Originally Posted by
SpringHeeledJack
Not wanting to divert too much from the 1-11 theme, may I ask what was it like to fly on the Ambassador ? How did it compare to the Viscount and Vanguard and similar Douglas variants ?
I never flew in one, but saw one or two start up at Liverpool. Dan-Air used to run a flight with them from Liverpool to Amsterdam, out morning, back evening, not always daily, so it had often stood for a day or two. Sleeve-valve radial engines, less oil-tight than conventional, which exacerbated the usual radial issue of oil seeping past the piston rings into the lower cylinders as they cooled down. ATC said that when an Ambassador fired up it was LVPs across the airfield for the next 5 minutes, as the oil burned off. Goodness knows what the pax inside thought ! Once idling, the engines had a most old-fashioned put-put sound.