Airspeed/D.H. Ambassador. [Archive]

The SSK

15th Sep 2009, 19:54

Not DH, just Airspeed.

When I started spotting at Newcastle in the early 1960s, the BKS machines (four of them) were the mainstay of the airport's scheduled operation, with three (?) daily LHR services, plus the odd Belfast, Dublin, Dusseldorf, Rotterdam and Ostend. (Dusseldorf, Rotterdam and Ostend were the continental destinations 'of choice' for quite a few UK independent operators)

They were 55 seaters and didn't have a sparkling take-off/climb out performance from NCL's (then) 5700ft runway.

From time to time Dan-Air would schedule 'Lizzies' on Isle of Man rotations, with or without stop in Carlisle (Newcastle-Carlisle one way 18 shillings - 90p) and there would be a very occasional visit from an Autair example - by far the best looking of the three colour schemes.

Not very evident but had a rear skid with a couple of little wheels, saw one settle (very gently) on its tail while bags were being loaded in the aft hold.

If i remember correctly from a front-end visit on a Dan-Air example at Prestwick, the flight deck was 'downstairs' (by a couple of steps) from the passenger cabin.

Not a particularly lovely or iconic aircraft, I'm afraid, best remembered for two fatal accidents. Neverless I do have a lithograph of one in BEA colours on my wall - just for old times' sake.

dhavillandpilot

16th Sep 2009, 05:15

My father use to fly them in Australia with butler air transport. he always loved them - called them a pilots aircraft. Probably because he then went on to the CV240's which had a single engine climb rate of a snail.

I have in my lounge room a Travel Agents Model of the aircraft in Butler's colours -very large and shold really be in an aviation museum.

Bigt

16th Sep 2009, 08:07

Did I read somewhere that Dan Air used to move avons around in one when a comet went U/S?

Im guessing the rear pax door could be opened with a rear baggage door to ge the donk in

Groundloop

16th Sep 2009, 08:23

Well remembered for copious amounts of smoke in the exhaust - all of the time, not just at start up. You could follow the smoke all the way down the taxiway to the runway.

Photos: Airspeed AS-57 Ambassador 2 Aircraft Pictures | Airliners.net (http://www.airliners.net/photo/Dan-Air-London/Airspeed-AS-57-Ambassador/1540752/L/)

Not a particularly lovely

I would actually disagree with that. Had a charm all of its own.

Brian Abraham

16th Sep 2009, 10:21

Have to agree with Groundloop. Always thought the aircraft, along with the Connie, epitomised the greatest of grace and beauty.

Jig Peter

16th Sep 2009, 15:36

I'm another who found the Ambassador/Elizabethan a very elegant aeroplane ... deH was said to have taken over because of either lack of production space at Airspeed's or money to continue the programme - whatever... It was said at the time that people at Hatfield said it was the only metal aircraft designed in wood ...
(but then they would say that ???).
:E

Tankertrashnav

16th Sep 2009, 19:14

The well-known novelist Nevil Shute (N.S.Norway) started Airspeed in the 1930's and his autobiography Slide Rule has some great stuff on how aircraft were designed and built in those days. The earliest Airspeed aircraft were frankly ugly, the Ferry looked like a chicken shed with wings, but things quickly improved, and the Ensign and its variant the Envoy, which was used by the Royal Flight, were very pretty little aeroplanes.

I must admt I was under the impression that by the time the Ambassador came out the company had been absorbed by De Havilland, but I may be wrong. Either way I thought it was a handsome aeroplane, a sort of little sister to the glorious Connie. I regret never having seen one, especially in light of The SSK's post, as I was a schoolboy in Carlisle in the early 60s and could easily have cycled out to the airport had I known. 18/- single to Newcastle and hitch-hike back would have been do-able as well - just!

The SSK

16th Sep 2009, 21:13

Just to set the record straight, I'm the world's biggest fan of the Constellation. In my eyes, just because the Lizzie had a triple tail and curves instead of straight lines didn't make her beautiful.

Or it might have been a case of familiarity and contempt. When you sit around an airfield for hours waiting for something to happen, and the runway lights go on, and a dot appears in the distance, and it turns out to be just another BKS Lizzie, you go off the darn things.

Tankertrashnav: The NCL-CAX service I'm thinking of was Summer 69. Having left home, my employer posted me back to NCL for ten weeks. Every weekend (it was a Saturday service) I promised myself I would make the trip to Carl!isle and every time I put it off for another week. Until I ran out of weeks ... One of my lasting regrets.

Level bust

17th Sep 2009, 00:59

My Father worked for Autair when they had 3 and I managed to get a couple of flights. I remember it seemed very smooth although flew nose high.

My first trip was from Luton to Copenhagen and back in 1968. We came back empty and I spent most of the return flight sitting in the Captains seat being shown how to fly it by the F/O. My first flight deck experience at the age of 11! Doesn't happen now unfortunately.

My other trip was returning from Luxembourg the following year after a family arranged wine tasting trip to Germany. The Chief Pilot (Capt Dibley) was flying. After we landed it was taken into the hangar where they found cracks in the main u/c legs and the engineers were surprised it didn't collapse. Unfortunately GALZZ never flew again.

tilleydog1

17th Sep 2009, 10:17

TTN,

There is an Ambassador, probably the last surviving example, being restored at Duxford. I believe she is ex Dan Air.

tornadoken

17th Sep 2009, 11:21

JP/TTN: elegant, handsome: it's all in the pedigree.
DH's Chief Designer A.E.Hagg (lovely, though wooden, D.H.91 Albatross) fell out with Geo.DH and left in March,1937 to do Heston Type 5 Racer. In 1942 he returned to the DH fold: at Portsmouth Airspeed (1934) Ltd had been formed with Swan Hunter equity and a licence for DC-2, later DC-3. DH bought in 27 May,1940 for production capacity at its new MAP Agency Factory at Christchurch - it would deliver 422 Mosquitoes. Sir Geo.DH joined the Second Brabazon Committee, May,1943 and was, ah, helpful in securing in February,1944 design funding for Brabazon Type IV (to be) Comet I, Type VB D.H.104 Dove, and Type II Airspeed AS.57. Hagg, Chief Designer, set to, aiming to leap-frog (to be) Lockheed L-75 Saturn and Convair CV110 with a Mark II, with MetroVick Mamba or DH(Halford) H.3 propellor-turbines. Work was perceived to drift. Vickers-Armstrongs pitched VC2/Centaurus, Hawker Siddeley bid A.W.55 Apollo/ASM Mamba, receiving design ITPs in April/May,1945 as Types IIB/C. In 1948 DH took effective charge; in 1949 Hagg was replaced by George Miles, having launched M.60 (to be HP Marathon). BEAC ordered 20 AS.57 23/9/48, because VC2 (changed 27/8/47 by Geo.Edwards to Darts) was: “too risky (AS.57 was) best suited (to) its requirements”, Centaurus sooner/more reliable than turbines. C.F Andrews/ E.B Morgan, Vickers A/c, Putnam,1988,P.424. V-A chose not to take no for an answer, pestered, added a Co-funded 3rd. to 2 MoS-funded prototypes... and on 2/8/50 won a BEAC order for 20. Elizabethan (Ambassador) entered BEAC service 13/3/52, Discovery (Viscount), 17/4/53.

DH under-resourced AS.57, using its Airspeed Division (so named, 6/51) as offload site for Vampire/Venom, and declining the obvious step of funding a turboprop Mark 2 (such things flew only as MoS Flying Test Beds). Lockheed abandoned the sector; Convair surmounted CV110 failure and captured the piston market with CV240/340/440. Hatfield's mind was on Comets.

OUAQUKGF Ops

19th Sep 2009, 14:27

As a whippersnapper teaboy cum ops asst in Autair I was lucky and had many SNY trips in Ambassadors. The Saturday night newspaper run LTN-DUB was a favourite, the Aer Lingus canteen being one of the attractions. This run was often used for Base Checks and it was not unusual for the crew to perform a single-engined ILS and overshoot (usually in 'orrible wx) before landing on two and offloading.
In those distant summers of the mid-sixties two delightful Aussie characters, Warren Wilson and Pete Elliott, would freelance as skippers on the AMB. First Officers new to type loved to fly with these seasoned campaigners who were only too happy to give them no end of P1 "What he let you fly it all the way to Athens and back!?"
Yes the Ambassador belched smoke and chugged along taxiways but once airborne and cleaned up she was as sweet as a nut, whistling not roaring overhead.

Speedbird48

20th Sep 2009, 22:59

I flew for Dan Air in the 1960's on the Ambassador, and many others, and found it to be as delightful an airplane as it looked.

The old theory regarding "if it looks right, it flies right" fitted the machine well.

I also flew with Pete Elliott many times in the Ambassador and the DC4. A good pilot and a great gentleman.

Speedbird 48.

Warmtoast

21st Sep 2009, 10:45

Those really were the days:

B.E.A. Silver Wing Service — 1952

Every day, at lunch-time, 40-seat “Silver Wing” Elizabethans fly between London and Le Bourget. This service is claimed by B.E.A. to be the finest means of inter-city travel anywhere in Europe (a claim, incidentally, which has gained much support from passengers since the inaugural flight on June 9th), and increased bookings are expected to compensate for the loss of seating. The fare is the standard one of £8 17s, and passengers are provided with a four-course lunch, champagne and cigarettes.

The Silver Wing lunches are cooked just before take-off by B.E.A. chefs in the catering section at London Airport. Meals are then placed in specially designed G.E.C. electrically-heated containers, each capable of holding 12 plates or one and a half gallons of liquid. Shortly before take-off the two stewards arrive to check the contents of the containers, which are then taken out to the aircraft and plugged into suitable power points in the galley. The containers have glass-wool insulation to ensure that no heat is lost in transit to the aircraft. At the same time the stewardess takes charge of blankets, newspapers, magazines and “flight companions” (small personal folders for each passenger containing airmail paper, a post card, route map, and a printed brochure describing the aircraft).
Flight companions, incidentally, are expensively produced and form a fairly weighty item in the airline budget so with their contents often scattered around the aircraft at the end of the flight, economy-minded B.E.A. salvages and repacks them for further use!

Below is a typical B.E.A. Silver Wing menu:

• Potted Morecambe shrimps, brown bread and butter
• Roast Norfolk turkey with braised York ham,
• Kentish scarlet runner beans
• New Jersey potatoes
• Cape pears preserved in port
• Cheddar cheese
• Water biscuits
• Rolls and butter
• Coffee

The Silver Wing service takes ten minutes longer than the normal London-Paris run by Elizabethans, which normally cover the 216-mile route in 1 hr 20 min. Even so, stewards and stewardess are kept constantly on their feet serving the meals and drinks which, as the menu indicates, more than compensate the passengers for the slight delay in their journey.

http://i145.photobucket.com/albums/r231/thawes/NewspaperAd2.jpg

http://i145.photobucket.com/albums/r231/thawes/NewspaperAd3.jpg

Jig Peter

21st Sep 2009, 15:20

@ Tankertrashnav above ...
From memory comes the thought-picture of the Ensign being a 4-engined machine from Armstrong Siddeley.
The twin-engined Airspeed Envoy (very fetching in its Royal livery !) became the Oxford in RAF service (all this of course IIRC)...

Noyade

21st Sep 2009, 23:12

My father use to fly them in Australia with butler air transport.I've read where Mr Butler and at one point in time Airspeed, entertained the idea of a 4-engine Ambassador.

Would have been a good idea?

http://img199.imageshack.us/img199/4544/ab4555437.jpg (http://img199.imageshack.us/i/ab4555437.jpg/)

How to spot the Ambassador from "The Boys Book of Aircraft" of 1953. :cool:

http://img12.imageshack.us/img12/8421/ambq.jpg (http://img12.imageshack.us/i/ambq.jpg/)

Level bust

21st Sep 2009, 23:57

There is an autobiography by an ex BKS pilot, Arthur Whitlock, called 'Behind the Cockpit Door' with some wonderful stories of flying the Ambassador.

Tankertrashnav

22nd Sep 2009, 16:01

Jig Peter - Yes, you are quite right, the basic aircraft was the Envoy, and the "posh" version was the Viceroy. Dont know where I got Ensign from! As you say the RAF development of the type was the Oxford, which must have been far and away the most numerous of Airspeed's types.

Warmtoast - after posting some beautiful pics of the Victor protype on another thread you've come up with these lovely mementoes from the days when flying was still a treat. A few years ago Mrs TTN and I got upgraded to business class (or club, or whatever they called it) on an Amsterdam - Heathrow flight. Even so, there was a distinct lack of potted shrimps, free fags and champagne!

avionic type

23rd Sep 2009, 00:50

Ah the Lizzie!! my first job at B.E.A. was on the modification and repair gang at Heathrow in march 1954 modifing the Lizzie's Aviation fuelled anti icing system [where was "elf and safetythen] which was to say the least tempremental . .
As an airplane it was beautifly built [the riviting was superb until you got to the tail plane] and then it fell well short of the rest I dont Know if DH/Airspeed ran out of money but the skinning was to put it bluntly very crude
It was lovely to fly in and could take off on 1 engine its crashes were due to 1 engine going into reverse pitch on approach, and of course the other slush and ice ruining all its lift on takeoff, ZO the reverse prop a/c though heavily damaged was brought back to Heathrow and repaired the 3 rd one was the B.K.S which broke a flap rod and crashed into the nearly built Terminal 1. Like all a/c of the period it was hard to work on as the access to alot of the systems left a lot to be desired but it kept me in work for just over a year until I moved onto other a/c in B.E.As fleet:D:D:D

Double Zero

24th Sep 2009, 14:52

I was for quite a few years engaged to the grand-daughter of Robin ' Bob ' Milne, Airspeed / D.H. Test Pilot, who amongst test flying such things as Mosquito's, personally test flew over 2,000 Oxfords !

He was also shot down in his Camel, waited for the guard to fall drunkenly asleep, then used his ski's to successfully escape ( that's the family version, I suspect weapons were involved) ; later on he climbed the summit of the Eiger, just before WWII - I would be surprised if he was not on a recce' mission.

I managed to get him a mention on the Tartan Terror's tribute site as his daughter Jenny ( my potential mother in law, strange I spent more time talking with her than with my then fiancee' ?! ) just before she died.

She knew Nevil Shute Norway well, he flew a lot with her dad; including finding a ' secret corridor ' for the Luftwaffe to get to Portsmouth between the barrage balloons, and as a little girl she grew up playing in the local Windmill Nevil often stayed in, ( along with another house nearby ) .

The windmill is now the symbol of our sailing club nearby ( though most sailors are clueless as to it's history, except that it was briefly owned by a James Bond film producer ).

Not too sure about the Ambassador / Oxford link, but if you read any of Nevil Shute ( Norway )'s books, a passion for simple, sound aviation is very clear; my personal favourites might be ' Requiem For A Wren ' and ' Round The Bend ' - which should be mandatory reading for anyone, ground or air crew, joining the aviation world !

In the book ' Test Pilots ' by Don Middleton - ISBN 0-00-218098-7 Bob Milne get's a brief mention; he started flying on Sopwith Camels against the Bolsheviks, ended on Comet airliner prototypes with John Cunningham.

I think it was his colleague & friend Ron Clear who worked on the testing & development of the ' Airspeed Fleet Shadower ' - enormous drag, ugly as sin but not as much fun, designed as a sort of propelled recce' balloon - after years of work, he found it's sole use was being used to fan the flames for fire crew training !

The point is, I was given a few truly great photo's of the Ambassador in flight, I'm too thick or lazy to post them here ( but will if pushed ) but I'll happily JPEG them to you.

All the best,

DZ

Amos Keeto

25th Sep 2009, 12:59

For any of you that want a good record of the Amabassador on film, possibly the only DVD available with Ambassadors on it can be found here:

Avion Video Airliner Videos and DVDs (http://www.avionvideo.com/products.asp?action=display&ch=dvd&sel=W057&id=Current%20Programme)

All in colour from restored cine film with sound! Ah wonderful stuff!

merv32249213

26th Sep 2009, 07:04

Whilst working outside at McAlpines in the 60's , looked up to see an Autair Ambassador aquaplaning and do a complete 180 and with a great roar of power managed to avert a reverse trip over the end of the runway.Very lucky to end up safely like it did.

Helen49

26th Sep 2009, 20:02

'The Lizzie'

Ah.......the nostalgia. Smokey on start up [permission to make smoke had to be requested!], spacious cabin, large windows, smooth and quite advanced in many ways. A pleasure to travel in them!

helen 49

India Four Two

28th Sep 2009, 13:30

Here are Double Zero's photos. Nice pictures of a lovely aircraft. The first photo is of the prototype G-AGUA, powered by Centaurus 631s.

http://i30.photobucket.com/albums/c309/india42/Ambassador1.jpg

http://i30.photobucket.com/albums/c309/india42/Ambassador2.jpg

http://i30.photobucket.com/albums/c309/india42/Ambassador3.jpg

http://i30.photobucket.com/albums/c309/india42/Ambassador4.jpg

http://i30.photobucket.com/albums/c309/india42/Ambassador5.jpg

Flightwatch

29th Sep 2009, 08:28

When I was training at Oxford in 1965 we had the Ambassador simulator there to practice on. It had a computer room the size of the Albert Hall and of course was completely static. Rumour had it that it was the nose of one of the prototypes but I have not been able to find any confirmation of this on the internet. Does anyone know the answer and what happened to it – was it scrapped or is it still in some dusty corner somewhere?

I subsequently joined BKS where several course members were posted to the “Lizzie” fleet in Newcastle and London – I went to the 748 in LBA. Having made my first flight ever in the Lizzie as a schoolboy LHR-JER in 1958 I positioned around the network quite a bit in it for the next 2 years until they were withdrawn from pax service, I was always impressed with the antics of the F/O who had to leap out of his seat after engine start to pull a large switch on the rear cockpit bulkhead to inflate the door seals to allow pressurization after the aircraft was airborne, presumably in BEA service the R/O did the job?

One of the most comfortable aircraft I have ever traveled in from a passenger point of view.

avionic type

29th Sep 2009, 13:27

Thinks!! did BEA have R/Os in 1953? I can't remember or did they go out with the Navigator after the Dak and Viking, can anyone remember?:bored::bored: Iknow there was a positon in the Viscount 701s for a R/O but by the late 50s i can't remember them being used .

Flightwatch

29th Sep 2009, 14:44

The only reference I can find to the dates of the role of the R/O in BEA is that they were phased out finally in 1962. This would have covered the service years of the Elizabethan as they were sold around 1958. I can certainly remember them being on the Viscount 701 in the late 50s/early 60s when my father flew them, they were gone by the time he transferred to the 802.

Tankertrashnav

30th Sep 2009, 08:31

Double Zero - shame on you for being too lazy to post those pictures ;) but many thanks for providing them and thanks India Four Two for doing the necessary :ok:

Seriously, what wonderful pictures, what was it about that period that so many aircraft types were so elegant?

Herod

30th Sep 2009, 11:48

They were designed by designers, who had a feel for their art, as opposed to computers, which produce the most efficient design regardless of the fact that it doesn't look very nice. Look at the modern car. Apart from the badge, it's often difficult to tell them apart.

OUAQUKGF Ops

30th Sep 2009, 16:25

Interesting to read of an Ambassador aquaplaning at Luton - it was perhaps something the aeroplane was prone to do. I remember how one day in August 1967 we laughed our socks off in the Autair ops room on hearing that Channel had a double upset with their 748s at Portsmouth.
Blow me down a few weeks later our Ambassador G-ALZS with 65 pax arrived one wet evening on the not over-long (in those days) Luton runway, aquaplaned and was written off. Fortunately nobody was injured but it taught me not to laugh too heartily at the misfortunes of competitors.
Writing of Channel (a digression here) ;we used to hold our breath at Luton whenever their fully laden Tridents struggled upwards to the warm summer skies. At these times it was said that the Sevres Porcelain at Luton Hoo was regularly rattled whilst the trees in the park shed their leaves and perhaps a branch or two.

Level bust

30th Sep 2009, 19:57

A slight digression, but there was the Autair Herald that put the gear up to quick and then settled back on the runway with the wheels safely tucked away!

Icare9

1st Oct 2009, 08:44

Ah, the Herald, just about as ugly an aircraft you could design, compare it to the Friendship, now that looked beautiful. Those photos really are evocative of the post war period, stunningly detailed black and white..... quite takes me back to my schooldays!!

WHBM

1st Oct 2009, 11:26

The Ambassador was not particularly well received by BEA, the only airline to buy them new. Introduced in 1952, the 20 were all out of service by August 1958 and then took some years on the market to trickle down to secondary users.

The Munich accident was shortly befre their final withdrawl. I believe the charter flight to Belgrade and return used an Ambassador because there was no supply of jet fuel readily available at Belgrade so a Viscount could not be used.

Dan-Air did a daily sevice from Liverpool to Amsterdam with them in the 1960s. I recall the start-up each morning was accompanied by clouds of smoke, seemingly the sleeve-valve concept with radial engines allowed even more lubricating oil to seep down into the bottom cylinders than happened on other radials, which was then burned off in the initial seconds.

Herod

1st Oct 2009, 16:59

Ah, the Herald, just about as ugly an aircraft you could design

You can't have seen the Shorts 330/360 then? As someone once said: "It was unfair of Shorts to enter two aircraft in the "ugliest airliner" competition; much less to win both first and second prize."

compton3bravo

1st Oct 2009, 19:48

Hope to just wet your appetite there is a book coming out on the Ambassador in the not too distant future - I will try to keep you all informed.

kala87

2nd Oct 2009, 09:43

A handsome aircraft although I sadly never got to fly in one. We lived south of LTN in the 1960's and Autair's three Lizzies (ZS/ZV/ZZ) were daily sights. They made a very distinctive smooth muffled sound on climb-out, quite unlike the throaty roar of a P & W radial such as on the DC6, or the Wrights on the L-749 Connies. They certainly were heavy smokers on start-up, especially in the morning as WHBM describes. I remember a BKS Lizzie virtually fogging out the Queen's Building at LHR one morning with its smoky start. They even left smoke trails on climb-out sometimes!

Re- their early life with BEA, I can recall reading somewhere that BEA were very pleased with the passenger reaction to the Lizzie (not surprising as they replaced Vikings and DC3's) and wished they had ordered more. However, they were rapidly outclassed by the new Viscounts which started arriving only 1 year after the Lizzie entered service.

The amazing Silver Wing flight to Paris seems like a throwback to the same pre-war service operated by Imperial. All that fgourmet food, champagne and fancy service on a 90-minute flight to Paris! It really was a different world back then.

The terrible accident to ZR at LHR in 1968 (due to assymetric flap deployment and ensuing loss of control) was so sad; I remember it well. Some good people lost their lives that day. As someone else has mentioned, Arthur Whitlock's book has some great accounts of flying the Lizzie during his time at BKS, and includes the ZR incident.

For a piston engined airliner the Lizzie had a pretty long service life, from 1952 to 1969 or thereabouts. I missed the Autair aircraft when they were repaced by those noisy One-Elevens in 1968.

airsmiles

2nd Oct 2009, 18:02

"Ah, the Herald, just about as ugly an aircraft you could design"

Joy is in the eye of the beholder! I have fond memories of the Herald at Hurn in BIA orange and white. Whereas I never took to the HS748, in Dan-air colours especially. Now if you're really asking, give me 4 x Darts on a Viscount and don't spare the two-blue colour scheme (of BMA). :)

Double Zero

2nd Oct 2009, 18:39

TTN & co,

Thanks for pointing out my laziness, agreed !

The aircraft looks good to me; I remember as a young boy watching them at Gatwick, knew them as ' Smokey Joe's '.

The photo's were supplied by the late Jenny Blower, daughter of Airspeed / D.H. Test Pilot Robin ' Bob ' Milne. They look like the work of Peckham or Brown to me - whoever it was did a good job, especially considering the distinctly user-unfriendly camera kit of the time...

DZ

Jig Peter

4th Oct 2009, 15:10

:ugh:
@ Tankertrashnav ...Belated apologies for inaccurately correcting your Airspeed Envoy entry: without Wikipedalling, I realise that the Ensign airframe was by Armstrong WHITWORTH, while its "power" (all 1800 bhp from FOUR engines in the first one - talk about lead sled !!!) was by the Siddeley side.
After doing the Wiki thing, I saw that, like the Whitley, the Ensign also flew "nose down".
(I'll leave it there, because I'm sure the Mods will "have" me for Thread Drift, but apologies nevertheless)
Good wishes to all,
Jig Peter
:eek:

Gorbachev's mate

5th Oct 2009, 15:33

The 1968 accident involved G-AMAD - unfortunately I witnessed the event from the Queen's Building.

As a lad growing up in Luton though, my fond memories are of Autair's Ambassadors trundling off to Glasgow, Blackpool, Hull, Teesside, etc.

bigal1941

5th Oct 2009, 19:00

My father was an Electrical Engineer that for a brief time was involved in controlling the electrical in/output in various aircraft, the Ambassador being one of them. I can always remember him remarking that everytime during takeoff roll and climb out it concerned him about the amount of "Tap Changing" going on in the electrical system. I have no idea what he ment and at that time really had no interest in Electrical Engineering except in the 6 and 12 volts in the old Bangers that I owned at the time.

Alan

WHBM

6th Oct 2009, 08:40

"Tap Changing" ....... I have no idea what he meant
Tap Changing was an old expression for resistance control (of variable voltage), a semi-mechanical device in those days. They came in various sizes, little ones for small scale, up to huge ones in electric railway locomotives from the driver's main power control. Nowadays such control is all-electronic with thyristors etc.

If you had an old car then variable speed wipers were an example of such a control, as you moved the switch round through the various positions it was "tapping" different positions on a resistor, to apply different voltages to the wiper motor.

bigal1941

6th Oct 2009, 17:49

Thank you very much, Brought back memories of an M type MG i once owned as a student

Alan

The AvgasDinosaur

7th Oct 2009, 13:27

When the old girl was later fitted out for freighting duties, what was her maximum payload and range at MTOW please.
Thanks in anticipation,
Be lucky
David
P.S. (At risk of thread creep police ) What were the same figures for the freighter Viking Autair operated for a time ?

OUAQUKGF Ops

8th Oct 2009, 12:20

As I remember Autair Ambassadors flew pax almost exclusively apart from the Saturday night Dublin paper run. The two Vikings G-AHPB G-AGRW spent their final flying years as freighters based at Templehof from where they flew week days to Schipol to pick up flowers for the Berlin markets.
I can't remember payloads.
For several years at Christmas-time a 55 seat Ambassador was chartered for 2-3 weeks to cruise at a leisurely pace around the Eastern Med, Near East and North Africa.
I recall taking my Basset Hound with me to an empty ops room at a deserted Luton Airport one Christmas Day to check the teleprinter for messages from this stately progress. Satisfied that neither a/c, crew member or pax had expired under the Egyptian sun I took my dog for a walk across the icy apron where a line of silent Britannias stood in the snow before their hangar waiting for Spring.
How times have changed.

Alan Biles

13th Oct 2009, 19:18

Found this in amongst my recently departed father-in-laws stuff.

http://i99.photobucket.com/albums/l318/AlanBiles_51/4-1-2009_035.jpg

I believe it was taken at Guernsey.

LibertyBell

22nd Jun 2017, 11:54

Good afternoon,

I’m writing from a television production company based in London called Liberty Bell. We are currently in production for a six part series for History Channel UK which examines the background to major national disasters over the past century.

This series will sensitively unravel the long chain of events to understand the wider context of why these events happen, and will pay tribute to lives tragically lost or altered through personal stories and recollections. This series also examines the effect these events have had on subsequent safety regulation, legislation and protocol.

One of our episodes will explore the Munich Air Disaster of 1958.
I was wondering if you know of any retired pilots who might have flown the BEA Elizabethan? We are looking to speak to former Pilots who can tell us what it felt like to fly the Elizabethan Airspeed AS.57 Ambassador.

If you can think of anyone who might be able to speak with me, without any obligation at this stage to participate, I would really appreciate your help in gaining insight into the event.

Kind regards,

Nia

kcockayne

22nd Jun 2017, 16:54

Found this in amongst my recently departed father-in-laws stuff.

http://i99.photobucket.com/albums/l318/AlanBiles_51/4-1-2009_035.jpg

I believe it was taken at Guernsey.

Not Guernsey, I am afraid.

G-ARZG

23rd Jun 2017, 19:58

Looks like early Gatwick to me?

CSman

23rd Jun 2017, 20:59

Positioned many times on the Dan Air service from Cardiff to Liverpool More often than not it was the old faithful G-AMPP the DAK On a few flights was the Nord 262,but one evening an Ambassador turned up ,on boarding there was only a very few seats installed,no cabin lnterior as such ,it looked as though it had just or was about to perform a freight flight.Needless to say the flight to Liverpool was one to be remembered

WHBM

23rd Jun 2017, 23:56

I was wondering if you know of any retired pilots who might have flown the BEA Elizabethan? We are looking to speak to former Pilots who can tell us what it felt like to fly the Elizabethan Airspeed AS.57 Ambassador.
Hello Nia

Given that the Ambassador was withdrawn from BEA service by summer 1958 (as commented in my post above), and that most BEA crew in those days were ex-RAF WW2 aircrew (including Jim Thain, the Munich captain), I am afraid that the time for discussing the aircraft's handling characteristics personally may have passed.

There have been a number of TV programmes made about the Munich accident over time; the BBC one about 10 years ago was, like most others, received with faint ridicule by those knowledgeable about the situation for its gross factual blunders (I believe also on the footballing front as the more commonplace ones on the aviation side). I hope you are able to avoid this.

surely not

2nd Jul 2017, 21:28

Some photos of beautiful Ambassadors at Luton and Gatwick

2463

2464

2465

2466

Top photo is G-ALZZ at Luton taken in July 1966
2nd photo is G-ALZV at Luton taken in March 1968
3rd Photo is G-ALZP of Decca Navigator at Gatwick in Nov 1969
4th Photo is G-AMAE of Dan Air at Gatwick in 1968

POBJOY

12th Jul 2017, 20:22

As a treat after a days Air Cadeting with the gliders at Kenley it was considered good sport to hot foot down to Gatwick just to watch an Ambassador starting up. In those days one could park under the 'fingers' and find a door open that took you up to a window opposite the parking bays. There was usually a Dan Air machine ready to fire up and the resultant smoke display well worth the trip. There was also the added bonus of the sound of the 'Cents' warming up. Was there ever a scheme to put t/props in them rather than go 748/Herald !!

DaveReidUK

12th Jul 2017, 22:23

Was there ever a scheme to put t/props in them rather than go 748/Herald !!

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3b/Airspeed_Eland_Ambassador_at_Farnborough_1955.jpg

treadigraph

13th Jul 2017, 07:33

DaveReidUK

13th Jul 2017, 09:54

Not sure which Dave's pic illustrates, but the Ambassador was used as a flying test bed for various Tyne, Proteus and Napier Eland engines.

It's the last of those.

Flightwatch

13th Jul 2017, 17:45

I know well a spritely young septuagenarian (just) who was an F/O on the Ambassador from 1966 to their removal to the knackers yard in 1969. PM me and I will see if I can connect you, he doesn't do PPRuNe.

Volume

14th Jul 2017, 08:58

The only aircraft in the world with ... delicious hot mealsThat of course is a great design feature, hard to find these days :ok:

tornadoken

14th Jul 2017, 10:03

Though it now seems odd that no turboprop was offered, t'was not so in late-1940s.

UK's Brabazon Committee suite funded into R&D 1943-46 Types to build NOW, to employ the vast Aero industry, to earn and save $. Comfort to defeat Dakota was expressed in the Continental as armchair space. AS.57 was designed with 4 wing points for ASM Mamba turboprop in Mark II, but was to be brought into rapid Service with tried and tested Centaurus. Insurance Continentals were funded as Mamba/AWA Apollo and VC2 Viceroy.

BEAC observed Dart/VC2 first flight 16/7/48 and ordered 20 Ambassadors 22/9/48 as "low-risk": turbines then were seen as expensive, TBO maybe rising to 00s, not the 000s hours expected of sound pistons (BOAC's 28/7/49 order for 25 Britannias was with Centaurus, same reason).

DH subsumed Airspeed as a Divn. in 1948 to build Vampire/Venom. Neither DH nor MoS cared to sponsor turbo-AS.57 in the absence of a civil customer-prospect. But on 3/8/50 BEAC ordered 20 VC2 as V.701 Viscount: within days of its introduction, Ambassador was doomed.

treadigraph

14th Jul 2017, 12:50

Don't think it's been mentioned that during flight testing at Christchurch, a prototype was being flown with the CG progressively further aft until the pilot (Ron Clear I think) ran out of elevator in the flare. The aircraft smote the ground an almighty blow which left the Centauruses lying on the grass alongside the wheel ruts from the impact. As far as I can recall other damage was relatively light and the aircraft flew again fairly quickly.

Afterwards, the engineers presented Ron Clear (if 'twas he) with a beautifully mounted ship's telegraph with the dial set to "Finished with Engines".

Fareastdriver

14th Jul 2017, 20:41

Nothing to do with the Ambassador but a similar bracket of test flying.

The Aerospatiale S330 Puma was being flight qualified in the mid sixties. The Puma had been fitted with a flight stabilisation system that made it fly very much like a fixed wing aircraft. The test series were to assess what problems would arise at the extremities of the performance envelope should part of the stabilisation system fail.

One of the tests was to fly it at VNE (velocity never exceed) and have a full runaway of the yaw (tail rotor) control channel at the aft limit of the CofG. For those who are unfamiliar with helicopters the three control planes can effect each other in much the same way as a fixed wing.

The helicopter would be set up in a dive as it was the only way of achieving VNE and a switch would be thrown which would put the tail rotor actuator into open loop. The tail rotor would immediately run to full pitch and violently slew the aircraft and induce roll.

The pilots would then have to wait for two seconds before taking corrective action.

The roll rate induced was something in the order of 90-100 degrees/second. The general consensus was to let go all the way round but they had to prove that a normal commercial pilot could bring it back; and they did, and it passed.

WHBM

16th Jul 2017, 11:13

DH subsumed Airspeed as a Divn. in 1948 to build Vampire/Venom.
DH actually bought out Airspeed just as WW2 started, in 1940. Airspeed was a bit of a "mom-and-pop" operation on the airfield at Portsmouth, a bit pushed to put out more than one a fortnight. Government eventually had over 8,500 Oxford advanced trainers, plus nearly 4,000 Horsa gliders, they would have been way out of their depth. Airspeed Commercial Director Nevil Shute was more interested in writing his novels.

VX275

16th Jul 2017, 15:06

Neville Shute Norway was in the Royal Navy for WW2 as part of their Miscellaneous Weapons Development Section coming up with ways of fighting U Boats and working on a way to defeat coastal defences with the Great Panjandram. Although the less said about that one the better..

OUAQUKGF Ops

23rd Jun 2023, 12:57

Forgive me for resurrecting this old chestnut - but several years ago I came across on the internet what I think is my favourite photograph of an Autair Ambassador. Well of course I forgot all about it until recently and then I spent hours and hours searching 'The Web' without finding it. The other day I was tidying up my downloads and lo and behold...........

https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/971x644/screenshot_2023_06_23_at_13_06_14_g_alzs_blk_downsize_b75495 fc4fc6649592e1b155892787a2c4aaf414.png

G-ALZS arriving at Blackpool very probably on the scheduled service from Luton.

Sadly on September 14th 1967 landing at Luton she aquaplaned and was written off. I was on holiday from Autair at the time but a couple of months later was Duty Ops when one of our two surviving Ambassadors commenced a night approach to Luton in weather conditions equal to if not worse than those that the Captain of G-ALZS had encountered. I quickly rang Air Traffic and asked them to pass a company message to the aircraft to "Divert to Stansted" (Nice long Runway there !) and off he went. In retrospect I, a callow youth recently promoted from Tea Boy cum Ops Asst, massively exceeded my authority. A couple of hours later the crew arrived. The Captain, Garth Hanchard Goodwin, a very experienced ex Fleet Air Arm Pilot smiled wistfully at me and said he would have got her into Luton without any difficulty. And quite honestly I expect he was right.........!

https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/971x647/screenshot_2023_06_23_at_12_50_50_g_alzs_ambassador_2_autair _e040d35952d4fa9bf4c40d0762fd6c1acfddc331.png
Photo Credit as captioned.

https://www.baaa-acro.com/crash/crash-airspeed-as57-ambassador-2-luton

garage205man

23rd Jun 2023, 18:27

Hi never flown in one ,but as a young boy at college in the iom one of the sports grounds was at the end the runway and very occasionally a Dan air Elizabethan would arrive and do it's engine run up , load's of noise and tail vibrating, sounded much more powerful than the seemingly Endless coming and going of the usual Viscount's

OUAQUKGF Ops

23rd Jun 2023, 22:35

Wonderful Bristol Centaurus engines. In my time at Autair Ops in the period we were operating Ambassadors up until 1969 I cannot remember an engine failure or an unscheduled engine change. This was due in part to the quality and skill of Autair's engineers. Their Ambassadors never carried a uniformed flight engineer but frequently a Flying Spanner would accompany the aeroplane, I can recall Pete Hart, Jock Lauder and Stuart Clegg among others performing this duty. I think somewhere else I've bored the socks off folk recalling a particularly fun School Educational Flight I went along on - providing the commentary while David Hampson flew the Ambassador low over the newly opened Severn Bridge which was the subject of the day. Oh gosh and then there was another jolly with two Ambassadors on a Chemical Works outing to Le Touquet - where we bought food in the market, hired a car and took the Girls and the Flying Spanner off for a picnic to a beach in the middle of nowhere where Nightingales sang and rusty signs warning of mines were a reminder of recent history. Later that afternoon returning in haste to the airfield and while overtaking at speed an old lorry carrying hard-core, a large piece detached itself from the aforesaid and penetrated the windscreen in a dramatic manner. I punched a hole through what was left of the windscreen, thanking my lucky stars that the Car Hire Manager had insisted on my taking out insurance. Nevertheless he was none too happy when we returned his automobile muttering " That the bloody British had murdered France's only Virgin." In retrospect that was one of the best days of my life along with wedding my late wife.

Discorde

24th Jun 2023, 09:45

Ambassador memories:

We planespotter kids who lived near Heathrow noted that the Lizzie's Centaurus engines made a distinct not-unpleasant low-pitched whine during the approach - due to the sleeve valve operating mechanism perhaps?

Flew as a pax DUS-LTN in one of Autair's machines, September 1966. During the cruise there was an almighty crash and everyone froze. One of the stewardesses had dropped a tray of cutlery. Took a few mins for the tension to ease.

OUAQUKGF Ops

24th Jun 2023, 10:07

Talking of Stewardesses - one of our elderly, no nonsense, Autair Stewardesses was debagged on the homeward leg over the Irish Sea by some rowdy passengers on a Rugby Club Charter. Afterwards and quite rightly too there was a hell of a hoo-ha about it.

ATNotts

24th Jun 2023, 10:38

pax britanica

24th Jun 2023, 13:02

Discorde

You are so very right about the Ambassador (more likely Elizabethan at LHR of course) a very distinctive noise compared to the big American radials whether airborne or at full TO power . I always thought they cannot have been easy to fly because of the seemingly very small cockpit windows. They also seemed exraordinarily close to the ground ,with Darts they would proably have got a decent amount of market share from the F27 which was succesful globally, not sure if anyone but the Brits flew the Ambassador.

OUAQUKGF Ops

24th Jun 2023, 15:16

A few Ambassadors (All ex BEA) operated for a short while with ' Foreign Operators.'

Butler Air Transport Australia - Period 1957-1958
G-ALZX as VH-BUI
G-AMAH as VH-BUJ
G-AMAE as VH-BUK

More on these here:VH-BUI Airspeed AS-57 Ambassaror (http://www.aussieairliners.org/ambassador/vh-bui/vhbui.html)

https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/875x658/1144180_aussie_amb_downsize_4f9942bf8091100f036dce3f0674749e 7baaca87.jpg
VH-BUI inaugurating the first Butler Air Transport Ambassador service at Mascot Airport, Sydney. (Photo Powerhouse Museum).

Globe Air Switzerland - Period 1960-1963
G-ALMAF as HB-IEI (Reduced to Spares in Switzerland)
G-ALZS as HB-IEK
G-ALZZ as HB-IEL
G-ALZV as HB-IEM

These three Ambassadors eventually purchased by Autair from Handley Page who in turn was selling Heralds to Globe Air.

https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/794x550/screenshot_2023_06_24_at_15_28_10_airspeed_ambassador_globe_ air_switzerland_bing_e3c2901032bb33165198b13d890002a855ff375 5.png

Incidentally prior to its time with Globe Air G-ALZZ was destined for service with Norronafly of Oslo as LN-BWF but the purchase was never taken up.
https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/971x647/screenshot_2023_06_24_at_15_14_06_g_alzz_e5287c6e5499693b87c 7560e4dfd47814fd8b531.png
Photographed at Cambridge by the Late Gerald Lawrance.

browndhc2

24th Jun 2023, 15:45

I believe Overseas Aviation were to acquire four of the type to operate a "walk on" no reservation service between Gatwick and Prestwick via Manchester.

The only Ambassadors I saw were Decca's ZP at West Malling and Dan's ZO at Lasham. to my mind an elegant aeroplane. Love the Autair shots at luton OU OPS though that shot of double Zulu is sad.

DaveReidUK

24th Jun 2023, 15:59

OUAQUKGF Ops

24th Jun 2023, 16:16

browndhc2

24th Jun 2023, 16:23

Fascinating, they would have looked good in Overseas livery.

treadigraph

24th Jun 2023, 16:48

Didn't Vic Norman's dad operate an Ambassador as a mobile slot machines demonstrator for a bit in the 1960s, or was it a Marathon?

Edit: found it! It was a Marathon, G-AMGX! Answered my own question...

https://cwsprduksumbraco.blob.core.windows.net/g-info/HistoricalLedger/G-AMGX.pdf

https://www.bal-ami.com/about-BAL-AMi/BAL-AMi-history.html

chevvron

24th Jun 2023, 17:01

Not sure which Dave's pic illustrates, but the Ambassador was used as a flying test bed for various Tyne, Proteus and Napier Eland engines.

A production turboprop update had been envisaged with various twin and four engined version mooted.
The ubiquitous Dart was also tested whilst at Farnborough the Napier Eland distinguished itself by flying the whole of its flying display using only one engine, the other one being feathered.
NB: Farnborough International rules nowadays do not permit this ever since the Breguet Atlantique crash in 1968 when it had one engine shut down however air show operators in other countries probably may allow it.

bols59

8th Jan 2024, 23:32

It always looked far too low to the ground.

Jhieminga

9th Jan 2024, 12:45

Airspeed Commercial Director Nevil Shute was more interested in writing his novels.
I know this is an old quote... but I wanted to provide a bit of perspective. Nevil Shute Norway left Airspeed in 1938 after some internal struggles. He stated in his autobiography 'Slide Rule' that he very much enjoyed starting the company but he was not a 'runner' and was not suited for the work needed to enable the company to grow further. His departure was also a way to allow the company to do that and he left with a significant sum of money. This allows him to do some more writing but he joins the Admiralty at the start of WWII, moving to the Ministry if Information in 1944. After the war the income from his books allow him to set up full time as a novelist. None of the biographies written by and about him suggest that his writing plays a part in his departure from Airspeed.

As for the Airspeed Ambassador... 'Behind the Cockpit Door' by Arthur Whitlock has some great descriptions of operating the type with BKS. I need to reread it soon I'm thinking....

renfrew

9th Jan 2024, 12:56

VX275

9th Jan 2024, 13:51

It always looked far too low to the ground.

Which would have been used to advantage if the proposed development into the Ayrshire Tactical transport had taken place.
https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/1518x1048/ayrshire004_1cf435382b41fb64409be7fe753b590a481d0379.jpg

horatio_b

9th Jan 2024, 15:21

Following the British Open Golf championship final playoff in 1963 between Bob Charles and Phil Rodgers, the BBC decided to replay the match for BBC TV. Henry Longhurst, a well known golf commentator was making a lengthy speech when in the distance came the beautiful sound of the Airspeed Ambassador which had just departed Blackpool on the Autair service to Luton. The sound got louder and louder until eventually Henry Longhurst gave up, waited for the noise to pass, and then had to record the whole piece again.

treadigraph

9th Jan 2024, 16:31

Reminds me that when Bond is playing golf with Goldfinger (at Sandwich?) there is a glorious sound of a twin passing in the background. Always used to fancy it was a Mosquito but these days I think more realistically it was actually something like a Twin Bonanza or Queenair with augmentor exhausts...

WHBM

14th Jan 2024, 09:07

Re the Jordanain Air Force Ambassador above.
We got the occasional interesting aircraft at Renfrew bringing Avon engines to Rolls Royce for overhaul.
I remember seeing a Sabena CV-440 on the approach when the Jordanian Ambassador appeared underneath the Convair resulting in much shouting on the radio.
I was surprised to see G-ALZP at LaGuardia in 1964.
I believe by 1964 the Jordanian Air Force Ambassador had been passed on, via the equivalent Moroccan Air Force, still as a VIP transport, and had come back to the Decca company in the UK, where it was used for some years for navigation kit testing. However, I never heard before of it (or any Ambassador) making it to the USA. Wonder what they were doing there. This aircraft was supposedly sold by Decca to a New Zealand start-up airline around 1970, but never left the UK and was scrapped here. It was the last remaining airworthy Ambassador,

POBJOY

15th Jan 2024, 20:54

Pleased to see many memories of the Ambassador still lingering after a few years, and confirming my post of 12 07 17, that it was an amazing site to stand overlooking the departure stand at Gatwick and seeing and hearing those 'Cents' wind up with associated copious smoke screen. Dan Air certainly gave them an excellent 'final run' before the Turbo Props arrived. Todays mobile phones would have made a great addition then.

Gordomac

16th Jan 2024, 09:48

Absolute, true, nostalgia. I can add, a bit;

Moreton's DO at Gatters around 1967. The "Central finger" was the only finger and DO Office was tucked in one corner with glorious views.Dan would stop all Duty Officer tasks as, honestly, what looked like ordinary farm tractors pulled up a Lizzie and lots of preflight activity held all of us in the office spellbound.

Tommy Gun would leave his adjoining office and tell us ;"ok, ok, tea break while we watch the fun". Fun it was as, eventually, the engines would be started. Lots of noise, lots of smoke. LGW went from 'Calm, CAVOK' to viz, zero, overcast, cat111 only within minutes. Aviation fuel/smoke smell filled our office. No-one complained.

And off she would taxi, trailing thick black smoke and everything returned to boring normal as phones on hold were switched back and Hosties called in looking for Friday night swops.Pure joy..

Having got into the pointy end quite quickly, I did have the absolute pleasure of Serving Art Whitlock as his FO. Not a book reader but obtained and read his offering "Behind the Cockpit Door". Lent it to someone else and didn't get it back, but, hey, what a read.

rog747

16th Jan 2024, 11:26

The Airspeed Ambassador was pivotal in flying many IT Package Holiday charter flights to Europe and the Med Sunspots.
UK and foreign charter airlines used them for IT's such as Overseas Aviation, Dan Air, BKS, Autair and Globe Air with seating for 48-55 seats.

Ambassadors replaced the older Vickers Vikings and DC-3's, and they provided a far more comfortable and, on longer routes, a speedier trip, for example, shaving more than an hour off the London to Rimini or Perpignan service.

OUAQUKGF Ops

16th Jan 2024, 15:10

https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/757x596/screenshot_2024_01_16_at_15_06_50_transfer_9_jan_pdf_de2974a c0aec4eebd15191bd5b97743f49360163.png
Brochure Circa 1950

https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/930x799/screenshot_2024_01_16_at_15_16_08_transfer_9_jan_0001_pdf_bf 55aeb11db250dde4cc0612f2a3292d07298835.png
https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/930x815/screenshot_2024_01_16_at_15_17_54_transfer_9_jan_0002_pdf_8c 64f524ced954d6160fbc1b0961115076797146.png

https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/930x736/screenshot_2024_01_16_at_15_49_55_transfer_9_jan_0003_pdf_61 bbc25dad1e304dd6c572b0ea3b0f410c15165d.png
Airspeed Christmas Card 1948 (2nd prototype)

https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/930x752/screenshot_2024_01_16_at_15_51_23_transfer_9_jan_0004_pdf_47 c13b80093a113a46c71ceab54a63d594ae3d20.png

https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/930x295/screenshot_2024_01_16_at_15_41_26_g_akrd_rolls_royce_airspee d_as_57_ambassador_b28eea35506fa5549d26ac64e215f9281c77403a. png
History extracted from Planespotters.net with thanks !

dixi188

16th Jan 2024, 16:06

Around 1966 my eldest sister booked a holiday in Spain. It was with Autair and supposed to be flying in a brand new BAC1-11. My dad was a senior inspector at the Hurn factory and said they hadn't delivered the first aircraft yet. She flew out in an Ambassador but the return flight was in a BAC 1-11.

rog747

16th Jan 2024, 16:18

By George

16th Jan 2024, 20:49

rog747

17th Jan 2024, 05:47

My first flight in an aeroplane, London to Germany (Munich?) in 1957. Sat opposite my brothers on a four-seat table complete with linen tablecloth, fine china and stainless-steel knives. My father in a suit with a hat and Mum dressed to the nines, including white gloves up to the elbow. As kids we wore identical outfits which included a tie! Addressed as 'Master' by the cabin crew and treated like royalty. Talk about changing times. Beautiful looking aeroplane too.

Yes at those times the luxury 47 seat BEA Airspeed Ambassador (Elizabethan) was also pivotal in their longer routes which were not just deep into Europe and Eastern Europe, but down to the Mediterranean, Malta and North Africa too (Cairo was suspended around this time due to the Suez situation)
12 a/c were in the fleet in 1957, with just 7 in 1958.
The Viscount 800 was coming onstream and would soon take over these routes from the Ambassador.
in turn these would go to the new Comet 4B's and Vanguards.

Prangster

18th Jan 2024, 07:31

As a 9/12 year old my favourite place was hugging the 2 strand wire fence that separated Snape's Wood from the Rolls Royce Flight Test Establishment airfield at Hucknall, Dim memory tells me that huddled in a defensive heap on the distant pan lay a mouldering row of flying test beds their duty done, all, no doubt, awaiting the scrap mans cutters. Vague memory suggests that an Ambassaor/Elizabethan and I think an Avro Tudor amongst them. Then I could be wrong! Anyone know the history?

At the time the Vulcan test bed was active before its loss at Syerston so it must be pre that accident.

Prangster

18th Jan 2024, 08:12

DHfan

18th Jan 2024, 08:52

That was probably the Ashton 2 which was allocated to Rolls-Royce. The forward fuselage survives at the Newark Aviation Museum.

Planemike

18th Jan 2024, 09:32

Vague memory suggests that an Ambassador/Elizabethan and I think an Avro Tudor amongst them. Then I could be wrong! Anyone know the history? Ambassador 1 G-AKRD passed to Rolls Royce at Hucknall in December 55. it first flew as the RR Tyne testbed in August 58 marked G-37-3. It was used as a RR Dart testbed in 61. Scrapped at Hucknall in October 69.

chevvron

18th Jan 2024, 12:35

Not forgetting the Royal Jordanian Air Force example (ex G-ALZP) - not sure if it ever actually got to Jordan, pic looks like Heathrow:

https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/796x553/rjaf_ambassador_cef274e4963a07612a0b648f2941d3b326016228.jpg

https://www.airlinefan.com/airline-photos/Royal-Jordanian-Air-Force/Airspeed/AS.57-Ambassador/107/5170550/
I saw it overhead Chesham (just west of Bovingdon) heading west in about 1960 at about 10,000ft; I could see the 'unusual' roundels on it. The route was roughly the same as the Yorks operating out of Luton at that time but where the Ambassador came from I have no idea.

Prangster

18th Jan 2024, 13:15

Ambassador 1 G-AKRD passed to Rolls Royce at Hucknall in December 55. it first flew as the RR Tyne testbed in August 58 marked G-37-3. It was used as a RR Dart testbed in 61. Scrapped at Hucknall in October 69.
Thanks planemike glad to know some of my memory still hangs on. Didnt realize the Ashton hung on that long it must only have been scrapped when I went to work for RR in 1969

chevvron

18th Jan 2024, 16:31

Boscombe's Ashton lasted until about 1965.

OUAQUKGF Ops

19th Jan 2024, 09:07

https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/875x650/fuah056wqaaimz_amb_test_rig_down_350b9200cf33833e4b31a4430fa 4b448e2acc3ce.jpg
G-37-3 (G-AKRD) Dart Test Bed Icing Spray Grid. Photo Hucknall Flight Test Museum.

https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/875x655/44228394_1973588846273357_2979494073947127808_n_amb_down_1fd 30144dceb7605d768b8ca06b3b2c2d93724a6.jpg
G-37-3 (G-AKRD) Dart Test Bed. Photo Hucknall Flight Test Museum (Mike Downy Collection).

https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/750x601/g_akrd_proteus_5f3366db4da3c377306d7df9fd73b98b092a470c.png
G-AKRD Bristol Proteus Test Bed 1954. Photo RAF Museum.

https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/875x423/screenshot_2024_01_21_at_20_09_53_proteus_ambassador_g_akrd_ bing_ef00ac822471f09a04387745f38dcb9db213b861.png

G-AKRD Bristol Proteus. Farnborough 1954. Photo credit as captioned via Mike West with thanks.

https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/750x591/royal_aeronautical_society_airspeed_as57_ambassador_producti on_prototype_g_alfr_a7ac630e284b2364fd8078db3af999aaca5ebacc .png
G-ALFR First Production Prototype Ambassador 2. First flew May 1950. Photo RAES.

https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/850x571/screenshot_2024_01_18_at_17_00_41_christchurch_pt3_pdf_reduc ed_31d46186039ef370d4b1d64fce1363d55f86cd26.png
G-ALFR Landing accident at Christchurch whilst assessing handling with new CofG forward limits 13 November 1950.

https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/850x560/screenshot_2024_01_18_at_17_02_11_christchurch_pt3_pdf_reduc ed_63fabcc3dbbc4cc5cef3189deb48d9cbc4749c04.png
Images: Airspeed Limited.

https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/716x426/eco2h8rxyaett2m_napier_amb_b710e8930350e07a602877f60d2549843 32d8c91.jpg
G-ALFR Napier Eland Test Bed Farnborough 1955.

https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/800x534/galzrsou27jun1959ronroberts2_reduced2_9d8318d249cd416fa06dad 70ad488bc4ba43c463.jpg
G-37- 4 (G-ALZR) Tyne Test Bed at Southampton June 1959. This Ambassador was with Rolls Royce from 1957-1963 and then sold to BKS.
Photo Ron Roberts via Barry Friend with thanks.

brakedwell

19th Jan 2024, 09:23

They seemed to use all types to test engines in those days. I was flying a Vampire 5 out of Swinderby in 1957 and on reaching about FL 310 I saw a DC3 ahead of me! Closing in, I could see it had two Turbo prop engines fitted, but I couldn't see what type as I didn't want to get too close.

Jhieminga

19th Jan 2024, 10:38

RR Darts, like this:

https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/940x749/4_10_5564241698a49c4e3646eea7f87aaedc36831f8b.png
From: https://www.britairliners.org/airliners-article?title=a-history-of-engine-testbeds&id=30

G-ALXN and G-AMDB were converted to Dart power and operated as freighters by BEA, providing them with some very valuable RR Dart experience prior to the Viscount entering service. See here for more: http://aviationtrivia. bl*gsp*t .com/2010/03/while-vickers-viscount-and-its-rolls.html (fill in the blanks... remove the spaces).