Some random jottings, guys...
A twin-engine, stretched Super VC10 might employ the Trent 500s developed belatedly for the A340-600/500, which may not be too different in size and weight from that asymmetric RB211 installation on G-AXLR? I guess the thick wing-root and reduced wing-bending relief of rear-engine jets is less of a penalty on short-haul,
Dave?.
On our (BUA/BCAL) VC10 Type 1103s (Standard, combi, with super wing), which lacked the Super's 4 tonnes of fuel in the fin, the forward CG when the centre tank was full resulted in an inefficient TPI (THS) setting. Iinitially, it was nearly 2 deg nose-up trim, if memory serves. That exacerbated the high fuel flows of the thirsty Conways, mitigated only slightly by the Type 1103's ability to climb to at least FL330 after take-off at max weight.
Re speed, MMO was M0.886 indicated (M0.86 true), and that's how they flew them in the early days when fuel was cheap. After the fuel crisis of 1972/3, we reduced our normal speed from M0.86 indicated to M0.84 or less.
The Air Malawi VC10 had been the first of our 1103s (G-ASIW). It was also the last of them to go (1974). Air Malawi presumably chose it because, unlike the otherwise excellent B707-320 with underslung outboard engines, it could operate into Blantyre-Chileka's narrow (90 ft) runway, which was also fairly short. And its WAT performance out of aerodromes with long runways at high altitude in the region, like Lusaka and Nairobi, was superior to the relatively underpowered "Seven-oh". BHX/BLZ would certainly have been pushing it. What sort of load was it carrying,
aeromech3? The Type 1103 had a ceiling of FL430, but I guess in those days on that route FL410 would have been the final available cruise altitude. We never had to top up the hydraulics in flight...
As
chevvron says, the VC10 at RAE Bedford would have been another of our Type 1103s: G-ATDJ. (G-ASIX went to the Sultan of Oman, who kindly donated it to Brooklands Museum in the end, where it still resides and is well worth a cockpit visit.)
The One-Eleven-200 was a jet trailblazer on short-haul in 1965,
Gipsy Queen. Preceded the DC-9 and B737 into service by several years. Handled like a fighter in roll and - as others have pointed out - had nothing whatsoever to do with BEA! Had BUA (the launch customer) been allowed to operate out of LHR as well as LGW, it would have emptied BEA's ponderous, shuddering Vanguards in 1966 on the Glasgow and Edinburgh routes. Later, however, the Spey engines could not be uprated much for the stretched 500 series, which was underpowered and struggled against the DC-9 and (particularly) the B737 with their JT-8D turbofans in the charter market. We often had to resort to water injection, which made a difference of only one or two pax out of a hot Spanish runway.