At the time of BAF’s acquisition of the BA Viscounts they obviously wanted trained crews for them and, as BA were a bit awash with pilots at the time, did a deal with BA where BA Pilots were offered half pay stand-down to go to BAF and BAF would pay the other half.
I was interested so went to Southend for an interview with the Chief Pilot. His name is lost to me in the mists of time but I believe he was an ex navy man, John something or other. He said that as well as the Algeria contract, they had a contract for two Viscounts to go to New Zealand. I believe that one Viscount was even ferried part way there before the contract fell through for some reason. Someone perhaps knows more details of that. As my last Viscount flight was January 1982, this was probably 1981.
Anyway I didn’t go through with it and went to the Budgie instead.