The French did the first commercial auto lands...before the Trident .. and the VC10 got cat 2 approval over a year before the Trident as well.
And weeing on another myth...the demise of the VC10 was because of forward thinking of Africans after they realised the potential of attracting the American tourists (and breaking the old British Empire monopoly) by extending their runways thus ruling the iron Duck too expensive...
But it continued in commercial service much longer than it should have done because of the attraction of the comfort provided...
And of course the RAF retired the ship last year...twenty odd years IIRC after the last gripper was scrapped in this part of the world.