BOAC Comet

[joy ride]

When I was 2 years old my Dad was posted to Montevideo and we all moved over on the SS Highland Brigade. 1 or 2 years later, according to my parents, we flew back to England for a holiday on a BOAC Comet, this would have been 1957 or 1958. I can remember a flight on a small propeller plane and the flight in a big jet airliner. Perhaps we took a plane from Carrasco to Rio and thence back to London.

Just curiosity, but does anyone know if this sounds right, and if so, would the Comet flight have been direct to London or stopping along the way?

Incidentally, we sailed back to Montevideo on the Blue Star liner Argentina Star, then moved back to UK sailing on the Louis Lumiere and returning to a unheated summer house on the south coast in the winter of 62/63, that was a real shock!

[DaveReidUK]

Just curiosity, but does anyone know if this sounds right, and if so, would the Comet flight have been direct to London or stopping along the way?Could be right - BOAC introduced the Comet 4 in late 1958. South America services typically stopped at Dakar and Recife, certainly not non-stop.

[Chris Scott]

Regret to say that the timing is not quite right - could it have been 1959? I don't have any BOAC timetables for 1958, but the first-ever BOAC Comet 4 revenue flights were operated between London and New York (both ways, simultaneously, non-stop) on 03OCT1958, preceding the Pan American B707 schedules by a few weeks.

IIRC, services on the London-Johannesburg route started in mid or late 1959, but I've no info on London-Rio. Perhaps WHBM will be able to shed some light.

[DaveReidUK]

Regret to say that the timing is not quite right - could it have been 1959?Further investigation reveals that BOAC restarted South American services (after a 5-year break) on 25th January 1960, so the OP's timing must indeed be out by a year or two.

Good article here: boac | south american | 1960 | 0037 | Flight Archive (http://www.flightglobal.com/pdfarchive/view/1960/1960%20-%200037.html)

[joy ride]

Many thanks folks, I am just trying to piece together my childhood memories, and parents' memories; however my dad has lost his, and my mother's is fine but not great on planes! However, I do remember both parents sometimes referring to a trip in a Comet. Dave Reid's interesting article refers to Comet 4s on the South Atlantic route, and that is in accordance with my memory.

The photo in that article is EXACTLY the view I remember seeing out of a window... I loved the look of the wing tanks and wondered if they were for extra passengers, and if so I wanted a go in one!

Thinking further, I reckon our Comet flight quite likely WAS in 1960: the holiday in England was roughly in the middle of a 4-5 year posting, which ended in '62.

I remember a day in Lisbon (trams!), another in Rio (cable car up to the statue of Jesus!), and going to Sao Paolo at least once, but I cannot recall which of these were part of sea or air crossings. Taking a smallish
propeller plane from Sao Paulo to Montevideo/Carrasco "feels" right in my mind. Carrasco Airport was incredibly exciting to me, we could get close to planes, I particularly liked DC3s in PLUNA livery.

Lisbon Airport might well have been the location for my little escapade which caused chaos, and which was my main reason for asking about Comet routes:

we were in the airport restaurant waiting for a delayed flight and suddenly got a call to go to the plane as quickly as possible. A few minutes later, as we all started climbing up the steps to the Comet, I suddenly remembered that in our haste I had left my sausage roll behind. I ran off across the apron to try to find it. I took everyone by surprise and had already got a fair distance from the plane then became aware of a crowd of people chasing after me shouting wildly. This, of course, made me run a lot faster and further, and I vaguely remember a scene of desperate chaos as I ran off along the taxiway.

I remember being told that this occurred at Rome Airport but know that this was very unlikely for our journey, and I have always wondered where it might have been. Lisbon sounds right!
Thanks all, a lot of niggling questions and memories now seem to be resolved, much appreciated!

[Allan Lupton]

Quote
Good article here: boac | south american | 1960 | 0037 | Flight Archive (http://www.flightglobal.com/pdfarchive/view/1960/1960%20-%200037.html)

Those who don't know may be interested to learn that the author, Alastair Pugh, is not only still around, but still driving his Frazer Nash BMW in competitions.
He was about 10 years ahead of me as a de Havilland apprentice - and during my time I worked in "106 Fuse. Shop" and "106 Wing" on those Comet 4s in 1958 or so. When Joy Ride looked at the pinion tank, some of my work (on the slotted fillet inboard of the tank) would have been part of the view!

[Chris Scott]

Hi joy ride, my first view of the pinion tank from the cabin was also in 1960.

Interesting that the Flight article was by Alastair Pugh; presumably the same Mr Pugh who rose to be Managing Director of British Caledonian under Adam Thomson. His analysis of the problems facing BOAC's resumption of ops on the (eastern) South American route proved to be well founded. Did they ever code-share with Aerolineas Argentinas's Comet 4Cs?

In 1964 BOAC relinquished the route to route-starved BUA (British United), which IIRC claimed to make a small profit in 1965, despite operating the much larger VC10 with fewer stops than BOAC. BCAL inherited the route when Caledonian bought BUA in 1970/71, and continued to operate it. AFAIK, the route was never really profitable, and loads into Santiago were worryingly low. Politics, coups and currency instability became an increasing headache.

[IIRC, the VC10 either operated LGW-LIS-LPA-GIG-VCP-EZE-SCL (some services terminating at Sao Paulo), or LGW-MAD-FNA-EZE-SCL.** Stops at LIS or MAD were only to attract Spanish and Portuguese traffic, whereas Las Palmas was effectively a tech-stop - but with traffic rights, IIRC. Later, LPA was replaced with CMN, but the VC10 rarely managed the outbound CMN-GIG leg without tech-stopping at REC. Once traffic rights were obtained, Recife became an official stop on some services. In 1975, the B707-320 took over, and was easily capable of CMN-GIG. But Recife was retained on some rotations for its useful traffic.]

** GIG = Rio Galeao, VCP = Campinas-Viracopos (Sao Paulo), EZE = Buenos Aires. SCL = Santiago, FNA = Freetown, CMN = Casablanca (Nouasseur).

PS [Edit]:
Hello Allan,
Just seen your post. That's definitely the same Alastair Pugh!

[joy ride]

Great stuff, many thanks! Ours was definitely BOAC not AA; the BOAC logo on the pinion tank caught my eye as it looked very smart. Seeing the photo of Alan's handiwork seen from inside also solved another niggling mystery: why, at about 4 or 5 years old, did I think the tanks were on the wing tips, but all photos which I have seen (shot from the outside) show them inset a fair way from the tips? Because from inside you can barely make out the wing tips beyond the pinion tanks!

Thinking again about it, perhaps we did go from Montevideo in a Comet and the flight in a small propeller plane was on a different occasion. Still, very happy to make sense of it all, many thanks!