Quote from gruntie:
"btw the VC10 they have there is the aircraft that featured in the film "Born Free": Virginia McKenna and Bill Travers were filmed descending to the tarmac at Nairobi following their leave in the UK."
That would have been about 1966. Many will remember her in those
BUA days as G-ASIX, the second of three 1103s for the airline, and delivered in 1965. About 6 years later, by which time BUA had become BCAL, she was nearly lost in a jet-upset near Mendoza, in the lee of the Andes, en-route from Ezeiza to Santiago. It was suggested that a B707 might not have survived such turbulence. That may be so, but the "bullet", on which the tailplane is mounted, required extensive repair, as did the wing torsion box.
In 1974, after the fuel crisis, BCAL sold its VC10s, and she went to the Sultan of Oman as his personal transport. Many years later, he kindly donated her to Brooklands Museum.
If you haven't already visited a VC10 cockpit, give yourself a treat. Definitely the best 3-crew cockpit (4-crew, if you include the Nav's station) of its era.