What a super thread!
I grew up with the BMA Viscounts, from aged 6, seeing them with feathered props in the circuit at Castle Don.,passing overhead our family home, taking my first ever flight on one to Jersey in 1968, climbing all over ones on check in the hangar, later boarding passengers on them during a ramp summer job for BMA, then landing for the first time ever at LHR, in autumn dusk, seated on the jump seat of 'LT.
Just when I thought I'd left them behind in going away to Leeds University, they started operating into LBA in 1980, passing over my student house close to the 32 OM. My housemates used to mock me for breaking off from a meal to pay respect to The Company Flag as they whined over.
The point of this slightly self-indulgent reflection is that I'd presumed that they would be around forever. They are gone, with no flyable example preserved. Perhaps a warning to us. Aircraft can play a large background role in our lives. One day we might feel the same way about the Dash 7-Q400.
The way the engines bounced on the nacelles was vaguely amusing, but probably disconcerting to nervous flyers. Common with other mature R-R Darts, milky-coffee-coloured fluid used to stream from the engine casings. Put a half-empty plastic cup on a tray table in the forward seats, and it would "walk" around the table due to vibration.
Those windows:- The late Kim Lerner, Teesside-based BMA cabin crew, said that she felt she might fall out the large windows when serving the window seat on a row of three. She poured coffee whilst looking 4 miles almost straight down at passing greenery.
The sound:- there was a unique airframe resonance harmonic when the first engine started, almost like a groan of pleasure. As a young BMA ticket agent at Teesside, I used to make sure all my post-dispatch tasks were done before going onto the ramp to hear the Sunday BD341 or Jersey start up.
I hear that there is one somewhere in Africa that might just be recoverable if the right wealthy enthusiast was so inclined. Any takers? :-)
Last edited by Midland 331; 18th Feb 2018 at 18:22.