Quite.
And let us not forget that Vickers BAC tried desperately to upgrade the VC10 but met a BOAC brick wall. The SVC10 Super 200 was ready to go- seating 212 pax, with tip and leading edge root fillet tanks added, bigger cabin doors and true LHR - LAX capability.
Then BOAC asked for it to be made smalelr, and it was a 200s eater, adn then smaller still - all for one airline's (BOAC) needs- thus losing any hope of selling to world wide. Which is also what BEA did to the Trident by insisting it was made smaller with weaker engines - thus handing the world market to the 727.
The Super Super VC10 212 had massive commerical appeal adn I have seen the paper work that rpvies that Pan Am adn toerhs looked at it. It had massive payload/range capacity and could have competed/ exceeded the stretched DC-8s and later 707s - except of course for the Conway's thirst.
And Vickers also came up with not just teh swing nose cargo VC!0 proposal, but also a nose -loading VC10 cargo freighter with a raised cockpit upper lobe fuselage- a picture of which is in the book, 'VC10' by Cole- published by The Crowood Press adn with a B Trubshaw forward.
As Trubshaw says, we Brits faield to develope teh VC10.
Most people blame BOAC - whatever the paradox of that airline's superb VC10 marketing campaign..
Ex RAF VC10 reg'd as G-ALXR flew around with an RB211 on tis port side for months as trial -to test the RB 211. Suitably re-engined with x 2 RB 211s, the VC10 could have been the first big twin!
And the thing was as Chris says, over engineered - but that is why it never suffered an airframe related crash -unlike the 707s - remember the Dan- Air cargo 707 and a failed tailplane spar crack...to cite one example.
The VC10 is also the only T tailed airliner never to have suffered a deep stall and subsequent loss. This is becasue the very large, very powerful
tailplane is high and swept back -placed well aft from the wing wake and thus less subject to the T tail dipping into the stalled main wing wake as it is on the Trident or 1-11 for example.
Such was the excellence of Vickers design work - which Fokker copied for the F28/F100 - which has also never deep stalled into a loss.
All this lack of development was such a waste- as with the hovercraft, the Whittle work, the Rover car company, and so much else we failed to develop or market. All at a time when the French were selling Caravelles by teh bucket load to the Americans...
Oh and on the original thread, Trubshaw did the RAF VC10 tanker conversions test flying using XV 141 I think, and once accidently allegedly exceeded the velocity /height envelope -not his fault -. The VC10 went fast- smoothy and serenely you understand.