Last BOAC pistons
 

Does anyone know when BOAC last used piston engined aircraft commercially and what aircraft it was?

Wiki suggests the DC7 in 1965.

Give a thought to BOAC Associated Companies.

Aden Airways flew an Argonaut (BOAC colours) I flew in it in 1963 also a DC-3(or two).

Presumably their conversion to freighters would have coincided with the arrival of BOAC's Comet 4s and, shortly after, the 707s. So they probably flew their last passengers at the end of the 1950s.

Airliners.net has G-AOIF taxiing in at JFK in what appears to be passenger config, photo dated Feb 1962. Flickr has G-AOII parked outside the British Eagle hangars at LHR in cargo config., photo date 03 Apr 1964. It says the rest of the ten aircraft fleet was disposed of in 1964, with final withdrawal of the last two cargo aircraft in Spring 1965 - presumably G-AOII and G-AOIJ.

BOAC DC7Cs

G-AOIA - sold to FB Ayers in May 1964
A-AOIB - sold to FB Ayers in March 1964
G-AOIC - sold to FB Ayers in February 1964
G-AOID - sold to FB Ayers in May 1963
G-AOIE - sold to Caledonian Airways in April 1964
G-AOIF - sold to FB Ayers in June 1964
G-AOIG - sold to FB Ayers in April 1963
G-AOIH - sold to FB Ayers in May 1963
G-AOII - sold to Universal Leasing Corp. in Jume 1965
G-AOIJ - sold to Universal Leasing Corp in May 1965

Does anyone know who or what FB Ayers was?

F B Ayers was presumably a bank or lessor. The seven DC-7s that BOAC sold to them in 1963/64 went to Saturn Airways.

Universal Leasing Corp of Panama waas a subsidiary of F B Ayer. The two DC-7s that they bought from BOAC in 1965 went to SAS and Airlift International, respectively.

Re the photo of G-AOIF at JFK in 1962, it may indeed have been carrying passengers (though hard to see anyone choosing to cross the Pond in a DC-7 when both the 707 and Britannia served the route). Photos of the BOAC DC-7s on the Net suggest that not all were converted to full cargo configuration - in fact the only ones I've found sporting the large cargo doors and "BOAC Cargo Service" titles are the final two aircraft that left the fleet in 1965 and were certainly freighters by 1961.

The 1962 BOAC timetable shows the DC-7 operating a twice-weekly Delhi-LHR-JFK & v.v. cargo service.

So, getting back to the OP's query, the last BOAC piston operations were likely in Summer 1964 by the two remaining freighters. They were withdrawn from service by the end of that year.

Thanks Dave, you are a veritable mine of information!!

My wife often says that, albeit with the addition of the word "useless". :O

I think F B Ayer may have been a used aircraft broker, their name often cropped up with second hand 707s, DC-8s, etc, etc...

Came across one of the ex-BOAC DC-7s at Miami I think with one of the Cockroach Corner operators... Edit: G-AOIC/N90801 and G-AOII/N9000T both ring a faint bell.

Interesting, BOAC chartered G-ATMF for a few weeks in May/June '67.