![]() ![]() There was what you might call a non cooperation pact between the corporations in the BEA management created an open hostile atmosphere towards BOAC probably they rightly believed that the government would get BOAC to sort us out. The BOAC 707 Moscow flights were a separate operation through to Tokyo, which started in 1971, the "Russiaway to Japan" route, for which they had to buy two new and specially equipped 707s actually after they started taking delivery of 747s - which were not permitted on the Siberia route for many years afterwards. It was almost unknown for Soviet nationals to be on the BEA flight, despite each only operating on a few days a week. ![]() Aeroflot ran Tupolev 104s on the route, changing over to Ilyushin 62s around 1970. Once the Comets had gone a Trident was all BEA had for Moscow, loads could be notably thin at times and there are stories of them being down to single figures in winter. I believe the BEA square logo in the cheatline (but not the big red one on the fin) was replaced by a CY logo for the duration, which for each of the two aircraft typically lasted for about 3 months before coming back to Heathrow for a check and being replaced. Separately to this, BEA in the 1960s provided two Viscount 800s to Cyprus Airways, which did their local regional flights. I think this 1961 timetable has BEA Comets to all the points mentioned.Īnd no, BOAC, despite showing many other partners, only sparingly included any such flights in their timetables - and in return BEA never showed BOAC ones in theirs. The Comets got to Beirut, Cairo, and for a while further, to Damascus, Kuwait, Bahrain and Doha, which are the farthest destinations served by BEA aircraft and crews. BEA had a longstanding codeshare agreement with Cyprus Airways, who didn't have their own aircraft in the 1960s, on this. Tridents, and indeed Comets before them, went to all the eastern Med points, most commonly through Nicosia in Cyprus, also served nonstop by both types (Tel Aviv is actually visible on the horizon when you are at altitude over Cyprus). Or if HS had stuck to their guns and marketed their 121 internationally despite BEA. Now if BEA had simply ordered the original HS121 in the first place. Four engines (so not a TRIdent anymore?), five if you include the APU. So they stretched the T2 and added the RB162 boost engine, a compact turbojet that had been developed as one of many lift engines for vertical lift in the days before the brilliant Harrier defined that technology. Later they upgraded that to the T2 at BEA's request, about the limit for Speys (the Medway was never produced once the HS 121 was ditched).Įventually BEA woke up to the size of aeroplane they should have bought in the first in the first place, and asked HS to make the T2 bigger yet. So they did, the ludicrously undersized T1. It might have been a viable competitor to the later B727, taking the market that went to that aeroplane.īut BEA said "it's far too big. It was about T3 sized, and planned to use three RR Medway engines. In the beginning (of this saga) Hawker Siddeley had on the drawing board the HS121. It was worse than that quite a sad saga that explains quite a lot about why we Brits weren't very good at selling aeroplanes outside UK. It basiclly has two settings full power for take-off and "off"! Talk about Heath Robinson!! I always laugh about the T3 - designed to be longer with a greater capacity until someone realised it couldn't get off the ground! So they put in a fourth mini-engine with an on/off switch (!). ![]()
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