BAC 1-11 Holiday Jets

[rog747]

LOL Loving these trips down memory lane -

The BAC 1-11 proved very popular in the late 1960's and 70's with Holiday airlines mainly in the UK and Germany,
and the type was ordered new by - British Eagle/ Autair/ Court Line/ Channel AW/ Laker AW/ BUA/ BMA/ Caledonian AW/ Bavaria Flug/ Germanair/ Paninternational/ and Phoenix.

Cambrian AW joined the list in 1970 when they obtained 4 of the Autair -400 fleet.
Regulars on IT flights from CWL BRS LPL LGW and LHR replacing the Viscounts that were previously used.

BMA definitely bought the 3 1-11 523's new in 1970 to use on the IT holiday market but got their fingers burnt, so they leased 2 to Court Line,
and then sold/swapped all 3 for HP Heralds from Brazil by 1974.
These 1-11's were the first new planes that BMA ever got, but BMA had cancelled an earlier order with BAC for the -300 series.


1-11 Trivia -

Dan Air picked up their first 1-11's for Lunn Poly's urgent need to fly their holiday charters and opened a new DA LTN base in summer 1969 after British Eagle's collapse.
DA wanted LHR but were not allowed access to fly charters.
By 1971 DA had 5 of the 300 and 400 type were in the fleet based at LTN, including G-AZED (ex D-ANDY of Bavaria Flug, a write off that had crashed/RTO at Gerona in July 1970)

Horizon Holidays was pivotal in the BUA order for 8 new 109 seat 1-11 501's starting from 1969 to operate their IT's from LGW and MAN.

Caledonian AW ordered three + one option 109 seat Series 509EWs and were delivered in 1969 and the fourth in 1970.
The aircraft operated inclusive tour flights on behalf of Blue-Sky and Global Holidays from Gatwick, Glasgow and Manchester.

In 1972 now known as BCAL, placed their sole and only order for a new 1-11 530 G-AZMF

Channel AW had their own in house Tour Co. Mediterranean Holidays, plus large IT contracts with Lyons and Leroy Tours, flying at first G-AVGP. Their next order for 3 new 1-11 408's were to seat 99 pax with an extra pair of over wing exits added by BAC. Only 2 were delivered, the 3rd G-AWGG went on lease to Bavaria Flug.
In the summer of 1969 one of them, G-AWKJ was leased to BUA fully painted in BUA livery.
In Feb 1972 Channel Airways ceased trading.

Aeroflug was a new airline in Germany in the late 60's.
This company was due to operate three Series 402APs from a Düsseldorf base. Although D- registrations were allocated for the aircraft, the company was a non starter.
One each of these went to TAE Spain and Bavaria Flug

Orientair Ltd to be based at Berlin-Tempelhof and obtained two Series 401AKs from American Airlines for operation on inclusive tour flights from Berlin to the Mediterranean. The first aircraft G-AZMI was fully painted in Orientair colours and ready for delivery at Hurn 1972 but the company failed to start operations and the aircraft NTU. The second aircraft is not known.

BAC 1-11 twilight

Eventually the need for more capacity and range for Tour Company's to get to the more distant holiday airports of LPA/TCI and RHO/HER etc. was to prove the 1-11's Achilles heel, as even CFU and PMO was a struggle on a hot day with a full load.
As soon as the 737ADV appeared later in 1971 then many charter airlines switched to buy these, or fly 727-100's (Condor, Transair Sweden, Dan Air, and Hapag Lloyd)

Caledonian AW first tied up with Global and Blue Sky Holidays (GUS great universal stores)
BUA (then to become BCAL) had the big Horizon, 4S and Wings IT contracts - but when Court Line bought Horizon and 4S in 1973 they cancelled the summer 1974 BCAL flying contracts at a huge cost to Court Line in penalties.
Court Line then flew for Horizon from LGW, seeing the (slightly downmarket) Clarkson's C changed on the tails to just a large C.

Laker AW flew for Lord Bros and Arrowsmith (MAN and LPL)

I guess BIA was the last bastion in the UK for 1-11 IT flying was until 1991, with 8 in their main fleet.
BIA leased in extra 1-11's from Tarom and BAC during busy summers.

Air Manchester flying for in house Sure Ways Travel was set up in 1982 to fly 3 1-11 300/400.
3 1-11's were painted G-SURE G-BMAN G-BKAU but only 1 flew that 1982 season, and the airline folded.

I have not included much on EAAC, nor BAF/British World here, save to say that both flew IT's - EAAC for Palmair Bath Travel and BAF/BW for the Travel Club Upminster to Spain, Portugal Jersey and Corsica.

BEA then BA, did night, and weekend IT charters for many years with their 1-11 510's mainly from MAN, BHX and NCL.

AeroAmerica was another TXL Berlin based operator flying German Holidaymakers, and they flew a sole 1-11 401 in 1976.

TAE Trabajos Aereos y Enlaces ordered 2 1-11 402 in 1969, the only 1-11 ever to be registered in Spain.
The 2nd one was NTU.

When Court Line folded most of their 1-11 500 fleet went to Dan Air and Monarch.

Not many incidents thankfully on the holiday 1-11's -

I mentioned the Bavaria Flug crash of D-ANDY at GRO in 1970 which sustained substantial damage in a runway over run accident following a rejected take-off at Gerona Airport.
When the PIC gave instructions for take-off power the co-pilot did not do so correctly. The captain noticed that the airplane was not accelerating as expected and called for full power, but the co-pilot reduced power entirely. The Captain then decided to discontinue the take-off.
Maximum wheel bakes and reverse thrust were applied but the aircraft overran the end of the runway onto a level grassy area, but then ran into an embankment some 6 m high, breaking at aircraft's back. No one was injured out of the 85 persons on board.

Paninternational sadly lost an almost new 1-11 515 in 1971 after take off from HAM to AGP because the de-min water tanks had been filled with Kerosene causing both engines to fail soon after take off. The Crew almost managed to land intact on the nearby Autobahn but the tail hit a flyover. Due to the high sink rate the jet touched down hard.
The left hand main gear collapsed. The crew applied brakes to keep the airplane on the road. It then struck concrete pillars of an overpass, causing the flight deck to separate. The fuselage skidded and broke up, bursting into flames.
The crew was forced to land on the road earlier than they had hoped for and planned. Their intention was to glide over the overpass and land on a longer clear stretch of road beyond the overpass. This turned out to be impossible because during the glide the crew were confronted by electrical power lines in their flight path, with the aircraft refusing to climb, thus forcing the crew to touchdown early and consequently not being able to avoid the overpass pillars.
However, the majority of the 121 passengers and crew survived but 22 were killed including the Captain.
The female first officer of the flight survived the accident. She later died in a Cessna Citation accident on May 31, 1987.

BCAL's 1-11 501 G-AWYS in July 1972 rejected take off at Kerkyra Airport, and overran at low speed into the famous lagoon there. I passenger died during recovery.
A Horizon Holidays charter flight to LGW. The aircraft was temporarily repaired in Corfu by BCAL Engineers, and flown back to the UK.

A Court Line 1-11 was taking off at LTN in 1974 bound for MUC and struck at high speed with it's left wing a light aircraft that had entered the runway, a Piper Aztec killing it's Pilot.
The One-Eleven was being handled by the First Officer from the right hand seat, with the Commander PNF.
During the first part of the take-off run, the Commander was checking the instrument readings, and in consequence did not look out until the aircraft had reached approximately 100 knots. At that moment both pilots in the One-Eleven saw the Aztec entering the runway from the left.
When it became apparent that the Aztec was not going to stop, the Commander of the One-Eleven took over control and fully opened both throttles.
He then steered the aircraft as far as he could to the right and at the same time attempted to lift the port wing over the Aztec but struck the cabin of the aircraft.
Immediately the impact was felt the Commander of the One-Eleven abandoned the take-off and advised the Tower. By use of full reverse thrust and maximum braking the aircraft was brought to a stop in 750 metres. The left wing of the One-Eleven was severely damaged, resulting in a large release of fuel. Nobody aboard the aircraft was hurt and there was no fire.
The Commander then ordered the aircraft to be evacuated because of the risk of fire due to the leakage of fuel from the port wing. The evacuation was delayed when the cabin staff had difficulty in opening the two forward exits in order to deploy the escape slides. Eventually, after using considerable force, the Pilot himself was able to open both doors and the evacuation proceeded normally without injury to passengers or crew.