Slightly off thread - my apologies.

Was having a discussion with a colleague recently about how much cheaper in real terms long haul is these days. So what would the sort of transatlantic flight of which we speak have cost in 1972 £GBP?

Not really an answer to your question, but perhaps it helps. On a ticket for a return flight from London to the Solomon Islands, in 1966, the full price is given as £839.8-0 with £418.6-0 as the price for the return leg. The route for this is listed as HIR-VLI-NAN-LON, which includes a transatlantic (or transpacific) bit of course.

Thanks Jhieminga

That's about £15k and £7.5k respectively in today's money. Just a bit cheaper now!

The division of BOAC routes between 707 and VC10 did change almost yearly as the fleet was updated. The basic 707 fleet, the ones with Conway engines, were all delivered before the first VC10 arrived. There were a handful of later 707s with P&W engines, but these were either freighters or assigned to specific routes. After the first Standard VC10s replaced the Comets, the Super VC10s progressively spread across the system and the arrangements were varied. The last Super VC10 was only delivered a year before the first 747, and of course changes in assignments continued after that.

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QF start their PER, LHR non stop in a couple of months, how things have changed.

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Qantas 8 was doing LHR-Bombay-Perth (and on to Melbourne and Sydney) on the (original) 747 by 1980, 38 years ago. Given how airport procedures have expanded in time since then, I suspect the overall time from entering to finally exiting the airports will be much the same as with one stop.

No. Max payload range with no reserves 4100 nautical miles. Great circle distance with zero wind LHR-LAX 4741 nautical miles

VC10 were not great on range, my very first ever flight LHR-Barbados ( staff travel subload) in Nov 1971 turned into LHR-JFK JFK Barbados because us subloads were bumped due to the SV10 being unable to make the trip due to Winter winds something that was not uncommon apparently . Barbados is almost exactly 4100 miles from LHR so no margin for winds and back then the alternate would have had to be Port of Spain another couple of hundred miles further I think the VC10 struggled to make Bermuda at times since there is no real alternate for Bermuda except JFK which is another 750 odd miles on top of the 3400 LON-BDA trip often requiring a long northward diversion in the winter due to 'winds aloft (a lovely phrase) and the risk that in winter Bermudas common Sw Gales are a challenge with the runway facing NW .. Which leads me to wonder which would be better in a cross wind the 70' or the VC10.

The VC10 especially the Super was a lovely aircraft as pax and I have clear and lovely memories of walking out and up the steps on a hot steamy night on some relatively small ex colonial airfield towards a VC10 bathed in the flood lights tail lit up ready to take me back to the grey skies of LHR . What it wasnt good at was range and once the 'fanjet' 707s and DC8s came along it was seriously lacking in range and thus flexibility on BOAC/BAs very extensive route . Fine for LHR to the Gulf ,Eastern seaboard but that's all it could do reliably. The African trips were mostly mulit stoppers . (I did LHR- Cyprus-Khartoum-Addis Seychelles once) On the other hand it (and perhaps the 707 occasionally) operated the amazing LHR-JFK- LAX-Honolulu-Fiji -NZ-SyD referred to above and the even more exotic Tokyo-HK-Colombo-Seychelles Mauritius (?) - Joburg , which involved some complex schedule juggling to get the actual plane back to LHR.

Convenient as the ultra long range non stops are they do lack a certain mystique compared to the multi stoppers which must have been terrific trips for the crews

PB

The December 1971 General Time Table shows LHR JFK LAX by VC10 . Although I still believe an only 707-436 could have flown LHR LAX Nonstop.

In 1971, the LHR to LAX service used a VC10 but it made a stop in New York along the way. It wasn't a non-stop sector. See: http://www.timetableimages.com/ttima...71/ba71-13.jpg
I also had a look at an ex-VC10 Captain's logbook and whenever Los Angeles turned up in his log during the early 70s, it was a flight to or from New York.

yes I hope so . Anyway BA shedulled 707 LHR LAX LHR NSTP by 1962 (same source old time table image) . It only could have been 707-436 due to the fact the -336C was not existing and were introduced into BA network by 1965 .
many thanks your answers

I believe this one, which lasted well into 747 days, on Hong Kong licences, and which later became a Cathay route, was actually run as a triangle, to minimise the time (both aircraft ands crew) away from Heathrow, running London-Tokyo-Jo'burg-London.

The 707s tech stopped at winnipeg. Even 320s couldn''t always make it non stop

We had a discussion about this one a while ago, concluding indeed that while there may have been the odd favourable westbound nonstop, and notwithstanding what the timetables said, needing to refuel at Winnipeg was normal.