I have a copy of Taffy Powell's book 'Ferryman' in which he says they started with 178 cars in 1948 and went to 2,700 cars and 10,000 pax in 1949; 5,000 cars and 24,000 pax in 1950; 13,000 cars and 30,000 pax in 1951. At one point Silver City had 24 captains with an average of 6,000 hours, and one, Jerry Rosser, had crossed the Channel 5,500 times by 1954.
It was usual for each pilot to make 12 crossings a day (six round trips) and fly 100 hours a month in high summer. In June 1951 they managed 42 round trips a day, which they thought a maximum for a fleet of six aircraft. They had no night flying facilities although the first flight in from France took off in the dark, usually carrying a cargo of cheese.
They came in at 2,000 feet and went out at 1,000. Because of the nature of the operation, engine life was 900 hours. They moved from Lympne to Lydd in 1953. At Lydd, they operated down to 1000yds vis and 300 feet. After years of creeping about the area, says Powell, the pilots could pretty much find Lydd with their eyes shut and the Decca 424 ground radar was used to maintain separation when talking the inbound down through the outbound level. 'Stacking was unknown to us,' he writes.
In 1954 Silver City had routes Lydd - Le Tooks, Gatwick - Le Tooks, Lympne - Calais, Lympne - Ostend, and Southampton - Cherbourg and carried 39,041 cars and 96,625 pax. In one day in July, Silver City aircraft crossed the Channel 222 times.
They had 15 Bristol Freighters by 1955 and even tried a helicopter operation with an S51 but were soon cured of that. By 1958 they'd carried 215,000 cars and 719,000 pax on 125,000 flights, but the ro-ro ferries killed them off; they closed down on October 31st 1970.