Luvley stuff fellas. Those who saw my offering on the Hamble thread will know that it provided great entertainment while I recover from the worst flu virus to hit Cyprus ! Much better now & even better for the Viscount thread. All the BKS/Northeast staff was pure nostalgia. My sense of humour not being liked by the Hamble Selection Board, didn't change me because at the BKS Sponsorship pre-lim interviews I was asked what BKS stood for. I replied ; " British Kite Service". This lot liked me although One Selector wished he had a quid for everytime he got that response.
Two of us out of 500 applicants started at OATS as BKS Cadets in Feb 1971. Hardly passed GFT1 and we were working for Northeast. Earmarked for Viscounts at LBA. We were rather busy trying to stay on the course but my info was that BKS and Cambrian were owned by BAS which, in turn was wholly owned by BEA. After graduation, we went off to Derby for the Rolls course and then to Heston for the Smith's Flight System on Link Trainers (five days of it). Uniforms were pure BEA but the wings were NE rather than BEA. Cambrian Cadets went to AST Perth but got the same BEA training thereafter.
I flew the 806X. Heaven only knows how I passed the Cadet Selection because someone would have asked me what was the difference between a 800 and 806 (?) And what was the X supposed to mean ? My sense of humour still fails for a cheery response but I recall noticing that the doors were square rather than round. My first Viscount flight was in a MEA machine fro Tehran to Beirut . That one had round doors and a nice NZ Captain who gave me a pair of ME pilot wings after a FD visit. Fourteen years later, NE Captains were much harder on me but I survived 800 hours to go on to the NE Trident 1e at LHR now painted in BA livery.
Pure pleasure to have flown the 806X. As I said in the Hamble note, glory days indeed.