Originally Posted by
ATNotts
rog747,
Apologies for the thread drift but I always understood the BKS Trident 1Es were originally part of a 5 unit order from Channel Airways, who eventually took just two, one of which, G-AVYE eventually wound up operating from BHX to GLA and CDG as well as some weekend IT work and was the only 1E flown by BEA.
This is so. Sqn Ldr Jack Jones at Channel got into a financial pickle with Hawker Siddeley over his Trident order, they just took two, which is all he could get finance for. One more went to Air Ceylon, and the other two to BKS. After these were rebadged as Northeast they were joined by their two compatriot Channel aircraft after the latter shut down (AVYE did operate at first for BEA). Northeast had one written off at Bilbao in 1975, the remaining three were merged into BA shortly after when the Northeast brand was shut down. Like quite a number of Tridents of other types they only got 10 or 12 years use overall out of them - many of the initial BEA Viscount fleet lasted for double or treble this.