Vickers Viscount
Joined: Jan 2006
Aviation Qualifications: PPL
Posts: 313
Likes: 14
From: Lancashire
I found a couple of snaps I took at Ringway, early sixties, a 'plane mad schoolboy. My only flight in the Viscount was a day trip Gib to Tangier return in 1979, Gibair I think.
Joined: Nov 2005
Aviation Qualifications: PPL
Posts: 12,458
Likes: 368
From: Wildest Surrey
Everyone's probably hear this before, but it was only Gibair until some wag climbed up one night and painted 'Yo' in front of the 'Gibair', thereafter they re-named it 'GB Airways'. I think the use of GB was also to annoy the Spanish.(but then I'm probably wrong)
Plastic PPRuNer
Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 1,902
Likes: 0
From: Rochechouart, France
Fond memories of the Viscount. Had my first flight in one as an unaccompanied minor aged 8 from LHR to Geneva - probably in '57 or '58
Flight deck visit and spoiled by the crew, very memorable for a small boy.
Deaf as a post for hours afterwards I remember.
Lots of flights GVA-LHR-GVA as a child - first the Viscount, then the Vanguard, then the 707, the Trident, 990 Coronado, VC10 - nostalgia!
Edited to add: Whoops! Forgot the Comet! How could I?
Flight deck visit and spoiled by the crew, very memorable for a small boy.
Deaf as a post for hours afterwards I remember.
Lots of flights GVA-LHR-GVA as a child - first the Viscount, then the Vanguard, then the 707, the Trident, 990 Coronado, VC10 - nostalgia!
Edited to add: Whoops! Forgot the Comet! How could I?
Red On, Green On
Joined: May 2004
Posts: 6,490
Likes: 2
From: Between the woods and the water
Slightly off at a tangent, but here is a scan of my father's daily order book for HMS Hardy the day after the Aer Lingus Viscount crashed in the St Georges Channel. There has been speculation that a rogue missile from Aberporth caused the crash.
Cool Mod
Joined: Apr 1998
Posts: 6,189
Likes: 0
From: 18nm N of LGW
It was a cracking aeroplane. I very much looked forward to leave home from Germany on a trooping flight, on a Viscount, and the trip back to Gutersloh.
Also flew from ABZ to LGW ocassionally. Ah! Sweet memories.
Also flew from ABZ to LGW ocassionally. Ah! Sweet memories.
Joined: Nov 2005
Aviation Qualifications: PPL
Posts: 12,458
Likes: 368
From: Wildest Surrey
Went past Brooklands on the train last tuesday (going to see Arsenal vs Wigan, but that's another story) and the Viscount there looked resplendent in it's BAF colour scheme.
Joined: Feb 2006
Posts: 43
Likes: 1
From: Bath
Gregers - AZNA not BFZL was the only Viscount to be painted in the all-blue scheme (perhaps a spotterish thing to point out; I beg to be classified an enthusiast!).
I spent 2 student summers as an aircraft cleaner at East Midlands (£2/hour as I recall) and have happy (?) memories being 'bog man for the day', which involved teetering down Viscount steps, big galvanised bucket in hand, to pour contents into bigger bucket on the back of the bog wagon. AZNA had an upmarket 'bucket' (part of the paintjob) incorporating a flush...
Too much detail here perhaps.
AZNA was joined by BAPF and BMAT as the last gasp of the BMA Viscount fleet. (There was a super article in Propliner sometime later following AZNA's departure, chronicling 21 years of BMA Viscount ops - or was it 21 Viscounts in total ...).
I remember being fascinated by PF's asymmetric tailplane - the trailling edge met the tailcone at slightly different points (I don't remember seeing this on any of the others). Why - propwash, or spare-parts-itis?
The sound of 4 darts was part of my growing up - the Heralds and F27s just didn't have that richness of timbre.
I spent 2 student summers as an aircraft cleaner at East Midlands (£2/hour as I recall) and have happy (?) memories being 'bog man for the day', which involved teetering down Viscount steps, big galvanised bucket in hand, to pour contents into bigger bucket on the back of the bog wagon. AZNA had an upmarket 'bucket' (part of the paintjob) incorporating a flush...
Too much detail here perhaps.
AZNA was joined by BAPF and BMAT as the last gasp of the BMA Viscount fleet. (There was a super article in Propliner sometime later following AZNA's departure, chronicling 21 years of BMA Viscount ops - or was it 21 Viscounts in total ...).
I remember being fascinated by PF's asymmetric tailplane - the trailling edge met the tailcone at slightly different points (I don't remember seeing this on any of the others). Why - propwash, or spare-parts-itis?
The sound of 4 darts was part of my growing up - the Heralds and F27s just didn't have that richness of timbre.
