They were also notable that the whole quartet stayed together at Aer Lingus from mid 1965 to early 1991, when they were retired. That's a very long service time and most unusual, they were never added to or sold off. I guess EI must have been quite satisfied with them.
They even got all sold to an operator in Nigeria and ran on there together to their various final ends.
That initial LANICA lease bridged until they got their own new aircraft delivered, and was likely organised by BAC themselves. It was the first One-Eleven to operate in Central America, where the type subsequently was sold, small numbers only, to many of the operators there, who seemed to maintain some common contacts and leasing the aircraft among themselves. Several later moved on to the larger -500 series, and apparently the BAC North American sales office (headed by one of their ex-test pilots) moved down from New York to Miami. Unlike the smaller aircraft, which had a very successful initial sale to US operators of the 1960s, in quite some quantity, the -500 model was never even offered for certification by the FAA.
Last edited by WHBM; 16th Sep 2018 at 17:00.