The Vanguard - why was it not?

[Mr Oleo Strut]

I could never understand why, after Vicker's success with the Viscount, that the Vanguard was not equally successful. It looked the part but just never seemed to cut the mustard. Any views from those in the know?

[DaveReidUK]

I could never understand why, after Vicker's success with the Viscount, that the Vanguard was not equally successful. It looked the part but just never seemed to cut the mustard. Any views from those in the know?

Long thread on the Vanguard here

http://www.pprune.org/aviation-history-nostalgia/374573-vanguard.html

which includes some discussion about the competitiveness of a large turboprop that was launched just as the world was starting to switch to shorthaul jets.

[Mr Oleo Strut]

Many thanks, DaveReiduk, very interesting.

[Flybiker7000]

Wasn't aerial transportation much about the Atlantic and for the Brits the far east?
With a range of about the half of the quite older DC-7 it might have been suited for the later popular European leisure use wich yet had not developed enough at the introduction :-/
However, the few built was kept flying for 35 years, hence they did find a spot to fullfill (as cargofreighter)!

[scotbill]

Basically, it arrived late in 1961 - after the Comet. The latter was an emergency purchase as BEA realised that the public wanted shiny jets even on short sectors in Europe.

In fact the Vanguard carried 139 passengers on short sectors at competitive block times. e.g Glasgow-LHR was scheduled at 1.15 hrs as against 1.25 or 1.30 for today's jets.

For such a bluff shape it had a Vne of 300 - 331 kts IAS and it is said that Vickers test pilots preferred its handling to the Valiant above 400Kts IAS!

All that on manual controls (with tabs)

[brakedwell]

For such a bluff shape it had a Vne of 300 - 331 kts IAS and it is said that Vickers test pilots preferred its handling to the Valiant above 400Kts IAS!

That is surprising. The more slippery Britannia Vne was only 288Kts/.65 Mach.

[PAXboy]

'timing is everything'

During my 27 years in Telecommunications, I saw this kind of bad timing a lot. You would see an incremental development of a particular technology and be really impressed. But, 12/24 months later there would be a leap frog moment and something so big arrived that - even with it's limitations - it would sweep all before it.

One very small scale example: After audio cassette, we got MiniDisc because CD was still expensive and could not be customer recorded except at great expense. The sound quality was very high and it was flexible. Then the MP3 arrived, with lower quality but it was smaller and easier to handle.

[staircase]

I often thought that they should have used it for the Nimrod' rather than the Comet.

That double bubble fuselage and the advantages props would give you low level for endurance.

[Heathrow Harry]

IIRC it was rather noisy and uncomfortable AND it was operated by BEA who were a grim airline TBH

Everyone else went for jets (oil was $1 a bbl) and it was toast

[DaveReidUK]

IIRC it was rather noisy and uncomfortable AND it was operated by BEA who were a grim airline TBH

It was a great aeroplane operated by a great airline.

Although I might be slightly biased on both counts. :O

[Mr Oleo Strut]

Very interesting responses, Prunesters. Could similar comments apply to the Short (lived) Belfast and Britannia, which again seemed to be fine aircraft which never achieved their potential? I suppose that current aircraft and car design mitigates against such small production runs, hence the long lines of very good but similar cars and planes these days. Perhaps that is progress after all.

[Croqueteer]

:ok:Spot on staircase. The problem was that when the Shack replacment was being decided, the Vanguard jigs had been destroyed.

[Chris Scott]

As every schoolboy knew at the time, BEA's Vanguard was killed off on the LON-EDI and LON-GLA by BUA's pocket rocket, the BAC 1-11/200. (Only joking, finncapt!) First saw an artist's impression of the Vanguard with one of those great Flight cutaways circa-1958, and fell in love with it.

FWIW, I posted this (http://www.pprune.org/tech-log/341907-competent-but-too-big-2.html#post4434612) in 2008 in a thread I called "Competent - but too big?"

As a cadet at Perth, I sometimes used the midnight EDI-LHR service to head home for the weekend (£3/10/- ?). With the boring flight being almost empty (and virtually no interruptions from the cabin crew...), what sticks in my mind is the wave of noise coming slowly along the cabin as the fuselage resonated from the slight de-synchronisation of the props.

Must look in the cockpit at Brooklands sometime, to see if the cockpit shares as much with the VC10 internally as externally.

[Discorde]

the wave of noise coming slowly along the cabin as the fuselage resonated from the slight de-synchronisation of the props

The aircraft was fitted with a 'synchrophaser'. Besides adjusting prop pitch to equalise RPMs (no. 3 was the master IIRC) we were told it was supposed to interlace the blades to reduce vibration further but that might be a myth. Sometimes the synchrophaser actually worked.

[surely not]

This was my fathers favourite aeroplane. He managed as a passenger to travel at least once in all the BEA machines, and clocked up 71 Vanguard flights in around a 6-7 years period. These flights were mainly LHR-MAN-LHR and LHR-GLA-LHR, but also managed to include DUB, BRU, EDI and LPL.

Apparently the thing to do when boarding was to head for the rear stairs and turn a sharp right on entering as this was where the 2 config aircraft had the 'F' class seats. He has always been very complimentary about the ride and noise levels and preferred it to the BAC 1-11 srs 510 that replaced them with BEA.

Whilst working at LGW I met a Captain who as a claim to fame had managed to break all 4 Tyne engines on an Air Bridge Merchantman. I'm sure he said he'd melted them, but it was long ago so that might not be an accurate memory.

[Old-Duffer]

It may be a You-Tube clip but I have seen somewhere a video of the last Vanguard landings at Brooklands, Wisley or some such. Quite exciting as I recall!!!

O-D

[DaveReidUK]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fmakSwlYLs0

[El Bunto]

Must look in the cockpit at Brooklands sometime, to see if the cockpit shares as much with the VC10 internally as externally..It is marvellous, it's like being on the bridge of a ship; spacious and with a wrap-around view. Such a contrast to the cramped Viscount cockpit ( and apparently the Herald was even tighter ). One instrument that stuck in my mind was the gauge that indicated aircraft weight, based on compression of the main gear; a clever cross-check for paper calculations.

On the newspaper runs into Belfast the Merchantman carried the full load in the immense lower cargo holds, which was handy for the rampers since they could unload from ground-level.

[Stan Woolley]

If anyone's interested, a chapter of my book Who'd Marry a Pilot? is about my time with Air Bridge Carriers and my time on the Vanguard. It includes memories of the sim at East Midlands, the Smiths flight director (Unknown to all except the inventor) and various memories of people and flights that I had, a pic too! It's only available as an ebook on Amazon, and has seven out of eight five star reviews.

[WHBM]

All the "big" 4-engined prop aircraft designed/introduced in the late 1950s were poor sales performers. The piston aircraft were worse - American took DC7s in 1957-58 which only lasted for 5 years and they could never resell them - they were scrapped in the early 1960s.

One of BEA's issues was that most of their European competitors went for the Caravelle. That was a jet, and in 1960 that was it. Actually the Caravelle, like the Comet, was a fairly slow jet, but no matter.

The Vanguard was also rather large for its time. Yes the theoretical accountants looked at seat-mile costs, but it was very difficult to sell 140 seats on short haul, all day, every day, in 1960, and indeed even 20 years later aircraft on its routes tended to have lesser capacity.

The issue with the 707/DC8 generation of jets was they were twice as large, twice as fast, and needed half the maintenance downtime as anything that had gone before, so they sucked up a huge amount of potential capacity, even on medium-haul routes, especially in the USA, which had been a good market for the Viscount. This carried on for some years being economical for 300-500 mile runs, but the Vanguard was just too big.

Vickers sales teams were also not that well organised. There were few direct competitions between the Vanguard and the Electra, but one was in Australia. Vickers thought all they needed to do was get HMG in London to lean on the Australian Government in Canberra (or even Australia House in London, not bothering to make the trip out there). Lockheed made a big sales play, appropriate and different for each operator, understood that financing, training, spares and support were more important than just the original purchase decision, had done a good support job with Qantas on their Constellations (which apparently could not always be said about Vickers and the domestic Viscounts in Australia) and made a single sale in one hit all across Qantas, TAA, Ansett and TEAL in New Zealand (and influenced a little colonial carrier nobody else bothered with called Cathay Pacific, who had a lot of Australian contacts).

I've questioned elsewhere why the Vanguard was so noisy (and apparently vibration-loaded as well). We lived in The Wirral near the WAL VOR when they held down the Heathrow-Belfast service, and they were readily audible from the ground. In Edinburgh I've stood at the castle in the city centre and heard them manoeuvring out at Turnhouse. I've also been inside the (old) terminal at Turnhouse when one was coming on stand outside, all conversation had to stop. I've always blamed the (De Havilland) square-ended props, as opposed to the (Dowty) rounded ones on the Britannia. Unlike the Britannia, the Vanguard was certainly no "whispering giant".

[Discorde]

I've questioned elsewhere why the Vanguard was so noisy

Much of the noise derived from the compressors for the cabin pressurisation, driven by engines 2 & 3. IIRC On the Merchantman only eng 3 drove a compressor which theoretically should have meant less noise but I don't recall whether this occurred in practice.

Like the Trident, the Vanguard was over-complex engineering-wise. For example, the props, engine intakes and tail leading edges were anti-iced electrically, the engines internally by bleed air and the wing leading edges by hot air generated by heat exchangers taking in ambient air and warming it using exhaust gases.

Ditto the Trident: converting from the T-bird on to the 737 we were surprised to learn that, in contrast to the highly complex anti-icing system on the former's tail surfaces, the tail of the Boeing was not anti-iced at all.

[philbky]

Having had a good number of Vanguard flights between Manchester and London in the 1960s ("Student" standby fare one way for under 23s was £2/10/6d) I would confirm a good number of the points raised. The vibration seemed to travel down the roof from front to rear in waves, particularly in the climb. At one stage, around 1963, there was a period when the engines were desynchronised at the top of climb and the aircraft seemed to hang in the air. The rear cabin was certainly the place to head for in the period of unallocated seats, unless moderate turbulence was on the menu.

As for noise on the ground, Vanguards taxying at Manchester were regularly heard in Heaton Moor, Stockport, around 6.5 miles as the Vanguard flew.

[Flybiker7000]

VHBM wrote:
I've always blamed the (De Havilland) square-ended props, as opposed to the (Dowty) rounded ones on the Britannia

Studys of wind turbine noise have revealed that radial curved 'spade like' wingtips are more silent :-/

[evansb]

"...more silent"? Do you mean "less noisy" ? That said, the Vanguard was a qualified success for Trans Canada Airlines, especially on the high-density Toronto-Ottawa-Montreal corridor. The "Mudguard" was a good stop-gap while awaiting the DC-9. Air Canada's selection of the DC-9 also offered a few aerospace jobs, as some DC-9 components were built in Canada, something no British-built jetliner could offer.

[ICT_SLB]

IIRC the TCA Vanguards also suffered from leaking toilets that caused some corrosion. When I joined the BAC Design Office at Hurn, one of the structural engineers' claim to fame was that he'd done the on-site repair schemes.

[DaveReidUK]

IIRC the TCA Vanguards also suffered from leaking toilets that caused some corrosion.

That was also the likely cause of the loss of a BEA Vanguard in 1971, where corrosion led to rupture of the rear pressure bulkhead.

[Groundloop]

As for noise on the ground, Vanguards taxying at Manchester were regularly heard in Heaton Moor, Stockport, around 6.5 miles as the Vanguard flew.

The Electra was pretty noisy as well. Regularly heard them taxying at Bournemouth from over 4 miles away. Even today can sometimes hear the ATP.

[Skipness One Foxtrot]

On school nights I well remember the AK650 out of GLA-EMA going over the house some 20+ miles from GLA, it was a very distinctive and rare sound by the 90s.

[POBJOY]

I seem to recall that in addition to all said before there were issues with the RR Tyne engine and that was just 'another' issue too many for it to be a Viscount replacement;as the new 'Jets' had more sales appeal.
Having said that i do not know if it was ever even considered as a UK 'Orion'.
I suspect the engine issues were the straw they did not need.
Its all in 'Trubbs' book. I forgot it also had some unpleasant stalling issues and was not considered to handle like the Viscount.

[DaveReidUK]

Having said that i do not know if it was ever even considered as a UK 'Orion'.
I suspect the engine issues were the straw they did not need.

Though that didn't stop the French and Germans powering both their MPA and tactical transport fleets with the Tyne.

Its all in 'Trubbs' book.What book is that, out of interest?

[wigglyamp]

The Tyne certainly wasn't reliable compared to modern turboprops. In my time at AirBridge (avionics engineer), I think we normally managed at best 1100-1200 hours on the wing between shop visits - and that meant sending them to MTU in Germany as Rolls Royce had transferred design and support to them.

[POBJOY]

The book is Brian Trubshaw Test Pilot

A very good read and covers most of the major 'Vickers' aircraft and of course Concorde.
He pulls no punches on the machines and is quite outspoken on the various 'problems' encountered.
His reports on the Valiant, BAC111 and VC10 are comprehensive,and the account of the Vanguard certification meeting with the ARB quite entertaining.

The Tyne engine gave problems from the start and no doubt RR were pleased to pass it on.

[evansb]

...yet the Ilyushin IL-18 was widely exported and is considered one of the most durable and successful Soviet-era airliners.

In the mid-1980's, I was a passenger on a Holquin to Havana Cubana IL-18 flight. It was comfortable, roomy and reasonably fast.

[India Four Two]

It was comfortable, roomy and reasonably fast.

...and made smoke like a B-52! :) I used to see one belonging to Vietnam Airlines back in the 90s.