Originally Posted by
rog747
BUA (then BCAL) flew the VC-10 from LGW to South America via Madrid Lisbon, with fuel at Las Palmas (calls were on different days)
They served Rio, Buenos Aires Montevideo and Santiago
A third weekly frequency, which routed through Freetown to/from Buenos Aires, and permitted BUA to alter its South American route pattern.
As a result, one flight terminated in Brazil and end-to-end travelling times on the new Gatwick — Freetown — Buenos Aires — Santiago service reduced by over two hours compared with the previous routeing. BUA managed to do the route in 19 hours to SCL.
BUA also flew the VC-10 on flights LGW to Freetown Accra and Robertsfield, and to East and Central Africa from Gatwick to Entebbe (non-stop), Nairobi, Ndola, Lusaka and Salisbury
BUA's VC10s also had extended wingtips that were slightly bent downwards to reduce the aircraft's cruise drag and to help it overcome the instability encountered when entering a stall, as well as an intermediate, 14-degree flap setting to enable all-year round, nonstop flights from the then relatively short runway at Nairobi's hot-and-high Embakasi Airport to Gatwick with a full payload and reserves.
BUA were to order two stretched Super VC-10's but these were never built.
BUA also became the only airline in the world to operate BAC One-Elevens on an intercontinental, long-haul scheduled route, when it introduced the -200 series on its multi-stop West African service linking Gatwick with Lagos via Lisbon, Las Palmas, Bathurst, Freetown and Accra.
THANK YOU!!! Unbelievable! Entebbe! Freetown!!! Somehow I thought that was Liberia and thought, WHAT?! :-) Then I remembered it's Sierra-Leone. This is absolutely fantastic historical review!
19 hours Gatwic-Santiago!? THAT is quick. Even today with a direct flight, I think it's about 13-14 hours (at least FRA-SCL), so considering all the additional landing, refuelling, 19 hours really don't look too long.
What were the airports like in Africa and South America? I saw some VHS (and even 8-mm) footage from the 70s and it's really not impressive - usually a white-ish building in what looks like a very lonely desert. Did you have your own staff there to refuel, service and check the planes or could you rely on local mechanics for that? I know Aeroflot carried their own ground crews to some African airports.
AND I'll continue to exploit your memory, if you don't mind. :-) I watched a documentary about a London airport (don't remember which one or what the film was about; I think it was a series about "Britain in the 50s" or a similar name). It talked about a flight to Tokyo, and it described the route as going from London to Anchorage and then proceeding to Tokyo. Did you ever fly that route? I'm just thinking about the navigation part of such a flight. Even today it's often impossible to correctly navigate that close to the North Pole, and I wondered how it was done in the past.
Actually navigation back in the day is what REALLY interests me. GPS didn't exist. Was LORAN available to pilots? I know ships used it but not sure if it could be used by planes. Or was it inertial? Or astro? How the heck did you find your way in the middle of the Atlantic/Pacific/Africa?
And another thing is flying over the Soviet Union. I know there were ten "corridors" the USSR opened for European airlines, mostly Germany for signing the contract to supply pipes and trucks to build gas pipelines and railroads. Were Brits included in that deal? Have you ever flown (or do you know anything about flying) over the USSR? If you have, what was the experience like? Especially concerning fuel temps and radio communications.
Let me know when you've had enough. :-) Seriously.
Edit: Please don't feel obliged to reply quickly (or at all) if you're otherwise engaged. I'm quite alright with waiting. Don't want you to regret replying to me. :-)