http://www.museumofflight.org/user_a...ter&scale=both
Wodrick,

I think that photo was taken prior to the current restoration effort. I remember reading that after years on the fire dump, Boeing, to their credit, did a cosmetic respray on an airframe that was rapidly falling apart.

I visited the MoF Restoration Centre during my "Grand Tour" two years ago. They are doing a marvellous job, but it's 22 years and counting!

More details and photos here:

http://www.pprune.org/aviation-histo...ml#post9149296

Incidentally, in my opening sentence of the post above, where I was told: "If you go out onto the ramp, don't go beyond the nose of the 727", I didn't realize at the time, that this was not just any old 727, but the prototype! It subsequently made one last flight in March 2016, from Paine Field to Boeing Field.

But they have painted the blue line too low on the flight deck windows. The correct livery has no white on the glazing bars. I hope they have corrected this now.

https://www.google.fr/search?q=boac+...s172E5sD2mVEM:

.....and BOAC never had any 4Cs. This one is going to be a problem in the future.

gruntie,
Agreed. But they could still get the colour scheme right.

Only one better would be to have decked it out in the original EAAC livery.....but there I am biased !!

Though that would arguably be equally unauthentic as EAA didn't have 4Cs either. :O

It would look rather nice in its original livery:

https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5451/...7d5b05a7_b.jpg

Just to double-nitpick here, that's not the original livery, Mexicana received their 4Cs in 1960, then in 1962 they entered into a charter agreement with Aerovias Guest who had a once weekly schedule with Constellations to Lisbon, Madrid and Paris, which had become uncompetitive by then. Guest were also out of money, so the charter, and the dual titles on one aircraft, were arranged. I believe Guest crews were trained and they may have put the Comet on the first leg of the flight, Mexico City to Miami, but Guest went under before the jet service to Europe could start.


I wonder where that Mexicana Comet is, being handled by Pan Am. They had been the owners of Mexicana from the 1920s right through to the ordering of the Comets, which must have been under close scrutiny by Juan Trippe, and who had ordered the abortive Comet 2, but the carrier was nationalised just before the aircraft were delivered.

I cannot find a photo that shows the front of the window glazing, but the top edge of the cheatline touches the top of the aftmost cockpit window, that appears to be correct judging by this photo:
http://www.airteamimages.com/pics/115/115015_big.jpg

Edit: This one is better for a comparison with the original image:
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com...523ed5fdcd.jpg

That sounds about right - the photo is reportedly dated May 1961.

There is a later version of the livery with a solid blue cheat line which the Comets also wore, plus various photos of models featuring the stylised "M" on the tail, though I can't find any evidence that the Comets actually wore that.

Appears to be flying east over the River Thames, just where the Thames Barrier is nowadays.

The museum of flight do / used to do a nice limited edition print of a Mexicana 4C over the mountains by Robert Bailey countersigned by John Cunningham.
Hope it helps
David

Jhieminga,
Nice picture - thanks. Much better than the one I found. And the Duxford Comet does not even have the correct colour scheme on the wing tanks.

WHBM,
I agree. The left pinion tank is pointing towards Royal Victoria Dock and the open space, with the distinctive avenue of trees, below the right pinion tank, is Charlton Park.

Of interest my wife's uncle has just written a book about the early days of the jet age based on his experience as a BOAC comet flight engineer which will shortly be available; details are at .
Having seen an advance copy it is a fascinating read for those interested in a first hand account of operating the first jetliners.

I've got a HUGE framed photograph of the same airframe (the first Comet 4), possibly taken on the same flight. I purchased it online from the RAF Museum Shop about two years ago and had it professionally framed in NZ native rimu wood. According to info on their website, the photograph was taken in September 1958.

de Havilland Comet 4 (G-APDA) of BOAC in flight, September 1958 - Photo Prints - 1275297 - RAF Museum

Re the 4C in BOAC livery: it seems the center windshield windows are larger (i.e. higher) than other versions. Is that correct?

I would say your photo was taken about 20 seconds earlier than the one posted previously. It's just passing overhead Greenwich eastbound, Deptford with it's onetime riverside industry beneath, and the tip of the Isle of Dogs visible just ahead of the aircraft nose on the right.

The previous phote here has it passing over, among other things, the Charlton riverside plant of J Stone, while the one here now has it passing over their Deptford main plant, the two factories having been either side of Greenwich town centre. J Stone produced all sorts of industrial items, air conditioning plant, escalators, and aircraft components - including, according to their Wikipedia page, for the Comet. I wonder if they were on some sort of publicity photoshoot for the company. If so, they just got lucky with the cloud breaks.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Stone_%26_Co


.

In my opinion, out of all the jetliners ever produced, I reckon the Comet 4 is the one which just looks absolutely right in the looks department.

As does the Caravelle (with its Comet nose section).

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

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.

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

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.

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

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!"

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.

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

[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 hanger 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.

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.