The BMA Viscount crash at MAN was a positioning flight (so no pax, but with cabin crew) being used as a training flight. Mis-handled EFATO resulted in the aeroplane rolling inverted. Both flight crew and one stewardess killed, the other stewardess (sitting near the back) survived.

BA used to do line training on Concorde at Shannon and Prestwick, among other places.

I remember back inthe late '80s a KLM A330 (I think) bashing the circuit at MAN one Saturday afternoon for several hours, passing downwind over Wilmslow every second circuit (the alternate circuits were RH off 24). Bit busy these days at MAN for that!

In the late nineties Cathy Pacific used to do their circuit bashing up the road in the Peoples Republic at Huangtian, now Shenzhen International.

Then Chinese civil aviation went into top gear and there was no room for any training.

It seems like there were no limits for training locations back then. Luqa for BEA - must have been an Empire thing but I'm surprised the Viscounts had the range to get there. Again, it seems a long way to go. I seem to remember seeing a TV programme featuring a Dan-Air 727 training at Shannon. I suppose a relatively long runway and quiet airspace helped enormously. Do AirTanker not use their HQ of Brize for circuits, I wonder ?

BA did some Viscount training at Dinard and 111 training at Gatow

Seville seems a long way to go for training flights. I assume there was a very good reason when it seems the rest of the Brits were using East Midlands, Stansted and Prestwick. Maybe these three were getting too crowded with other training flights

The reason for using Seville or similar sunnier climes was due to weather in UK at time of year when training was required to be carried out.

We went to Toulouse and Montpellier with BIAs 1-11s due WX also Manston was a favourite with BCAL for some night work.

Shannon was actively marketed, particularly in the 1970s and 1980s, as a suitable airfield for flight training. As well as British operators, KLM and Air France were frequent users. When KLM and Lufthansa were preparing to introduce the 747-400 into service, I recall seeing both carriers' first example of the type in the circuit at the same time.

I think Orion used Seville in the 1980s for their 737 training. Good weather, I'd guess for touch and go visual circuits.

I forgot that good weather would also have been significant, hence continental Europe in the winter when the fleets were less busy. Obvious really. Also explains the comparative lack of training jollies at LBA. Given Bristol's sometimes unfavourable weather, how did they do for training ? With Filton and Fairford up the road, probably not so well.

I don't think LBA would be an easy airport to do training at anyway.

Agreed. Short runway and tricky weather. Never seemed to bother Air UK and Capital but, as they were both based, dealing with the conditions was a necessity. Jet2 prefer to go elsewhere even though LBA is fairly quiet in the morning after the first batch of departures.

yes Cambrian had to up sticks and move their whole new 1-11 training sortie to Seville due bad wx
when they got there guess what - the rain in Spain did fall on the plains
sadly their history website is down - they had the story on there

couple of years ago Thomson were using NQY
i was there one fine evening watching their new 787's doing circuits and bumps

London City has the unique Steep Approach, initially (with Dash 7s) at 7.5 degrees, later reduced to 5.5. Training flights are generally not permitted there.

An equivalent glideslope and runway markings were set up at Gloucester/Staverton, and the LCY operators used that for training. Specially angled PAPIs were switched on when doing this.

KLM didn't didn't have A330's in the 1980's in fact the aircraft hadn't even been built at that time, it was more than likely a KLM A310.

British European Airways initially used their Viscount fleet extensively on the their continental European network so no surprise in the fact that they were seen at Luqa Airport, Malta.

Prior to the Boeing 747 entering service with Qantas in 1972 the airlines Boeing 707 were used on the Kangaroo routes so no real surprise to have seen them doing circuits at Stansted at that time.

BEA at the time actually provided the aircraft for The Malta Airlines (Air Malta predecessor), which they part owned, and had a couple of Viscounts outstationed there to operate local flights to Rome, Catania, Tripoli etc under local flight numbers, rotating back to London on the main service. Having an operating base, significant engineering support, etc there it was an obvious "good weather" training point for them. In fact, as the outstationed aircraft had some very leisurely rosters, I'm guessing they maybe used those instead of positioning a specific training aircraft out there.

Qantas had crews based in London for both 707 and 747.

Their aircraft had about 12 hours on the ground at LHR every day so I suspect it was cheaper to do the training in UK than fly them home to do it in Australia.

Wunwing

When QANTAS did do some of their training in Australia they often used Avalon, south of Melbourne, as the circuit was often empty.


Laker and Air Europe both used Beauvais for training at times.

I did my BKS base training on the Avro 748 at LBA! 3 sessions including a short night one. 3 months later same again on the Viscount, we had to fly 2 types in those days. The first was in December the second in March so must have been lucky with the weather - runway was quite short in those days though.

In BEA/BA it was MME for the S1-11 and a day trip to PIK for the 74C, less circuits required as time went by. The 732 was at Lille and the 744 was done on the sim! Later when a TRE on the 744, for those not qualified for ZFT we used Shannon and Chateauroux, Concorde was often seen at both the latter.

Strangely enough it was said that AF preferred SNN for the duty free and BA Chateauroux as the handlers would lay on a minibus to the local "Hypermarche" for wine and cheese etc!