VC10 Ramblings
I was privileged to have flown on all four BUA then BCAL VC10's and for some of the flights actually get paid for it. The fleet was: G-ARTA, G-ASIW, GASIX, and GATDJ.
GARTA unfortunately had to be scrapped after a landing incident at Gatwick and whilst at one stage I had serious bits of 'hardware' in my Garage, time and various moves mean all I have left is a wooden plaque with a VC10 silhouette made from a piece of GARTA (The apprentices made a lot of these).
Then there were three. Eventually they were all sold off, DJ to RAE, SIW (?) to Air Malawi and the other to the Sultan.
Loved by Passengers, Pilots, Cabin Crew, Engineers and Ground Staff, hated by Accountants. Beautifully built to highest standards. If you needed to be flying over the Andes where CAT could ruin your day, or take-off from Airfields hot and high this was the Aeroplane for you. Unfortunately most Airlines didn't need to do these things on a regular basis.
BUA and BCAL pioneered some unusual concepts on the VC10
Radio Teletype for transmitting Passenger Messages (Technical Success, but attracted no real interest). A Bar with Bar Stools (I don't think this got out of ground demonstration).
All the Aircraft were convertible relatively quickly, from Passenger to Freight and back so Africargo would arrive and by evening would be on the South American.
My most exciting flight rotation was a jump seat trip to/from
Fürstenfeldbruck at the end of the Munich Olympics. NO Noise abatement and if memory serves (probably not) immediate clearance to FL42. Brilliant
My worst was going out for a beer one evening and ending up night stopping Palma, diverting inbound to Manchester and having to hitch a lift on a BCAL 707 back to LGW arriving just as the shift I was supposed to be working ended! Whilst the high altitude view of England in Dense fog, almost made up for the concern my career in aviation was about to end (for some reason I wasn't sacked).
I once held a small conference in the under floor avionics bay (3 people) and of course there are several stories concerning the cockpit crew toilet (I don't believe three let alone four could squeeze into that space), but it appears one of these stories was the basis of a Dr Who Episode where the crew are all in their seats one minute and have disappeared the next.
In Air Malawi Service the Crew Loo was used out of LGW purely for Flight Deck Crew Baggage (the Aircraft also had upper deck baggage areas as the hold were always voluming out with cargo and bags).
In fact my last experience of VC10 Operations was awaiting the arrival of the Air Malawi VC10 on a remote stand a LGW with emergency services standing by as the Aircraft had suffered damage on take-off from Blantyre-Chileka Airport and the crew decided to press-on to LGW, but by the time the Aircraft was 30 Minutes from Gatwick the situation appeared to have become very serious. On the flyby the Ram Air Generator was deployed and I was mentally running through my actions and responsibilities it the worst happened. Then I thought it's VC10 it will be OK and of course it was.
Regrets - Never flew on a super, never flew to the states on a VC10 (If I remember the up market charter firm cancelled the BCAL contract rather than have a 707 operate it :-)
The VC10 was as many in this thread to a specification which immediately limited it's worldwide commercial appeal so it must be judged a commerical might have been, but if deemed a failure then what a glorious failure.
Sorry if I have bored you all.