Originally Posted by
Wander00
AAh, Britannia, and the heady days of the mid 60s when the RAF could send two Brits to the USA for a fortnight to take two Towers cadet entries to visit Washington, Colorado Springs and 3 days R&R in New York. The navigator of our aircraft signed his route reports variously as Henry the Navigator, Vasco da Gama and John Cabot. They even took a bunch of USAF cadets on an aerial tour of the Rockies for an hour or so. How times have changed. Now not even the PM can always get an RAF aircraft when she wants one.
I flew a Britannia in a VIP role with a dozen or so IDC graduates on a North America tour in 1973. We left Brize Norton on September 12th and returned on October 16th! The itinerary was Ottawa, Quebec, Resolute Bay, Yellowknife, Vancouver, Victoria, San Fransisco, Vandenberg, Colorado Springs, Norfolk, Washington, New York (JFK). The only snag we experienced during the whole trip was an invertor failure on the final JFK - BZN leg. Total flying time 49.30 hrs with a lot of time off!