 100 times or more