Transair Viscount

[Fishtailed]

These are scans of a memento of a flight in a Viscount my brother experienced as a national service conscript in the army in 1958. Was Transair a commercial airline or just contractors for ferrying service personnel about. It appears that they just flew to Libya or Gibraltar, so why the mother and baby room? :confused:
http://i49.photobucket.com/albums/f280/fishtailed/scan0001-5.jpg

http://i49.photobucket.com/albums/f280/fishtailed/scan0003-5.jpg

http://i49.photobucket.com/albums/f280/fishtailed/scan0002-5.jpg

http://i49.photobucket.com/albums/f280/fishtailed/scan0004-5.jpg

http://i49.photobucket.com/albums/f280/fishtailed/scan0005-4.jpg

[MReyn24050]

Transair Ltd were originally based at Croydon and operated a comprehensive range of services which included newspaper and mail deliveries, inclusive tours, passenger and freight charters and a regular passenger scheduled service to Jersey. When based at Croydon they operated a fleet of DC3 Dakota aircraft and at Gatwick they operated 10 DC3 and 3 Viscount aircraft. I believe they moved to Gatwick in circa 1958. Viscount c/n 248, a V.804 G-AOXU and was the first Gatwick based Viscount. In July 1960 Transair merged Airwork and Hunting-Clan to form British United Airways (BUA).

[norwich]

Transair were the first private operator of the 800 series viscount in UK.
For the best info on every viscount, visit the supurb site @ vickersviscount.net

http://www.vickersviscount.net

[MReyn24050]

This article has some details regarding Transair using the Viscount for Air Trooping.
http://www.flightglobal.com/pdfarchive/search.aspx?search=Transair+Ltd&SearchSubmit=Search

[WHBM]

Was Transair a commercial airline or just contractors for ferrying service personnel about.
Both actually. In the 1950s there was not a lot of holiday charter market, and BEA/BOAC had almost all the worthwhile scheduled rotes, which was government policy, but there was a large air trooping requirement which a number of operators got good work out of.

It was an interesting clash of aproaches between government departments, the civil aviation bureaucrats wanting everything done throught the nationalised airlines, who they could control and direct, while the Ministry of Defence (and The Treasury) wanted air trooping at the cheapest rate. Sometimes the independents quoted half what BEA/BOAC wanted.

[johnatownes]

In 1953 I worked for Transair in Croydon and occasionally at Gatwick, in the BeeHive terminal (which still exists today). I was at Croydon in 1953 when the first DC-3s arrived in RAF camouflage for conversion to civilian use. We were still using Avro Anson at that time. I only flew in an Transair Anson once G-AIXV in July '53, from Croydon to Gatwick with Capt. Mailer. Later I made quite a few trips in DC-3s to Gatwick, Jersey and Guernsey. In G-AMYJ, MZG, MVL & MZF. Pilots were Captains H. Butler, C. Coates, Bebb & J. Rechka. While doing my National Service Malta with the RAF in 1956, I happened to be at Luqa airport when G-AMZH landed. This aircraft was painted in Transair colours but without the titles. It was owned by Aristotal Niachos, the Greek shipping magnate, and operated under contract by Transair from Croydon. They had engine trouble and were stuck there for a few days. As I knew the whole crew from my days at Croydon, I made contact. The Captain was Derek Fowler and he suggested I ride back with them to Croydon for some UK leave. I jumped at the chance as I was getting pretty island happy on Malta. We flew to Nice on June 3rd, 1956 and then straight on to Croydon. My next Transair happenings were in 1958 when I was working for Flying Tiger Line at LHR. Transair had a contract to fly their Viscounts from LHR to Paris, Orly for Air France. I was a roving operations agent for Tigers and had to go Casablanca most weekends to handle USAF MATS Super Constellation cargo charter flights. On 4 occasions the flight to Orly was Viscount G-AOXU. Flown Captains, Rechka, Webster, and C Coates twice. On one occasion Captain Coates invited me to the cockpit and took great pride in showing what a wonderfull aircraft the 800 series was. Good days. Was I lucky or what?

[PaulButler]

I ran accross this thread while researching the flying history of my late Grandfather, Captain Harry Butler. He joined Transair in 1947 and flew Viscounts with them and latter BUA, along with Ansons and DC3s. There is some great information here and it was nice to see his name mentioned in johnatownes posting. Would love to hear from you, or anyone else who knew or worked with my Grandfather during his flying days.