V806, G-APEX. Did APEX air fares exist when this aircraft came along or was the registration just a coincidence ?

It was just a run of the mill in sequence registration Mooncrest. The fad for out of sequence registrations didn't really get underway until the late 1970's early 1980's

That's what I thought, surely not. Now I think about it, APEX had a sistership in the same sequence, along with several Vanguards.

UK registrations were very much issued "next one alphabetically in sequence", from G-AAAA in the 1920s, they only moved on from G-AZZZ to G-BAAA (one of the Court Line Tristars) by 1973, so there was loads of capacity. Nowadays only a minority still take the next one, you can have what you want - and pay for it. If you made a major purchase of new aircraft, normally just BOAC/BEA, you could get a block of 26 ending A-Z, but again it would be the very next such block in sequence. The Vanguards were thus all G-APEA and upwards.

Just a couple were skipped. In best civil service tradition, the one which alphabetically followed G-ARSD is blandly described as "Registration Not Allocated".

Since the letter "Q" is not used, any A-Z block would only cover 25 aircraft.

Registrations ending in "VD" were also not issued for many years but policy seems to have been relaxed some time in the late 1990s.

I believe the first out of sequence registration was G-BSST for the British prototype Concorde. The French had F-WTSS.
After that anything goes.
I particularly liked my old bosses Citation with "G-UESS who" on the nacelles. Tragic accident though.

Back in the seventies, my ex-wife had a part-time job as a Beauty Counselor for a make-up company called Vanda. A sort of competitor for the Avon Lady. All was well, until they introduced a range called "V deVanda". It didn't do so well (try saying it), and I believe the company didn't last too long afterwards.

G-BMAA and so on to G-BMAZ 707
G-BMAT used on a Viscount

G-OBMA and so on
G-MIDA and so on
G-WWBD
G-WWBM

G-BMON and G-MONB and so on for good old monarch

G-BCAL 707
Cale DC-10's
G-MULL G-DCIO
G-LYON G-GOKT
G-GCAL

G-GFAL for Freddie
G-GSKY Skytrain

G-IOII Tristar (not one of the 2 OU ones though re-regd from AA or AB)

G-RAES BA 777 nice one

G-BUSB and so on for BCAL's order for 10 A320's (NTU order went to BA)

I seem to remember that some time later, G-ASEX was also Not Allocated.

Worked for BMA at MME when we did four LHR rotations a day with the Viscount. Lovely aircraft had several jolleys to LHR, OST and once did a day long "W" MME-JER-CDD-JER-MME. Seemed to fly a lot with Joe Sharps and Jim Smee.

A good book for a really in depth development story is The Handbook of the Vickers Viscount. Can't remember the author but it's a very good read.

A good book for a really in depth development story is The Handbook of the Vickers Viscount. Can't remember the author but it's a very good read.

Written by P St John Turner, and you are right an interesting read, my copy was published in 1968.

Jim Snee still meets up quarterly with the "BMA Old Timers" at my late uncle's former pub near Castle Don. He probably has plenty of Viscount tales.

Joe Sharps did LHR-MME in 38 minutes in a Viscount. I understand that he was rather sporting in the London TMA, though.

Haven't seen Jim Snee for ages. I hope he is doing well. If so, can you ask him to send me a PM. I would very much like to get in touch again.

vctenderness (p 2) remembers kippers in the flightdeck out of Aberdeen.but perhaps they were Smokies that we would get on the way to the airport for an early service to London from a warehouse at the docks. They came in boxes weighing a stone.
I had my first Command in the early '70s on Viscounts at Glasgow and only a week or two after being cleared of training found myself flying a visual circuit for r/w 18 at Benbecula at 450 feet and clearly remember seeing the engines nodding gently in the turbulence. One turned finals when the beach was crossed and followed it until out of the murk appeared the runway.
I found there was a clearly defined point after the flare with 85% flap when the aircraft started to sink. If 100% flap was selected at that point the ground effect gave a gentle touchdown every time.

I was probably your FO at some time.
Yes the old VC8 was good for 'imaginative' approaches :ok: