Ah, at Prestwick. I believe that Shanwick control was long in that half-timbered old house behind. And how can I ever forget those ex-BEA Cambrian Viscount 700s - my first ever flight, which got me started in all this, was on one. But t'was nothing to do with Aden.

Redbrae House contained the Scottish Control Centre as well as Shanwick Oceanic.

Brian 48nav and Herod
Posts#27 and #28
Mr Pearson was his name, leading member of the Swindon Town Supporters Club. When arriving back from Far East with 'goodies' dreaded arriving on a Sunday or Monday if Swindon Town had lost on the previous Saturday as he was then particularly punctilious.

KelvinD
Your post #26
Here's two other interior views to stir your memories.


http://i145.photobucket.com/albums/r...bin2Medium.jpg


http://i145.photobucket.com/albums/r...bin3Medium.jpg




WT - 99 Sqn Britannia's 1959 -1963

Very lucky, brief window of BUA VC10 October 1964 before BUA started the South American route and took the VC10s away and put the Brits. back on the Aden route!

I think BUA then lost the military contract, it going to British Eagle for a few years (as can be seen in one of the photos above). The BUA Britannias were then disposed.

Warmtoast. Yep, that was the name.

Another story, which is as related to me. (I can't verify its accuracy) A Wessex crew did a favour for a local bigwig out in Sharjah, and were each given a Rolex Oysterdate for their pains. All three eventually went to UK on leave. The captain, somehow went via Prestwick and, being a Scot, wasn't charged any duty (Scot free?). The second pilot went through Gatwick, where Customs "valued" the watch at a very nominal rate. The poor crewman went through Lyneham. The watch was impounded, pending valuation. Later, back in Sharjah, he got a letter from Customs stating a high valuation, and inviting him to cough up the money in return for the watch. I'm not sure whether he did.

Bloody horrible people! A colleague escorted his wife and infant child back to the UK, following the death of his older child in Aden. He watched the customs at London (don't remember which airport he used) and when very close to his turn at the head of the queue, he pinched the poor little sod, causing it to howl a lot. He spent a minimal amount of time with the Customs as they didn't want the noise!
ICM: Trust me, we flew over Armenia and Georgia. This came from the crew member who brought out the chart. The chinagraph line was not thick and went nowhere Turkey.
Warmtoast: Thanks for the additional photos. As my flight from London was on a Britannia, and was my first flight on a powered aircraft, I became rather fond of that aircraft. Having said that, I once flew on an Argosy from Aden to Botswana and it still brings back memories when I see examples such as the one at Cosford.
As for the VC10, my first flight on one of these was not until I joined BA/IAL in 1977 and travelled to Jeddah on one. Using staff travel in addition to my regular home leave, I flew many trips on VC10s LHR to JFK, Tokyo to Hong Kong, Colombo and Seychelles, Mombasa (diverted from Nairobi), Kahrtoum etc.
Wile enduring some training at Rockwell Collins in Dallas in 1978, I was surprised to find that many of their international staff would often turn up at JFK on the outward leg of a foreign trip and look for people with tickets on a VC10 and swap them for the 707 tickets. They loved it!

May I ask where this image was found? It has clearly been copied from my website but the text below is not part of my site. The full sequence of images is here: C/n 804 - G-ARVA - 5N-ABD

You're missing a few clues, Is it the Duxford one?, however it has a freight door as you can see by the window configuration and an inflight probe fitted, also one clue you all have missed is you can see on the image where they have covered up the RAF front of the wing pax door and presumabley added the rear pax door on the port side as shown in the film.
Ex VC10 :)

Please refer to a PM sent to you.

The information under the photograph was added by myself from information on the web.

Sorted via PM. Apologies for the interruption!

See post #9.

There can't have been a second pax door in front of the wing as the only VC10s available for filming are three Super VC10s, all with second doors behind the wing. Unless they used XR808 at Cosford which is very unlikely as that meant that they would also have to lengthen the fuselage using the computer.

G-ASGC is the most likely answer as that is the only one that has the nose gear doors drooping open, something clearly visible in the screen shots from the series.

What happened to the ex BUA VC10 which, due to an incident, (a Bedford controller told me they found the fuselage was 'bent') was grounded and parked at Bedford for many years?

You're mixing up two VC10s. The one that was bent was G-ARTA, but this happened at Gatwick. See here for photos: C/n 803 - G-ARTA (there is also a link there to a page on British-Caledonian.com with a very complete account of that final flight).

The one at Bedford was not bent in any way, but this was also an ex-BUA one: C/n 825 - G-ATDJ - XX914

KelvinD: I continue to be surprised at the thought of that routing you describe, and can only add that as many times as I flew the CENTO route in various aircraft, a prime concern was to ensure that we'd avoid any Soviet territory. The reason for that comes out quite well in the "Radar coverage in Turkey in 1966" thread that sits a few lines under this one, and I'll leave it at that.

NutLoose - Maybe my ageing eyesight I'm not sure but the tyres on the left gear don't seem to sit too well on the concrete underneath. Also, Lightnings on the dirt, Union Jacks on the lower rudder, oh and the Firestreaks under the leading edge. Oh sorry, that's another post . . .

To keep things interesting, I just heard from someone in the know at Duxford that it wasn't 'GC in The Last Post. This airframe was used for filming again today but this appears to be a repeat of the July session and may be for a British Airways commercial (photos here: https://forum.keypublishing.com/show...92#post2413092)

On a somewhat related note, for those of you who have been waiting for Scott Henderson's new VC10 book: it is now available! I won't post the link here as that may be seen as advertising but it is on my site on the News page.

A simpler explanation would be that it's a K.3, which would therefore have both the freight door and rear pax door.

Which would make it either ZA147 at Bruntingthorpe or ZA148 at Newquay.

I said at #2 it sounded like Bruntingthorpe!