Don't know what happened to Clive, but have a little more info on those two Viscount accidents.
G-ARBY accident details (belly landing near Exeter in 1980)
http://aviation-safety.net/database/...?id=19800717-0
Photo of G-ARBY from the accident report:
http://www.baaa-acro.com/photos/G-ARBY.jpg
Photo of G-ARBY from the accident report:
http://www.baaa-acro.com/photos/G-ARBY.jpg
Better quality photos of G-ARBY after the accident at this link below - under the "Registration" drop down menu, click on G-ARBY, and then go to to page 8 of 9 and 9 of 9 when you find G-ARBY. Incidentally, this is an excellent site for information and photos of all Viscounts - with detailed histories of every Viscount built (under the "Listings" section):
http://www.vickersviscount.net/Pages...CNGallery.aspx
G-BFYZ Guernsey Airlines Viscount accident at Kirkwall
http://aviation-safety.net/database/...1025-0&lang=en
The VickersViscount.Net website says that the cabin interior was removed from G-BFYZ a month after the accident, and installed in the G-BDRC, which
became the next Guernsey Airlines aircraft, named "Sarnia II" (G-BFYZ was named "Sarnia". On 13 August 1980, the remains of G-BFYZ were transported to East Midlands Airport and after spares recovery, the aircraft was broken up.
Photo of 'YZ after the accident at this link below - under the "Registration" drop down menu, click on G-BFYZ, and then go to to page 6 of 6 when you find G-BFYZ:
http://www.vickersviscount.net/Pages...CNGallery.aspx
There is also information available in the official AAIB accident report:
"Report on the accident to Vickers Viscount 735 G-BFYZ at Kirkwall Airport, Orkney Islands on 25 October 1979"
Published by HMSO in 1981
ISBN: 0115134972
Regards,
David Eyre

You David, are amazing!!!!

"Wild Bill" was the F/O on the Exeter Viscount crash. His name was Bill Hiccox. The only person I ever met with a Silver C on viscounts!!!

From what I can recall the Exeter Viscount incident would be better named the Ottery St Mary Viscount incident as the aircraft came to rest some 10 miles out from Exeter in the area of Ottery St Mary. Seem to recall it was a Brittany Ferries charter to bring some passengers back to UK from Santander due to delays with a ferry into Plymouth. Overhead Jersey the captain was told the fuel was marginal for Exeter but decided to push on.......and nearly made it.
`There are old pilots and there are bold pilots.....there are no old bold pilots`

There was definately a fuel error on re-fueling at Bilbao but he obviously tried to strech it!

Both incidents
 

My claim to infamy is that I was at Kirkwall stripping parts from YZ, when we heard the newsflash about BY. I end up a few weeks later at Farnbough robbing parts from her.

I flew on Skytrain to New York in 1979 and the Captains name was Clive Hartley. I had known him from BM days but stupidly didn't ask if it was the same one.

A story of Clive ... I was in the jumpseat of a 1-11 from EMA to Glasgow about 1970, the Captain was Clive Hartley and the F/O Norman Brewitt. Just as we were touching down at Glasgow Norman leant over and said to Clive 'This landing is going to be like a silkworm's fart' so Clive was trying to land at the same time as trying not to wet himself with laughing and Norman's prediction came true.

Nice seeing the Ace Freighters Constellation. There used to be a guy who was a Manager for them at Glasgow called Robbie Tomsett ... does anyone know this name and have any idea what became of him?

Prentice Banner Towing
 

As a sprog living in South London i well remember seeing the Prentice towing around the area ' LAMBTEX LUXURY RUGS ' was one of the messages; that is quite short and possibly not too much of a strain for the beast.
Many Many years later i was whirling a prop around on an old radial engine at Redhill when Stuart felt the need to point out that i had no chocks in place,which led me to point out it had no plugs in place either !!!.
Janet used to be one of the regulars at Jocks airshows around the Country.
At the time i think Lambtex was the only aircraft operating Banner Towing in the UK so it did not cause much of a scandal when it was stopped (due to commercial TV i believe) we got it back in 84/85 but very few operators now.

Clive Hartley
 

Clive Died several years ago I was told he had a heart attack

Correct. The Santander-Plymouth RORO ship had broken down in harbour, and Alidair got a rush job from its operator to move the passengers. The aircraft positioned down to Santander, and then was detailed for two trips to Exeter, returning empty after the first trip. The accident happened at the end of the second trip. There had been a crew change at Exeter, but I don't believe this was an Alidair base so the accident crew had possibly driven down from the Midlands. Both northwards flights were full, so not certain if further rotations were planned.

I also seem to recall recall that both the fuel gauges were deferred, and that fuel gauges on this 700 series Viscount were regarded as a bit of a hopeless case. On this flight they regularly fluctuated from full to empty and back again as the flight progressed.

Ottery Viscount
 

The Hotel nearby the field the Viscount made the landing in used to have several pictures of the incident on display in one of the lounge's.
I seem to recall that the Captain maintained the aircraft had been 'under-refuelled' by the Spanish.

:sad: The left gauge was OK, the right one sometimes went to full scale deflection. The counter on the bowser in Santander read 600gals, but only 60 went into the tanks, accidentally or deliberate was never established. BY was in excellent condition confirmed by the CAA who used it on their geriatric airframe investigations after the Dan-air Lusaka accident. I flew BY the week before.

As an ex-Prentice owner I stumbled late into this thread, and then like Henry Crun read the story of a Prentice managing to heave a banner into the air as well as itself with astounded disbelief.

I bought mine at Sywell, in very dubious condition with 1600 hours since its last overhaul, almost exactly 20 times my hours at the time. The salesman assured me, as he counted the £700 after showing me quickly how a variable pitch prop worked, that flying it was a doddle to someone who learned in an Auster.

The wheels clipped the hedge at the end of the take-off run and I didn't stop shaking in the 5 minutes it took to gain 1,000ft.

I have very fond memories of Clive and I am very sorry to hear he has passed away. Anyone know anything about his career after Alidair. Last tiem I saw him was in the Luton Flying Club about 1980 and he was on the 125 with Mc Alpine

Prentice (The wheels clipped the hedge)
 

Yes it might have clipped the hedge,but it would have ploughed through it without a flinch if not.

A variable pitch propeller on an "Initial trainer" ? What must their Airships have been thinking of (or their experts at the Cotswold School of Aeroplane Driving who were rumoured to have thought up the specification) ?
Perhaps it was a mod to try to reduce the straining noise this strange machine made in flight ...

I could have sworn that I had posted somewhere that in about 1979 I was flying on Skytrain to New York and the Captain was called Clive Hartley. It seemed so unlikely to have been our Clive that I didn't follow it up. One of those daft things that you don't do and regret it later.

Trouble at 't back end
 

Long before I was sent to a Shropshire field to learn to fly on the Prentice, I had felt a bit sorry for it - pictures in the aeronautical Press showed that the first prototype had a neat fin and rudder, rather like an elongated Proctor's (remember them?). As time went on, the whole back end gradually changed, with a new tailplane, new rudder, and finally anti-stall strakes and those odd upturned wing-tips, with handholds for gound crew to (try to) hold the thing straight for cross-wind taxying. Percival's design office must have spilt much ink, and (possibly) hours of digesting wind tunnel results to get the device thought up by distant educationists with odd ideas of the second pupil "learning by listening" from the rear seat reasonably flyable.
Combine that with the Ministry's insistence that 350-odd h.p. was enought to propel the machine - "Camel -> horse -> committee "?

Nevertheless, and notwithstanding, the Prentice was, at the time, the inevitable step to (one hoped) the mighty Harvard and beyond, and did the job of weeding out the poor chaps who couldn't master the beast.

Prentice (Jack of all trades)
 

We are forgetting that the Prentice also doubled up as an airborne trainer for Radio operators and nav aid practice. No doubt their Airships thought it a bargain !!
It was an airborne classroom, an elegant flying machine it was not.