BMA Viscount
 

Just wondering what the longest routes were for the BMA Viscounts i.e. did they operate to Spain with a refuelling stop. Comments please.
Thank you.

Viscounts could easily manage UK to southern Spain non stop

As long as you have enough fuel.
EXETER or Ottery St Mary.

Had no problem operating direct SOU/PMI.

Back in the mists of time BMA ran a late night IT from BHX to MAH, so they probably did others as well, and also the Viscounts were used for the pilgrims traveling to Lourdes, and the destination airport on the BHX departure board was Tarbes. At the time I believed the airports of Lourdes and Tarbes were different but having looked online it appears as though they are one in the same. Whether there were actually two airports back in the 70s, or if Lourdes didn't have an airport of it's own back then I don't know. I'm sure someone else will!

I'll do a bit of research into the BHX / MAH and see what I come up with, as I've got several of the old Birmingham Airport Timetables from that era that were published by an organisation called "The Airport Timetable Company" who I think were from Manchester. Did they pubvlish timetables for other airports? I would have assumed so, as they couldn't have made much from the 6d, then 3p monthly Birmingham one.

i like it🤣

Hmmm...depending on how many seats were blocked off?

The BAF Viscounts could only reach PMI from SEN if some seats were unsold, or by selling every seat and flight planning to Nice with a diversion to PMI with a fuel plan to match. So that's what was done, BAF being BAF under Mr K.

(I know some would argue that was legal and safe, but I'm not among them.)

The BAF fleet were ex BA V.802s and V.806s, which I understood had shorter range than the V.810s that British Midland operated. Were the BAF fleet weight restricted off Southend's runway or was it a matter of the aircraft's capability to make PMI non stop at MTOW?

BMA Viscounts, like Cambrian before them, did Liverpool to Palma. The later BMA fleet were fairly high spec, being ex-South African Airways with the most powerful engines available to handle the 6,000 ft elevation at Johannesburg.

I once used most of the Southend runway in a C152. Separate story, but it wasn't a huge length.

With respect to longer Viscount sectors - one of my earliest passenger experiences was a return journey Newcastle to Toulouse Blagnac alongside a full load of teenage exchange students on board. We were due to spend three weeks with a French family.

it was an Intra V700 series Viscount and sector length was over three hours.

Remember this very well - for a really odd reason! :bored: We were running a Theatre production at RNAS Culdrose which was Wardoom Night (ie for the Horfficers) when, a way into the production, all of a sudden, a large chunk of the audience started to leave the performance. Now, we'd never had that bad a reaction to one of our productions before ...... so, in a way, we were very relieved when we found out that it was caused by a general "call to arms" should it be required (providing SAR/CASEVAC/etc). Even happier when the safety of all on board was confirmed. Nearly 40 years ago - how time flies - without the need of fuel! ;)

H 'n' H

They were very lucky.

Notably, in the 1990s I met from time to time a business executive (non-aviation). Discussion over coffee one time led to his background - that he had been in 1980 one of the administration staff at Alidair East Midlands HQ. Within a few sentences we were at the Exeter accident, whereupon, after his surprise that I had knowledge of the detail, he described what had taken place back in the office afterwards, when all the prior fuel deliveries to the aircraft, the consumption logs, engine hours, everything, was got out and recalculated. Now the key issue was running out of fuel when the gauges were known u/s and the tanks had not been dipped to check. But the calculations they did led them to believe that, though they had the detailed tickets for fuel delivery that the crew had with them, the fuel delivered on one of the two occasions in Santander was distinctly light compared to what the signed ticket showed.

Having told me what I already understood, about the captain's ultimate responsibility, etc, he then described that the final fuel delivery, though they had the captain's ticket for it, was never billed through by the agent in Spain.

It was an ad-hoc charter. The Plymouth-Santander ferry had broken down in port in Spain. Alidair got the rush job for relief flights, positioned East Midlands to Santander, ran the first flight to Exeter with pax to be coached on to Plymouth, then ferried back to Spain and ran the second load to Exeter, the accident flight.

BMA VC8 charters in my time there were BHX-MAH and LPL-PMI (both night flights) plus we did Lourdes as well with the DC-9.

I did a LPL-Palma one night to go on my hols then connected in the morning with the 07.00 Iberia B727 to IBZ. (having gone up to LPL on the last DC9 of the day from LHR)
The flight from Liverpool was a nice sojourn - flight time was around 4 hours IIRC and the skipper came down the back and sat with me to eat his hot dinner.
We were not quite full and did not tech stop.

2 weeks later I flew again on the late IB IBZ-PMI to get our Viscount back to LPL then jump on the first DC-9 down to LHR....
Having left IBZ with a choice of 6 direct LGW and LTN flights I could have easily got on with my free non-rev ticket and my ID card - I knew the Agents well at both IBZ and PMI...
Anyway got to PMI in the middle of the night and looked up at the departures board and to my horror the BD LPL flight said cancelled...No idea why but it was late summer season.
Dashed over to the Agents office and he said where do you want to go? I said London..But why you wanna go to LPL ?? he looked puzzled....Don't ask I said...
Look at the board, tell me what flight...
There was a Laker to Gatwick so I said that one - Fine he said, DC-10 big plane plenty seats no problem - come we go - quick...This was just after the 1979 groundings had been lifted!

Phew - he ran me out to the DC-10 and I ran up the back steps and I got the back row of 3 to myself...All a bit anxious lol

When BMA did many more IT charter flights in the 70's with Viscounts from all over the UK I was not aware of any need for tech stops but I can ask some old BMA pilots and let you know.

The BMA Viscount operated the LBA-LHR schedule during the 1980s. Not a lengthy flight compared to the likes of LPL-PMI but potentially extended considerably by time spent flying round and round the LBA hold waiting for the visibility to improve!

A viscount service LBA/LHR was run by BKS, which morphed into Northeast and eventually was taken over by BA. BKS had one long scheduled flight from LHR to Klagenfurt. I know this because a family member took it once and asked if they might see the Gossglockner mountain (Austria's highest peak) in flight. 'See it Madam, we will have to fly round it!' was the response. I suspect the steward was joking as the service ceiling and performance of the viscount was more than adequate. In later years I flew the 737 in and out of Klagenfurt a lot and it makes me wonder how BKS trained for it. We had special sim qualification for Salzburg, Klagenfurt and Innsbruck. You could only be P1 if you were current in the sim. It did not however stop our operations listing Klagenfurt as alternate for Venice irrespective of whether the captain was legally allowed to fly there or not, but that is another story.

Quite! :ok: Looking at the photos it was vary fortunate it happened where it did and the Capt seemed to know a good place to head for. Very lucky indeed.

As an aside for all who are unaware, there is/was a great site at Vickers Viscount Network - A Virtual Museum dedicated to the Vickers-Armstrongs VC2 Viscount - erm, which seems to be down right now. Not sure if a temp disappearance or if moved/closed down - maybe someone knows. Hopefully it will be back as it is/was a great Viscount resource.

H 'n' H

We presume that after a fortnight in Ibiza in youthful times there was plenty else to have occupied your mind ...

Did a BMA Viscount day return once LHR-LBA, by chance met a colleague on the same flight. Back to the airport in winter gloom in the evening, the inbound didn't make it in (I think the alternate was back to Heathrow), They were just starting to think about organising a coach to London. This seemed a poor alternative, so meeting said colleague again we both cancelled our tickets, went out to the terminal front, and got a somewhat bemused cab driver to take us direct to the LHR Terminal 1 car park. Ended up being cheaper than two air tickets. However, he didn't quite seem to know where London was or how far, and we had to give quite a bit of guidance. Had to give him part of the fare at Watford Gap services for fuel. Left him at about 11pm at the T1 set-down area. I hope he got home ...

Back in the late 70s as a young engineer for BMA we had some 707s flying for Air Algerie, at one stage we were desperate for tyres, eventually mission control at EMA promised to send some, we were hoping for 6, 8 maybe 10, they sent a Viscount direct to Algiers, two wheels, then turned round and went straight back, was that max load for a Viscount on a flight that long?

Hot 'n' High, Vickers Viscount Network link:

A Virtual Museum dedicated to the Vickers-Armstrongs Viscount

Cheers! :ok: Not sure why my links to it had stopped working. Not sure what got me into aviation but Viscounts between Bulawayo and Joburg in the 60's sure helped! ;)

What would have been a usual cruise altitude for a Viscount on one of these long sectors, e.g. MAH or PMI ? I seem to remember 25,000 feet was the published service ceiling. The BMA aircraft going from Leeds to Heathrow always filed for 17,000. I think BA went for 15,000 when they were on the route before BMA.

Don't forget that BEA/BA's Viscounts on the LBA/LHR route (in later times) were 800's which were less capable than BMA's 810 series. The 810 had substantially more power, performance & range than the straight 800.

From the mists of time two questions
1 Did I use a BMA Viscount to Liverpool and return late 1970's
2 Did BA use a Viscount LHR to Jersey, but on the return journey due to weather unable to take a full load, and I was transferred to BCAL 1- 11 staff tickets used.
Regards

Yes to both questions, T09L.

I often used Midland Viscounts LHR-LPL 79/80 (interupted by the occasional DC9)

​​​​BA Viscounts were a regular on LHR-JER too.

I flew standby with my parents from Jersey to East Midlands in 1973 on a BMA Viscount, unfortunately our bags went to Lisbon!

G-ARZG
Thanks, so the memory is still working.
re the Jersey return it was more that Viscount was not on a full load, but the short runway, some wag commented that the 1-11 could power off the cliff and be airborne, rather than the Viscount :eek:

Not correct 1-11s particularly the BA 500s which did'nt have water injection were heavily redtricted out of Jersey
On the 1-11 the amount of noise generated was out of all proportion to the results achieved

In the mid-eighties GibAir were using the Viscount for the flights across the med to Africa - except when they needed to get one to the UK for maintenance and then they subbed it for the 737. Confused passengers arriving LGW after a long flight.

On the subject of ceiling, I hitched a ride on an empty BAF freighter BFS/SEN one day and we were over 30,000 ft on the way.

You're right about the lack of performance. My first jet job was BA Super 1-11 and a full load out of Jersey to MAN in summer often had to tech stop in CWL for fuel. Got it down to about 30mins fuel and go...

Lovely. Any excuse to push it through to the blue note.

I supposed one has to be old to remember folk achieving that strangled howl in jazz, and the Spey giving a similar spine tingling howl.

Viscounts. Innsbruck with Munich as an alternate.

I have always referred to Spey's as Fuel to Noise conversion units! :}:}

One year on, it has occurred to me that British Air Ferries also had an ex-PIA Viscount 815 in their fleet, G-AVJB. IIRC, this particular aircraft regularly used to operate Southend to Palma. I don't know if JB had any other Spanish destinations but it's possible, given she would have had greater range than her 802/806 chums.

I recall 'VJB as being a BMA aircraft but I must have seen it very early in my "spotting career" as it left BMA's fleet by the end of '76!

'JB was acquired along with G-AVJA, both ex PIA machines. 'JA was lost at Ringway in a training accident. Summary here: https://aviation-safety.net/database...?id=19690320-1

'JB was a regular through BHX and EMA, so I don't believe it was exclusively operated from SEN, though of course it may well have been the aircraft of choice to operate from SEN on longer sectors.

Yes the BMA Viscount charter BHX-MAH was one of the last BMA VC8 IT charter services to the Med we ever did - Summer 1980? give or take a year...
Also we did LPL - PMI around the same time which I used a few times -
I could board at LHR after my late shift on the last LPL service up, and then the same VC8 usually would take the holiday flight to Palma.
A leisurely sojourn through the night with a hot meal. Took around 4 hours or so...Skipper would come down the back and sit with us and eat his dinner.
For me I did not have the bother of going home to get my bags and traipse to LGW or LTN, LOL....
On arrival at Palma, I would then take the 06.00 Iberia 727 flight to Ibeeefa...
One would repeat the process going home, sometimes to an earlyish start shift at LHR via the first LPL-LHR!

Came totally unstuck once on the way home, landed back at Palma about 23.30 on the last flight in from IBZ, and looked up at the Dep's Board and the BMA LPL flight said ''Cancelled'' !
Ooops, so had a quick work with our Agent, a fantastic chap with a big moustache and always smoking, he was well known at Palma, and he said look at the Board and tell me where you want to go!
I saw a GK flight to LGW so I said 'that one'...Oh he said that's on Final Boarding, Don't worry follow me. We ran outside in to the warm night air and he said jump in.
We then raced across the ramp in his little beat-up Seat ramp mobile to a big shiny Laker DC-10 about to the pull the back steps off, I dashed up the stairs, and took the empty back row!
Hostie looked puzzled lol.
It was Sept 1979 and the DC-10's had just been un-grounded so everyone was very quiet!
Landed back at LGW at stupid O'clock though.

EDIT- just seen this thread is 2 years old LOL...... I already replied to that one.......

Reading this thread has brought back a few memories. In the late 60's when BMA still operated the 700 series Viscounts, we had a summer departure from East Midlands, (or Castle Donnington CDD in those days) every Friday at I think 22.30 to Palma (PMI ?), normally scheduled for an 800 series possibly G-ASED or G-APND. For some reason one of the 700's was substituted and 30 minutes before departure preparing the load sheet it became apparent that full tanks and the passengers would present no problem or full tanks and the baggage but what wasn't possible was full tanks + passengers + baggage. If I remember correctly we decided to weigh the individual pax which made the situation even worse as we were then committed to using the actual figure of course. In the end I think the pax went first followed by their baggage later. I wasn't worried though as the shift had ended so it was down to the Plough is Diseworth then on to the Tanya in Castle Donnington. I think that's what happened but it was more than 50 years ago and these days I have difficulty remembering what happened last year !! They were great days though.

Just to be technically correct, BMA operated 700's and the 810 series Viscounts, but not the 'straight' 800, as BEA/BA, KLM etc operated.
I often thought that Vickers would have been better naming the 810 the '900' to distinguish it over and above the 800, as the 810 is a significant improvement over the 800.
Indeed structurally & mechanically there's a bigger jump between the 800 & 810 than there is from the 700 to 800. The 800 is little more than a slightly stretched 700D with rectangular doors - it has the same engines (except the 806), same max T/O & landing weights. The 800 had quite a poor payload/range performance because the max T/O weight wasn't increased from the 700D, thus the extra weight from the fuselage stretch had to come off the payload/fuel, compared to the 700D.
The 810 was vastly improved, with many structural upgrades, control changes & more powerful engines - the quintessential Viscount!

DH106 -
Wasn't the "900" called the Vanguard?

The Vanguard was 951/953, but that might well be the reason for the 810 not having a more significant number attached.