BOAC Comet 4 memories and memorabilia

[WHBM]

East African leased BOAC Comets as well, both short-term and long-term. When the BOAC fleet was withdrawn East African continued to lease in Comets when their own were on checks from Dan-Air, in the Eurpean winter - to whom they eventually sold their own fleet.

[ZFT]

Originally Posted by rog747

BOAC Comet 4
empire routes leases to flag carriers

I have seen photos of BOAC Comets with Qantas, Air Ceylon and Kuwait AW titles - were there any other Empire flag carriers that BOAC flew for with their Comet 4?
was Malayan one of them too?


BOAC Britannia and VC10's had EAAC BWIA Malayan Ghana Nigeria Air Ceylon with either stickers or titles/emblems/flags

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I thought Ghana and Nigeria VC10s were their own aircraft?

[gruntie]

Originally Posted by ZFT

​​​​​​
I thought Ghana and Nigeria VC10s were their own aircraft?

Ghana was their own: they ordered 3, operated one, leased one to MEA which was destroyed shortly afterwards at Beirut, and cancelled the third which was taken up by British United.

Nigeria did both: leased one from BOAC and then bought one from them, which they crashed.

East African had five Supers, never chartered or borrowed, so I don’t know how that came about. See previous post no. 26 for their Comet useage. They did charter more than one Britannia, but only one at a time. They were left in BOAC livery with the Speedbird on the tail changed to the Flying Lion, and the fuselage titles changed to ‘EAAC’ just by changing the ‘BO’.

[Jhieminga]

Ghana operated two until 1967, when the second one was leased to MEA with which it flew for over a year until destroyed at Beirut.
Nigeria also operated services using BOAC aircraft with stickers, almost from the first day of BOAC VC10 operations.

[WHBM]

Nigeria Airways (and predecessor West African) had a longstanding arrangement with BOAC to operate lightly-rebadged leased aircraft, going back to the Stratocruiser, then Britannia, Comet 4, 707 and VC-10. They then bought one of the BOAC Standard VC-10s, but it crashed only 7 weeks after delivery, and they went back to leasing.

As this is a Comet thread, here's the joint BOAC/Nigerian timetable for 1962, an interesting time as it shows all of Britannia, Comet and 707 leased to Nigerian (flight prefix WT) on London to Lagos

http://www.timetableimages.com/ttima...62/ba62-41.jpg

[treadigraph]

East African had five Supers, never chartered or borrowed, so I don’t know how that came about.

Just been re-reading Brian Trubshaw's auto-biography; he says East African's VC10s were repossessed by BAC/BAe for non-payment and he helped ferry them back to the UK. He happened to mention this to the right pair of RAF ears who said "they may be just what I'm looking for!"

[Jhieminga]

The EAA Super VC10s were not purchased outright, but were taken on in a lease-purchase deal. The delivery of the first EAA VC10 was actually delayed for an hour as not all the guarantees for the deal were in place. Indeed the remaining four VC10s were flown back to the UK when EAA folded, with Trubshaw flying along on one of the ferry flights. 5H-MMT was then used after its return to do some training flights so that Trubshaw's (and Eddie MacNamara's) VC10 type rating could be revalidated.

[WHBM]

The Nigerian VC-10 was ex-BOAC, but crew support does not seem to have been included in the deal, as British United were then contracted to provide this. It was a BUA crew on this secondment who were handling the aircraft when it was lost with all on board.

[Chris Scott]

Originally Posted by WHBM

The Nigerian VC-10 was ex-BOAC, but crew support does not seem to have been included in the deal, as British United were then contracted to provide this. It was a BUA crew on this secondment who were handling the aircraft when it was lost with all on board.

That's interesting, WHBM, but what is your source of information? My understanding is that the F/E and Nav were on secondment from BUA, but the captain and co-pilot had recently become employees of Nigeria Airways and had never worked for BUA. I suppose it's possible that BUA could have been involved in handling their recruitment to Nigeria Airways. Perhaps Jhieminga will shed further light:

Nigeria Airways and the VC10

[Brit312]

[QUOTE=Chris Scott;10141252]That's interesting, WHBM, but what is your source of information? My understanding is that the F/E and Nav were on secondment from BUA, but the captain and co-pilot had recently become employees of Nigeria Airways and had never worked for BUA. I suppose it's possible that BUA could have been involved in handling their recruitment to Nigeria Airways. Perhaps Jhieminga will shed further light:



Well i can confirm that the Captain of this flight was ex BOAC as I flew with him on this route some 5 months before the crash . He retired from BOAC and joined Nigeria Airways shortly afterwards.

When working in the hangar on BOAC Comet 4s we also handled EAA Comets which were a real pain, because unlike BOAC's aircraft, EAA always came in highly polished , so you had to carry extra rags around with you to whip off your oily finger prints.

[Jhieminga]

I cannot add much more than what's in the link Chris Scott posted I'm afraid. That page is a direct quote from Scott Henderson's 'Silent, Swift, Superb' book, I'd have to ask him where he got his information from. The E/O and Navigator were indeed both on secondment from BUA, their stories are on this page: VC10 Characters

[Georgeablelovehowindia]

Originally Posted by Jhieminga

I cannot add much more than what's in the link Chris Scott posted I'm afraid. That page is a direct quote from Scott Henderson's 'Silent, Swift, Superb' book, I'd have to ask him where he got his information from. The E/O and Navigator were indeed both on secondment from BUA, their stories are on this page: VC10 Characters

Also from this site, more detail: Nigeria Airways and the VC10
What is more sad is that a passenger on this flight was Captain Ron Hartley, a few weeks after retiring from BOAC, who was travelling out to take up a position as Flight Ops Director Nigeria Airways.