I don't think they added the probe. It seems it was on the model they used, and nobody thought to take it off. Let's face it, how many on the production team would have been around in that era?

You are correct the probe was on the model which they used for the VC10 but after CGI it was obviously omitted.

Thanks for letting us know Herod! It was done well, considering that we were all puzzling over possible airframes. Interesting to see that there was a registration on the bullet when they first coloured the model, I guess it faded away when they colourwashed the scene.

G-ASGC, in fact - the Duxford example. Could be that it was the basis for the digital model that was then used for the CGI.

That would also explain the open NLG doors (though not the FR probe).

Same goes for the main deck cargo door. The wireframe model looks like a K3 to me, but I've e-mailed the company to ask them. At a guess they combined a wireframe model from one source with textures based on the Duxford Super VC10.

Jhieminga. You'll find the production company very helpful. I sent a link to this site, which you might like to do also. They would probably be most interested to follow it. The person responded did say they were most gratified that they were able to make it real enough to spark interest here.

I wonder where they got the BOAC steps from, with the earlier font than on the aircraft. I presume for the aircraft they coloured it up from a photograph, the CGI has got the perspective of the BOAC letters on the fuselage just right.

I'll bet someone at the production company is looking at all this discussion about the RAF refuelling probe and saying "Blast". :)

The story about the ultra-expensive British Airways television advertisement a few years ago is similar, with the BA 747-400 in full livery sat in front of Terminal 5, which made it right through to public release only for BA Engineering (but obviously not the BA PR department) to all say "that's not one of ours, it's got General Electric engines, look at the different exhaust cowl". The producers had, for some unfathomable reason, not just used a shot of a BA aircraft, with Rolls-Royce engines, which are constantly there, but had taken a Virgin Atlantic 747 image with GE engines and recoloured it into BA livery.

* Just in case the producers do indeed read this, the "inflight refuelling probe" is the long stick which protrudes forward from below the flight deck windows. Airliners don't have this, but when it was sold to the RAF it was adapted to refuel air force fighters in flight, using this equipment. The initial wireframe image must have been based on an RAF aircraft.

Thanks for following up Herod. I'm relieved that it confirmed a wireframe as the basis for the Super VC10 - that explained a lot! If they'd just left off the FR probe and not done that final "Instagram wash"...

Incidentally there is a slightly later scene in the same opening sequence that features the two new arrivals at the top of the aircraft steps by the front door. I wonder if it's a real aircraft door (but presumably not a VC10 if they shot it all in South Africa) or some more CGI?

I see in the episode screened last night, (15th Oct), there is Whistling Wheelbarrow. Again probably CGI, but I'll leave asking that to someone else.

There's a man in a published letter in the Times to-day that claims that it's a well known fact that the VC-10 was often referred to by it's pilots as the "Iron Duck".
Eh?

That is indeed one of the nicknames that were used for the VC10. Stemmed from the fact that some of the parts were milled from solid, coupled with the higher weight when compared to the 707.

It was not the VC10 pilots who called it the Iron Duck, it was the rival 707 fleet. We were rather proud of our aircraft. Though, when I moved to the 707 fleet, I found it a delight to fly.....but don't tell VC10 pilots that!!

Herod - The Argosy likely done the same way. Think I can see the Darts winding down with the props feathered which of course they wouldn't do and no fin flashes.

Worse still, adjacent props rotating in opposite directions à la A400M.

From 'The Grub Street Dictionary of International Aircraft Nicknames, Variants and Colloquial Terms' by John Horton:
The 'Iron Duck' nickname wasn't in there, but, as mentioned before, I suspect (know) that this was from the earlier BOAC 707/VC10 rivalry days. I know at least one VC10 pilot also referred to it as such: The aircraft I didn’t want to fly. He also explains in this story why he had mixed feelings about his time on the VC10.

For those of us who spent time in hot, sandy places: "Freedom Bird"

......or those of us who spent time on a desert island - the “VC When” because you never knew when it was coming.
Actually, the 10 didn’t stop there much so it was more a question of watching it’s nav lights pass overhead while watching a movie outside!!
mcdhu

That Argosy fin should have looked like this.

I always thought the RAF referrred to it as the 'Vickers Funbus'.

Actually, Jenks, I recall a certain Mk 1 captain (CH) who, frustrated that there were no flights in the offing back to dear old Blighty, took a flight eastbound to Gan where he blagged his way onto the Funbus and got home significantly quicker than had he sat it out on Masirah waiting for something to appear westbound.
Happy days?
mcdhu