Turbine Ambassador
 

Though it now seems odd that no turboprop was offered, t'was not so in late-1940s.

UK's Brabazon Committee suite funded into R&D 1943-46 Types to build NOW, to employ the vast Aero industry, to earn and save $. Comfort to defeat Dakota was expressed in the Continental as armchair space. AS.57 was designed with 4 wing points for ASM Mamba turboprop in Mark II, but was to be brought into rapid Service with tried and tested Centaurus. Insurance Continentals were funded as Mamba/AWA Apollo and VC2 Viceroy.

BEAC observed Dart/VC2 first flight 16/7/48 and ordered 20 Ambassadors 22/9/48 as "low-risk": turbines then were seen as expensive, TBO maybe rising to 00s, not the 000s hours expected of sound pistons (BOAC's 28/7/49 order for 25 Britannias was with Centaurus, same reason).

DH subsumed Airspeed as a Divn. in 1948 to build Vampire/Venom. Neither DH nor MoS cared to sponsor turbo-AS.57 in the absence of a civil customer-prospect. But on 3/8/50 BEAC ordered 20 VC2 as V.701 Viscount: within days of its introduction, Ambassador was doomed.

Don't think it's been mentioned that during flight testing at Christchurch, a prototype was being flown with the CG progressively further aft until the pilot (Ron Clear I think) ran out of elevator in the flare. The aircraft smote the ground an almighty blow which left the Centauruses lying on the grass alongside the wheel ruts from the impact. As far as I can recall other damage was relatively light and the aircraft flew again fairly quickly.

Afterwards, the engineers presented Ron Clear (if 'twas he) with a beautifully mounted ship's telegraph with the dial set to "Finished with Engines".

Nothing to do with the Ambassador but a similar bracket of test flying.

The Aerospatiale S330 Puma was being flight qualified in the mid sixties. The Puma had been fitted with a flight stabilisation system that made it fly very much like a fixed wing aircraft. The test series were to assess what problems would arise at the extremities of the performance envelope should part of the stabilisation system fail.

One of the tests was to fly it at VNE (velocity never exceed) and have a full runaway of the yaw (tail rotor) control channel at the aft limit of the CofG. For those who are unfamiliar with helicopters the three control planes can effect each other in much the same way as a fixed wing.

The helicopter would be set up in a dive as it was the only way of achieving VNE and a switch would be thrown which would put the tail rotor actuator into open loop. The tail rotor would immediately run to full pitch and violently slew the aircraft and induce roll.

The pilots would then have to wait for two seconds before taking corrective action.

The roll rate induced was something in the order of 90-100 degrees/second. The general consensus was to let go all the way round but they had to prove that a normal commercial pilot could bring it back; and they did, and it passed.

DH actually bought out Airspeed just as WW2 started, in 1940. Airspeed was a bit of a "mom-and-pop" operation on the airfield at Portsmouth, a bit pushed to put out more than one a fortnight. Government eventually had over 8,500 Oxford advanced trainers, plus nearly 4,000 Horsa gliders, they would have been way out of their depth. Airspeed Commercial Director Nevil Shute was more interested in writing his novels.

Neville Shute Norway was in the Royal Navy for WW2 as part of their Miscellaneous Weapons Development Section coming up with ways of fighting U Boats and working on a way to defeat coastal defences with the Great Panjandram. Although the less said about that one the better..

Forgive me for resurrecting this old chestnut - but several years ago I came across on the internet what I think is my favourite photograph of an Autair Ambassador. Well of course I forgot all about it until recently and then I spent hours and hours searching 'The Web' without finding it. The other day I was tidying up my downloads and lo and behold...........

https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....a2c4aaf414.png

G-ALZS arriving at Blackpool very probably on the scheduled service from Luton.

Sadly on September 14th 1967 landing at Luton she aquaplaned and was written off. I was on holiday from Autair at the time but a couple of months later was Duty Ops when one of our two surviving Ambassadors commenced a night approach to Luton in weather conditions equal to if not worse than those that the Captain of G-ALZS had encountered. I quickly rang Air Traffic and asked them to pass a company message to the aircraft to "Divert to Stansted" (Nice long Runway there !) and off he went. In retrospect I, a callow youth recently promoted from Tea Boy cum Ops Asst, massively exceeded my authority. A couple of hours later the crew arrived. The Captain, Garth Hanchard Goodwin, a very experienced ex Fleet Air Arm Pilot smiled wistfully at me and said he would have got her into Luton without any difficulty. And quite honestly I expect he was right.........!


https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....1acfddc331.png
Photo Credit as captioned.

https://www.baaa-acro.com/crash/cras...ssador-2-luton

Hi never flown in one ,but as a young boy at college in the iom one of the sports grounds was at the end the runway and very occasionally a Dan air Elizabethan would arrive and do it's engine run up , load's of noise and tail vibrating, sounded much more powerful than the seemingly Endless coming and going of the usual Viscount's

Wonderful Bristol Centaurus engines. In my time at Autair Ops in the period we were operating Ambassadors up until 1969 I cannot remember an engine failure or an unscheduled engine change. This was due in part to the quality and skill of Autair's engineers. Their Ambassadors never carried a uniformed flight engineer but frequently a Flying Spanner would accompany the aeroplane, I can recall Pete Hart, Jock Lauder and Stuart Clegg among others performing this duty. I think somewhere else I've bored the socks off folk recalling a particularly fun School Educational Flight I went along on - providing the commentary while David Hampson flew the Ambassador low over the newly opened Severn Bridge which was the subject of the day. Oh gosh and then there was another jolly with two Ambassadors on a Chemical Works outing to Le Touquet - where we bought food in the market, hired a car and took the Girls and the Flying Spanner off for a picnic to a beach in the middle of nowhere where Nightingales sang and rusty signs warning of mines were a reminder of recent history. Later that afternoon returning in haste to the airfield and while overtaking at speed an old lorry carrying hard-core, a large piece detached itself from the aforesaid and penetrated the windscreen in a dramatic manner. I punched a hole through what was left of the windscreen, thanking my lucky stars that the Car Hire Manager had insisted on my taking out insurance. Nevertheless he was none too happy when we returned his automobile muttering " That the bloody British had murdered France's only Virgin." In retrospect that was one of the best days of my life along with wedding my late wife.

Ambassador memories:

We planespotter kids who lived near Heathrow noted that the Lizzie's Centaurus engines made a distinct not-unpleasant low-pitched whine during the approach - due to the sleeve valve operating mechanism perhaps?

Flew as a pax DUS-LTN in one of Autair's machines, September 1966. During the cruise there was an almighty crash and everyone froze. One of the stewardesses had dropped a tray of cutlery. Took a few mins for the tension to ease.

Talking of Stewardesses - one of our elderly, no nonsense, Autair Stewardesses was debagged on the homeward leg over the Irish Sea by some rowdy passengers on a Rugby Club Charter. Afterwards and quite rightly too there was a hell of a hoo-ha about it.

If that happened today there would be a monumental hoo-ha! How times have changed, for the better overall.

Discorde

You are so very right about the Ambassador (more likely Elizabethan at LHR of course) a very distinctive noise compared to the big American radials whether airborne or at full TO power . I always thought they cannot have been easy to fly because of the seemingly very small cockpit windows. They also seemed exraordinarily close to the ground ,with Darts they would proably have got a decent amount of market share from the F27 which was succesful globally, not sure if anyone but the Brits flew the Ambassador.

A few Ambassadors (All ex BEA) operated for a short while with ' Foreign Operators.'

Butler Air Transport Australia - Period 1957-1958
G-ALZX as VH-BUI
G-AMAH as VH-BUJ
G-AMAE as VH-BUK

More on these here:VH-BUI Airspeed AS-57 Ambassaror


https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....9e7baaca87.jpg
VH-BUI inaugurating the first Butler Air Transport Ambassador service at Mascot Airport, Sydney. (Photo Powerhouse Museum).




Globe Air Switzerland - Period 1960-1963
G-ALMAF as HB-IEI (Reduced to Spares in Switzerland)
G-ALZS as HB-IEK
G-ALZZ as HB-IEL
G-ALZV as HB-IEM

These three Ambassadors eventually purchased by Autair from Handley Page who in turn was selling Heralds to Globe Air.


https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....a855ff3755.png





Incidentally prior to its time with Globe Air G-ALZZ was destined for service with Norronafly of Oslo as LN-BWF but the purchase was never taken up.
https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....814fd8b531.png
Photographed at Cambridge by the Late Gerald Lawrance.

I believe Overseas Aviation were to acquire four of the type to operate a "walk on" no reservation service between Gatwick and Prestwick via Manchester.

The only Ambassadors I saw were Decca's ZP at West Malling and Dan's ZO at Lasham. to my mind an elegant aeroplane. Love the Autair shots at luton OU OPS though that shot of double Zulu is sad.

Not forgetting the Royal Jordanian Air Force example (ex G-ALZP) - not sure if it ever actually got to Jordan, pic looks like Heathrow:

https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....b326016228.jpg

https://www.airlinefan.com/airline-p...r/107/5170550/

I've just done a check on G-info and G-ALZV, G-ALZZ and G-AMAF were all registered with Overseas Aviation prior to being sold to Globe Air.

Fascinating, they would have looked good in Overseas livery.

Didn't Vic Norman's dad operate an Ambassador as a mobile slot machines demonstrator for a bit in the 1960s, or was it a Marathon?

Edit: found it! It was a Marathon, G-AMGX! Answered my own question...

https://cwsprduksumbraco.blob.core.w...ger/G-AMGX.pdf

https://www.bal-ami.com/about-BAL-AM...i-history.html

The ubiquitous Dart was also tested whilst at Farnborough the Napier Eland distinguished itself by flying the whole of its flying display using only one engine, the other one being feathered.
NB: Farnborough International rules nowadays do not permit this ever since the Breguet Atlantique crash in 1968 when it had one engine shut down however air show operators in other countries probably may allow it.