Vanguard
 

Any of these beasts still in the air? My first flight was in 1969 on an AC Vanguard, five hours in a big, noisy, lumbering behemoth that I though was the greatest invention ever. Spent the whole time glued to the window :cool:

There is one at Brooklands Museum and I have a vague recollection from when it flew there a few years ago that it was the last one airworthy.

The last one flew on 17 October 1996 when Hunting Cargo's G-APEP (ex BEA's Superb) flew into Brooklands Museum, piloted by Capt Peter Moore and Gary West.

Great forum idea, this.

I must go and visit it again one day. I worked for Hunting for a while and had a look around it as it sat on the ramp one day shortly before it was retired. Sat in the Captains seat and marvelled at the view and the way you could walk around the outside of the seats. It has a big flightdeck. It reminded me of a ships bridge.

I had it all to myself for a few minutes, enough time to soak up all that history.

Have a look at <a href="http://www.aircontractors.com/fleet_vc9.htm" target="_blank">http://www.aircontractors.com/fleet_vc9.htm</a>

At about 12 years old I went on a visit to Vickers Weybridge, and we saw the last of the Viscount production line, and the first of the Vanguards.

They were terribly proud of the 'double bubbble' fuselage on the Guard's Van, as it made rooom for a lot of freight.

Aaaah.....

In the early '60s I was running Edinburgh UAS at RAF Turnhouse. BEA were operating the Vanguard between Turnhouse and Heathrow. The runway was still only about 6,000 ft and crosswinds were frequently limiting. They ran a midnight flight from Turnhouse, intended mainly for the mail and newspapers, but they offered cheap passenger tickets and it was nearly always full, and heavy.

After a particularly stormy winter's night, I rolled up at our hangar in the morning to find all our "Chippies" had been pushed up to one end to make room for the front end of a Vanguard. I had never seen such a shambles in an aircraft that had landed safely. It had taken a whole flock of seagulls at somewhere near V1. The radome was virtually demolished, windscreens smeared with blood, feathers and guts, and the leading edges of wings etc looked like a cheesegrater.

I believe one engine had been lost on impact, and fire warnings illuminated on a second. The captain elected to hang onto that engine until at safety height and established in the ILS pattern, then shut it down. Cloudbase was about 200ft with driving rain and a stonking great crosswind component. He made reassuring noises to the passengers in best BA tradition and set up the ILS approach. Story has it he got a third engine fire warning near the inner marker.

I phoned BEA and asked them if there was any chance the captain could come down to our crew room for "coffee" and tell the stus all about it, but they wanted to keep the whole thing under wraps. There was a short paragraph in a local paper describing what seemed a perfectly routine incident! I often wonder whether the chap got the reward/award he so well deserved for a superb piece of flying and airmanship. As for the Vanguard - well, they always said that when Vickers built anything it stayed built! Perhaps BEagle could confirm?

Well yes, FV, things built by Vickers do indeed seem to have a reasonable longevity! But since their other products are submarines and tanks, hardly surprising perhaps?

Regrettably corrosion and the age of materials used in construction will ultimately prove to be the end of the Vickers Funbus - not because of any inherent defect, but due to the unwillingness of the wretched bean counters and the ar$es at Wyton who are alleged to be the support organisation.......

My first airline trip was in a BEA Vanguard from London to Gibraltar (1963??); we also used to see a lot of the VC9 'Whispering Warehouse' at Brize when the Merchantman was bringing 'freight' here!

Used to fly the Guardsvan LHR to GLA for two quid ten bob standby Last time was a jumpseat on the paper run outta LUT

The best thing about the Vanguard was watching it start up from close by, it made an awesome noise.

Boeingboy it was quite quick but I can't see it beating a Boeing, even on those sectors.Air Bridge descended it at 225kts, something to do with babying the engines if I recall correctly.

When I was line training I said to the trainer- 'What would you do if you lost an engine on take-off from Manchester on the way to say Belfast? He replied ' Revise my estimate by two minutes'!!
<img src="wink.gif" border="0">

Occassionally they fire up an engine or two on the Brooklands 'Vanguard' -actually a Merchantman. I was once privileged to be on the inside and watched the start procedure. However, to really experience that familiar sound, you need to be on the outside!!

DOC

[quote]They were terribly proud of the 'double bubbble' fuselage on the Guard's Van, as it made
rooom for a lot of freight.<hr></blockquote>That would explain why AC hung onto them as freighters for a few years after they took them out of pax service around 1971. They kept the Viscounts until '74, whe they went all-jet for passenger traffic.

Squawk, does fifty and an eighth ring a bell? :)

Pigboat
<img src="confused.gif" border="0">

Think Ace McCool and Down East International, the greatest virtual airline to ever operate the 'Mudgard'. Fifty and an eighth was their landing limits, all aproaches to be flown manually. :)
For the uninitiated, DEI was the creation of Capt. J. R. Desmarais, an ex-Vanguard pilot from Air Canada. Some of the employees were Ace McCool, CEO, Chief Pilot and master of the airways, Phil Lister, Chief Mechanic, TI (Totally Inept), Churchy Laflamme, Crazy Iris etc. The series was loosely based on the exploits of both Maritime Central and Eastern Provincial Airways. The Vanguard was allegedly a difficult aircraft to land smoothly. Those guys were so good, they had a cabin ordinance sign that proclaimed "Have Landed." <img src="smile.gif" border="0">

To those of you who are waxing lyrical about the strength of Vickers aircraft, I was at Teesside on the afternoon sometime in 1971 or 72, when a BEA VC9 was training. During one take-off, with a simulated engine failure, the wrong side was apparently identified by the trainee and incorrect (opposite to that required) control input was applied. I was visiting crew and enjoying a cup of tea with my first officer when he pointed out an aircfaft in plan view through the restaraunt window. It was a Vanguard! It flew out of view for a moment and when it reappeared, it was climbing away normally, except that the port wing tip was turned up in much the same way as that of a Prentice, if you remember those. Apparently, the crew were aked if they were OK by the tower and they were unaware of the damage as the aircraft was flying normally!
I looked at the aircraft later, after it had been hidden in a hanger. About three feet or so of the wing tip had dug into soft earth and was bent up at about 40 degrees. There seemed to be a hundredweight or so of exrta ballast!
Funnily enough, about three weeks later, I was again in Teesside and BEA had a 1-11 make a wheels-up landing, again whilst training.
Alledgedly, this one was practising a flapless landing and had the warning horn supressed by the usual circuit breaker method as was common practice at the time. As luck would have it, the aircraft slid nicely off the runway, onto the grass and out of the way of the active runway, thus allowing us to land.
Red faces all round but happily, nobody hurt in either of these occurences.
Makes one wonder how many accidents have been avoided in the last 30 odd years by the widespread use of decent simulators.

[ 05 January 2002: Message edited by: boris ]</p>

A nice sight at Cork in the late 70s/early 80s was of the student flights operated by the French carrier, Europe Aero Service, and the nice Vanguards they had at the time. What a fab sight on a sunny, summer's day it was to see their red Vanguards coming out over the city if runway 35 was the active. Great!

other than at weybridge, does abyone know if there are any other airframes on display? i remember driving down through southern france, perpingan in fact several years ago and having a very pleasant glance at one in old air bridge colours!

as an ex ground engineer on the line with hunting, a supurb aircraft to fly in that third seat gave a grandstand view. An when not on check usually kept serviceable with only a little tlc and fuel

all the best to all those that served with them

pb