BAC 1-11 Holiday Jets
 

We have threads for the Boeing 727 and 737 so how about the BAC 1-11. There were lots of operators in the '70s and '80s.
I'll start with those I remember:-
Dan Air,
British United / BCAL
Caledonian / BCAL
Channel Airways
BIA
Airways Cymru
Autair / Courtline
Monarch
Laker
Bavaria
Pan International
Hapag Lloyd
Tarom
Air UK
Birmingham Executive / Brymon (not sure if they did holiday flights)
BAF / British World
British Eagle
I'm sure others will come up with more.

British Island Airways
British Airways - definitely used to do weekend Med charters from MAN with the 1-11s in the 80s. Flew on one.

One summer season wonder (1982), Air Manchester. Operated a single BAC1-11 - 416, G-SURE

Here's a few additional UK airlines...

Mediterranean Express - Luton based, didn't last too long, and only got one aircraft operational - had hoped to fly from Berlin in 1988 , but didn't last long enough to get started
Air Manchester - barely operated a handful of flights and the aircraft was handed over to BAF
London European / Ryanair Europe - Luton based, operated five 1-11s at one point.

There are plenty more operators out there...

TCU... you beat me to it for Air Manchester! Think this was the first 1-11 that BAF operated?

I seem to have started something with this holiday jet business. Anyways...

Cambrian.

Adria Airways took damp leases on a number of BAC and Rombac 1-11s during 1986 and 1987. I think they were supplied by Tarom and flown by their pilots, with Adria's own cabin crew. I rode on YU-ANS in 1987.

British Midland began the 1970s with (three ?) 1-11 500s but I admittedly don't know if these were ever used on holiday jollies. Court Line used at least one of them for a summer season.

Aer Lingus operated a number of 1-11s up to the early 1990's.

I recall flying on 1-11s on a holiday to Reus, Spain in '83. The retun leg had to hop the Pyrenees and land in Lourdes as we couldn't take on enough fuel to make the non-stop return to Dublin (either that or there was no Duty Free in Reus at the time as I recall some fo the crew left during refulling and returned with carry on!).

JAS

Flew with Court Line a few times. Great colour schemes.

Phoenix Airlines, a now-defunct Swiss operator, had One-Elevens on holiday charter work (mainly shuttling German tourists to the Mediterranean) in the early 1970s, until the oil crisis of 1973 finished it off. I believe that Lauda of Austria did likewise in the mid-1980s.

Midland operated their three 1-11s mostly on ITs unless my memory is playing tricks on me.

They may have been the first brand new a/c that they ever acquired. rog747 will be able to verify that if correct.

https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....5c52180203.jpg

...And , of course, the borrowed Air Cymru in the 90s.

https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....fcf3b2eb15.jpg

Never a match for the DC9s though !

I can verify that

BA Manchester, Super 1-11 division did IT's, very profitably, at weekends, much to Head Office's disgust. They operated some from Blackpool, and even made money from the positioning flights by selling day trips to Blackpool!

Cyprus Airways and Germanair are two more operators.

Sultan of Oman Air Force had a fleet of 3 BAC 1-11, 485GD doing the Seeb - Hurn route fairly regulary in both freight & passenger fits.
Sometimes in freight/passenger combo. :ok:

I believe there was some sort of water system for the engines which might have been needed to help reach the Balearic's definitely Teesside Ibiza. Sure someone will know.

LOL Loving these trips down memory lane -

The BAC 1-11 proved very popular in the late 1960's and 70's with Holiday airlines mainly in the UK and Germany,
and the type was ordered new by - British Eagle/ Autair/ Court Line/ Channel AW/ Laker AW/ BUA/ BMA/ Caledonian AW/ Bavaria Flug/ Germanair/ Paninternational/ and Phoenix.

Cambrian AW joined the list in 1970 when they obtained 4 of the Autair -400 fleet.
Regulars on IT flights from CWL BRS LPL LGW and LHR replacing the Viscounts that were previously used.

BMA definitely bought the 3 1-11 523's new in 1970 to use on the IT holiday market but got their fingers burnt, so they leased 2 to Court Line,
and then sold/swapped all 3 for HP Heralds from Brazil by 1974.
These 1-11's were the first new planes that BMA ever got, but BMA had cancelled an earlier order with BAC for the -300 series.


1-11 Trivia -

Dan Air picked up their first 1-11's for Lunn Poly's urgent need to fly their holiday charters and opened a new DA LTN base in summer 1969 after British Eagle's collapse.
DA wanted LHR but were not allowed access to fly charters.
By 1971 DA had 5 of the 300 and 400 type were in the fleet based at LTN, including G-AZED (ex D-ANDY of Bavaria Flug, a write off that had crashed/RTO at Gerona in July 1970)

Horizon Holidays was pivotal in the BUA order for 8 new 109 seat 1-11 501's starting from 1969 to operate their IT's from LGW and MAN.

Caledonian AW ordered three + one option 109 seat Series 509EWs and were delivered in 1969 and the fourth in 1970.
The aircraft operated inclusive tour flights on behalf of Blue-Sky and Global Holidays from Gatwick, Glasgow and Manchester.

In 1972 now known as BCAL, placed their sole and only order for a new 1-11 530 G-AZMF

Channel AW had their own in house Tour Co. Mediterranean Holidays, plus large IT contracts with Lyons and Leroy Tours, flying at first G-AVGP. Their next order for 3 new 1-11 408's were to seat 99 pax with an extra pair of over wing exits added by BAC. Only 2 were delivered, the 3rd G-AWGG went on lease to Bavaria Flug.
In the summer of 1969 one of them, G-AWKJ was leased to BUA fully painted in BUA livery.
In Feb 1972 Channel Airways ceased trading.

Aeroflug was a new airline in Germany in the late 60's.
This company was due to operate three Series 402APs from a Düsseldorf base. Although D- registrations were allocated for the aircraft, the company was a non starter.
One each of these went to TAE Spain and Bavaria Flug

Orientair Ltd to be based at Berlin-Tempelhof and obtained two Series 401AKs from American Airlines for operation on inclusive tour flights from Berlin to the Mediterranean. The first aircraft G-AZMI was fully painted in Orientair colours and ready for delivery at Hurn 1972 but the company failed to start operations and the aircraft NTU. The second aircraft is not known.

BAC 1-11 twilight

Eventually the need for more capacity and range for Tour Company's to get to the more distant holiday airports of LPA/TCI and RHO/HER etc. was to prove the 1-11's Achilles heel, as even CFU and PMO was a struggle on a hot day with a full load.
As soon as the 737ADV appeared later in 1971 then many charter airlines switched to buy these, or fly 727-100's (Condor, Transair Sweden, Dan Air, and Hapag Lloyd)

Caledonian AW first tied up with Global and Blue Sky Holidays (GUS great universal stores)
BUA (then to become BCAL) had the big Horizon, 4S and Wings IT contracts - but when Court Line bought Horizon and 4S in 1973 they cancelled the summer 1974 BCAL flying contracts at a huge cost to Court Line in penalties.
Court Line then flew for Horizon from LGW, seeing the (slightly downmarket) Clarkson's C changed on the tails to just a large C.

Laker AW flew for Lord Bros and Arrowsmith (MAN and LPL)

I guess BIA was the last bastion in the UK for 1-11 IT flying was until 1991, with 8 in their main fleet.
BIA leased in extra 1-11's from Tarom and BAC during busy summers.

Air Manchester flying for in house Sure Ways Travel was set up in 1982 to fly 3 1-11 300/400.
3 1-11's were painted G-SURE G-BMAN G-BKAU but only 1 flew that 1982 season, and the airline folded.

I have not included much on EAAC, nor BAF/British World here, save to say that both flew IT's - EAAC for Palmair Bath Travel and BAF/BW for the Travel Club Upminster to Spain, Portugal Jersey and Corsica.

BEA then BA, did night, and weekend IT charters for many years with their 1-11 510's mainly from MAN, BHX and NCL.

AeroAmerica was another TXL Berlin based operator flying German Holidaymakers, and they flew a sole 1-11 401 in 1976.

TAE Trabajos Aereos y Enlaces ordered 2 1-11 402 in 1969, the only 1-11 ever to be registered in Spain.
The 2nd one was NTU.

When Court Line folded most of their 1-11 500 fleet went to Dan Air and Monarch.

Not many incidents thankfully on the holiday 1-11's -

I mentioned the Bavaria Flug crash of D-ANDY at GRO in 1970 which sustained substantial damage in a runway over run accident following a rejected take-off at Gerona Airport.
When the PIC gave instructions for take-off power the co-pilot did not do so correctly. The captain noticed that the airplane was not accelerating as expected and called for full power, but the co-pilot reduced power entirely. The Captain then decided to discontinue the take-off.
Maximum wheel bakes and reverse thrust were applied but the aircraft overran the end of the runway onto a level grassy area, but then ran into an embankment some 6 m high, breaking at aircraft's back. No one was injured out of the 85 persons on board.

Paninternational sadly lost an almost new 1-11 515 in 1971 after take off from HAM to AGP because the de-min water tanks had been filled with Kerosene causing both engines to fail soon after take off. The Crew almost managed to land intact on the nearby Autobahn but the tail hit a flyover. Due to the high sink rate the jet touched down hard.
The left hand main gear collapsed. The crew applied brakes to keep the airplane on the road. It then struck concrete pillars of an overpass, causing the flight deck to separate. The fuselage skidded and broke up, bursting into flames.
The crew was forced to land on the road earlier than they had hoped for and planned. Their intention was to glide over the overpass and land on a longer clear stretch of road beyond the overpass. This turned out to be impossible because during the glide the crew were confronted by electrical power lines in their flight path, with the aircraft refusing to climb, thus forcing the crew to touchdown early and consequently not being able to avoid the overpass pillars.
However, the majority of the 121 passengers and crew survived but 22 were killed including the Captain.
The female first officer of the flight survived the accident. She later died in a Cessna Citation accident on May 31, 1987.

BCAL's 1-11 501 G-AWYS in July 1972 rejected take off at Kerkyra Airport, and overran at low speed into the famous lagoon there. I passenger died during recovery.
A Horizon Holidays charter flight to LGW. The aircraft was temporarily repaired in Corfu by BCAL Engineers, and flown back to the UK.

A Court Line 1-11 was taking off at LTN in 1974 bound for MUC and struck at high speed with it's left wing a light aircraft that had entered the runway, a Piper Aztec killing it's Pilot.
The One-Eleven was being handled by the First Officer from the right hand seat, with the Commander PNF.
During the first part of the take-off run, the Commander was checking the instrument readings, and in consequence did not look out until the aircraft had reached approximately 100 knots. At that moment both pilots in the One-Eleven saw the Aztec entering the runway from the left.
When it became apparent that the Aztec was not going to stop, the Commander of the One-Eleven took over control and fully opened both throttles.
He then steered the aircraft as far as he could to the right and at the same time attempted to lift the port wing over the Aztec but struck the cabin of the aircraft.
Immediately the impact was felt the Commander of the One-Eleven abandoned the take-off and advised the Tower. By use of full reverse thrust and maximum braking the aircraft was brought to a stop in 750 metres. The left wing of the One-Eleven was severely damaged, resulting in a large release of fuel. Nobody aboard the aircraft was hurt and there was no fire.
The Commander then ordered the aircraft to be evacuated because of the risk of fire due to the leakage of fuel from the port wing. The evacuation was delayed when the cabin staff had difficulty in opening the two forward exits in order to deploy the escape slides. Eventually, after using considerable force, the Pilot himself was able to open both doors and the evacuation proceeded normally without injury to passengers or crew.

Yes they did, the tour operator was Vistajet, and the aircraft were based at one each of Luton, Birmingham and Manchester. Hope I'm right - have no notes, this had all been going round inside my skull for the last 51 years !

Didn't work out, they then put them on schedules like E Midlands to Glasgow, but that was even less worthwhile, so they were leased out. After some leasing out to Court Line all three were sold to Transbrasil. They all came back to the UK eventually and operated under their original registrations. The end of the IT flights must have been a financial issue, the next year Vistajet was reported working with old Air Spain (ex-Eastern of the USA) DC8s.

Yes, absolutely correct - it was a water injection system which basically allowed uprated thrust settings on take-off. There were barrels and barrels of de-mineralised water all over the network as needed, and the control and labelling of it was pretty tight to make sure that the Paninternational 1971 accident couldn't happen again - the de-min water tanks were accidentally filled with jet fuel which was injected into the engines on take-off, which set off a disastrous chain of events.


I never saw a system anywhere for doing the pumping of the water from barrel to aircraft by anything other than hand-pump and it was an absolute sod of a job. Other 1-11 gotchas included the cargo door coming off its runners and CSDS (drive-shaft) failures on engine start which you could hear from a few miles away.


I can't remember if the BA 1-11-510s had the water injection system (something tells me they didn't but happy to stand corrected!) but the Dan-Air and BIA aircraft definitely did. The Tarom / Adria ROMBAC aircraft also had. The BA -510s also didn't have forward airstairs and I think has been covered elsewhere that they flew around with a lump of concrete in their place for weight & balance. Incredible really.


In latter years, BIA probably took the 1-11 performance towards the boundaries more than most. Gatwick-Athens on a Friday night in a 1-11-500 was always quite interesting, particularly when half the fleet was out doing night Athens flying. There was a fine morning when, for performance reasons, none (including the -400, which was normally OK-ish on this sector) could make it back direct and the whole lot ended up in Ostend for tech-stops in the early hours of Saturday morning where crews were going out of hours due to call-outs from standby, night duty times and all the rest. Ops had worked out that if the First Officer from one 1-11 could quickly get across to another one on a nearby stand, they could swap F/Os and at least get one full crew who had the hours to fly one of the 1-11s on to Gatwick. The plan was fine until the F/O, running across the ramp, tripped over a ground power cable and broke (or at least badly injured, can't remember which!) his ankle so couldn't continue the duty.


It wasn't one of the finest Saturday mornings in BIA Ops with half the fleet stuck in Ostend and a full Saturday charter programme to fulfil.

And just to say, on the BCal 1-11 at Corfu, everyone made it off the aircraft safely. After the evacuation, an elderly lady suffered a heart attack and passed away on the same day, so was deemed to have been a fatality from the accident.

YS was repaired and flew on with BCal, BA and then Maersk Air in the UK. It must have been in the early 90s - so nearly 20 years later - that the engineers doing a heavy check on the aircraft were rather baffled to find what looked like a high water mark running around the inside of the holds just under the cabin floor. That's exactly what it was!

Presumably the water had to be precalculated as required for a given departure, and couldn't be just left in there, otherwise it would freeze.

Did it lead to additional black smoke on departure, as on early US jets ?

Yes, you had a minimum amount to be carried and normally a reserve so that if you had an RTO or diversion on route then you weren’t stuck without it. It was quite a lot - must have been 250-300 kgs.

I don’t remember any more black smoke than the usual ! I do recall standing sufficiently close behind a 1-11 as the throttles were opened up as the aircraft turned to line up on its take-off roll to be soaked by a jet of water though. Quite often happened if you watched carefully at the start of the roll.

"I never saw a system anywhere for doing the pumping of the water from barrel to aircraft by anything other than hand-pump and it was an absolute sod of a job."
A very few, possibly only one, of the BIA aircraft had a portable electric pump that plugged into a socket in the forward hold. Naturally, they or it were the F/O's favourite aircraft.
It might be apocryphal but after the Monarch 1-11 wheels up at STN the aircraft was repaired and returned to service. On the first trip the F/O was duly despatched to pump in the demin water but returned to the flight deck to say he couldn't find the filling point. The captain, muttering something on the lines of 'stupid boy', went down and couldn't find it either. It turned out that the repairers had skinned it over. Much recalculation to see whether they could get out dry.

My last flights in the BAC 1-11 were with Dan Air between LGW and MXP, which was then a deserted backwater near the Swiss border. They were used on IT charters to supply skiers in winter and hikers/culture vultures in summer. I can't remember which model they were, but the loads had to be carefully monitored and after takeoff from MXP we had to do 2 or 3 climbing circuits to be able to reach a safe level to traverse the Alps. I used these cheap grey market flights for several years, way cheaper than the BA/Alitalia LIN-LHR monopoly. I think the last flight was in 1992, was this one of the last 1-11 flights/routes in Europe ? There can't have been too many left by then.

For all it's reputation of being seriously noisy on the outside, the flights were pretty quiet and smooth inside the cabin.

Yes all indeed quite correct with VistaJet. My first job lol (looking after Air Spain)

My last-ish BAC 1-11 flights were on DAN AIR's G-TARO, a night ATH-LGW leaving about 03.30L from the hot and sweaty pure chaos that was the old ATH International Terminal -
TARO slogged through the night and took around 4M 45M flying time.
Stupidly I chose this one as there were loads of empty seats, although I had a choice of about 6 flights to get home on (Standby Staff Travel) including a MON 757 and 2 DA 727's that all left after us, but then proceeded to overtake us over Europe! I was fuming.

I then did BIA 1-11 500 LGW-IBZ-LGW for a week's Hol, seat only for £35 return!
Catering was a sausage roll and a fruit tart - (Did it still have seat back catering??)

My very last flights I recall, was a few years later, in Summer 1991 I think, which was again a DAN AIR 1-11 500 both ways, LGW-Montpellier-LGW using their Scheduled Service to visit a pal's remote old stone country cottage in the pretty Hérault region in Languedoc-Roussillon. It was so hot, but there was a lake and a river close by for swimming.
Mostly second homers and holidaymakers on-board.
Very nice drinks and hot meal service that Dan Air Scheduled became famous for, but sadly all rather too late to save them...

My first 1-11 flights were British Eagle 1-11's LHR to Venice, and Djerba, when we stopped in Tunis on the way back to pick up some more pax.
I've got all the 1-11's names that we flew on somewhere.
SWIFT and SERENE were the 207's -- SURE STALWART SUPREME SPUR SALUTE were the 301/304's
Then -
Channel AW from SEN to Gerona on G-AVGP
Later on was Laker, BUA, Autair, and Dan Air 1-11's to Palma, BCN and IBZ, respectively out of LGW & LTN (G-AZED was one of them)
Caledonian in 1970 LGW to Palma on G-AWWX Flagship Isle of Skye, and the following year LGW to NAP as Caledonian//BUA, came back on G-AXYD.
1972 saw BCAL an aircraft short due to G-AWYS, so our LGW-DBV-LGW was subbed to a yellow Northeast Trident on the way out, and amazingly we got the Wardair 727 on the way home 2 weeks later.
Took my Mum to Majorca for a £10 all-in 3 night Holiday in Feb 1973 and the outbound 1-11 was G-AWYS!

Started then to fly on Court Line and managed all the 4 colours! (Lilac was the best) and on one of the leased BMA hybrids.

I always found the 1-11 a delight from a passenger's perspective, but then again never ended up in the seats right at the back near the engines!

The BUA and then BCal crews had a fine use for the ventral airstair - on flights back from Freetown via Las Palmas to Gatwick, they'd bring back prawns, shellfish and other local catch from Sierra Leone. Once doors were closed at Freetown, you'd put the boxes out on the retracted ventral airstair and it froze the seafood marvellously until you landed back at Gatwick. Handlers at Las Palmas had to be instructed that the rear airstairs were not to be opened or used otherwise a consignment of prawns would be dumped on the ramp during the turnround!

The SOAF 1-11 srs 485GDs had the power point for an electric pump to fill the water injection tank. I don't recall ever using it.
The normal procedure on take off was to use water injection if required and then at power reduction (1500ft.) select dump to discharge the remaining water in the tank overboard as it would freeze if left in the tank. I think if the flight was less than 1 hour the water could be carried to the next stop.
There was a mod available to fit a heater in the water tank but the SOAF aircraft didn't have in my time there. (76 - 79).
The water tank held 110 imp. gallons IIRC, that would last about 3 mins on take off or 5 mins with an engine failure.
I worked out the flow rates years ago and there was nearly as much water going into the engine as fuel.

I think the only One-Elevens built with Seatback catering were for Court Line. When they went under these aircraft went different ways, a number went to Dan-Air, who continued the concept. Did anyone else ?

First ever jet flight was a British Eagle One-Eleven, Liverpool to London, off the old short runway. G-ATPI "Supreme". Visiting aunt was returning home to Canada, it was school hols, she says to aviation-interested teenage nephew "would you like to come with me on the initial hop to London, coming home on the train ?". No need to ask twice. Pretty thin load; Eagle went under a couple of months later.

And last One-Eleven, 1993, BA Birmingham to Edinburgh, in their final weeks. I knew it was, and had sort of arranged an oddball sector to get it. Notable was the condition of the cabin inside. It was immaculate ! No trace of anything faded, worn or uncleaned. Seat fabric completely unfrayed. Well done Birmingham maintenance.

My half dozen One-Eleven flights were all with Dan-Air - first up to Aberdeen, last back from Paris. Nice aeroplane and a great airline.

Last flight for me was in March 1998. Air Bristol used them on the Airbus charter from Filton to Toulouse. Was really good service. They were replaced that year by Jersey 146 aircraft. There were quite a number parked at Filton around then

I haven't got much experience to add. I've only flown on one 1-11. YU-ANS to Ljubljana and back from Leeds Bradford in July 1987. The cabin crew on the outbound flight couldn't close the door at the ventral airstair so the skipper had to come out and do it! To be fair, they were probably more used to DC9 doors. There was one table with club seats and passengers smoking as soon as they were allowed.

I don't know what seat back catering is. Heard the expression lots of times but still clueless, except that it appears to have been exclusive to the 1-11.

It was a concept of Court Line. They dispensed with the galley and catering storage, which allowed five (maybe 10) extra seats. The seats were custom-designed by Rumbold. They had two compartments in the upper half of the seatback which the passenger behind faced, and two prepackaged "meals" were put in there. One the passenger could open when they wanted, the other was "securely" (see below) locked, because that was the meal for the return sector. All was loaded at Luton before the pax boarded. On turnround at the Med airport the packaging was disposed and the lower compartmment unlocked. I believe (because I never experienced it) that the food packs included a slug of dry ice underneath to keep cool.

Definitely something from the "seemed like a good idea at the time" camp. Children of course would wolf down the food before boarding was even complete and then grizzle an hour later that they were hungry, or take their neighbours before they arrived. But the biggest problem was the locked return compartment was too readily opened by a nailfile, car key, etc, and the return catering eaten, only to be discovered on the turnround. There were apparently some spares loaded, but once one saw what to do it could spread like wildfire down the cabin, and the spares were not enough.

The DC-10 in economy, with the supplementary oxygen compartment in the seatback in front of you rather than in a drop-down always reminded me of this.

Thankyou WHBM. Another example of an airline going to extraordinary lengths to get more seats in.

ID90 with Ryanair GLA DUB GLA pre B737 days

Having mentioned Court Line, and their impressive colour liveries (I always thought far more stylish than Braniff's colours on their fleet, which to me looked rather simplistically applied), I did read an account of their development.

Apparently there was a 1970 meeting at the Hurn plant to discuss the detail of the application. On one side was the senior BAC paint shop foreman, probably in brown coat and likely onetime RAF WW2 maintenance. On the other side were the design team who did the Court Line new colours (not just aircraft, it applied across the business). They drove down from their Soho, London offices in a multi-coloured custom-painted Mini, and came in wearing Afghan coats that were in fashion that year. BAC sales, probably in suits, completed the total mismatch of appearence and lifestyles. The paint shop foreman's comments afterwards must have been a hoot. Despite which they did a brilliant job of the application.

SAS and Swissair had 1-11's with there markings
Maybe the Gulf air ones got up to ATH
Air Uk
Hellanic

Both SAS and Swissair had early aircraft leased from British Eagle in 1967-8. This was when Douglas had got into a mess with their deliveries of new DC-9s, and they covered the cost of it all. I'm sure there was a very thorough paint job both before and after when someone else was paying !

Sabena had several aircraft in their colours in the mid-1990s, leased from both European and British World.

The Court Line aircraft had 119 seats with back to back seats by the overwing exits to speed evacuation.
I witnessed the evac test in the flight shed at Hurn. I volunteered to be a pax but there were too many people so I just watched.
Each pax had a numbered vest and was told which exit to use.
It took 3 attempts to get everyone out in the required 90 seconds with the allocated exit being changed for some.
All young, fit apprentices and the like, so not very realistic, but the test was passed.

When Gulf Aviation, later Gulf Air got its first BAC 1-11, it was decided to organise a spectacular introduction to the region's great and good; ruling families, senior merchants, Expat managers, oil company execs, you know the score..

The plan was to visit most of the Gulf States in a circular trip in the morning, and then another round trip, in reverse order, in the afternoon.

A full load of guests would embark in each place and disembark at the next, where a superb lunch would be served to them.

And then, replete and full of goodwill for Gulf Aviation, they would be taken back to where they started on the afternoon round trip.

It all went beautifully in the morning, and about 500 guests settled down to enjoy the magnificent spread. Alan Bodger was with the Bahraini party, including all Directors, anxiously watching the expense build up.

And then the BAC 1-11 did what all BAC 1-11s did when you least wanted it to happen, and broke down in Bahrain after completing the morning operation. There was only the one.

The recovery operation, using F27s, did little to restore Gulf Aviation's prestige, not great in the first place. I always felt that the day contributed to the later creation of Emirates.

I spent many hours in the back of the 1-11's in the late 70's and 80's with BA doing Aberdeen to Birmingham or LHR.
I'm sorry to rain on your parade but I felt cheated on a 1-11, I preferred the Trident 3 as a kid.....sorry