British United Airways -what was their callsign?
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British United Airways -what was their callsign?
Did they even have one?
So many previous companies came together to form BUA. Which one did they pick?
So many previous companies came together to form BUA. Which one did they pick?
They used mostly (but not always) aircraft reg until they became BCal in about '72, usually in abbreviated form eg 'British United VK', sometimes dropping the 'British'.
I was doing my tower training at Glasgow at the time and I remember the confusion when they changed from 'British United' to 'British Caledonion'.
I was doing my tower training at Glasgow at the time and I remember the confusion when they changed from 'British United' to 'British Caledonion'.
I well remember in 1966 or ‘67 the Saturday Gatwick to Las Palmas, “British United 451” & the Sunday “British United 453” to Tenerife - both Bristol Britannias - trundling their way across from ALD to FRQ (consol beacon), whereupon they changed over from Paris West 129.0 to Paris Radio on 5551.5 / 5626.5 / 6567.0 HF for the trip onwards to LG (another consol). The estimates between Paris & Madrid were also passed on the same frequencies; usually after 5 or 10 minutes of blind calls on the radio. This would be followed by them working Canarias & Casablanca on HF about 75 mins further on. These were the only 2 flights per week from the UK to the Canaries at the time. How times change - nowadays there must be well over a 100 per week ! In those days, internal Iberia & Aviaco CV440s operating between Madrid & airports in NW Spain could also be heard on these frequencies calling for their clearances from Madrid whilst on the ground, & later , making position reports when airborne.
Last edited by kcockayne; 9th Dec 2019 at 16:28. Reason: additional info.
I well remember in 1966 or ‘67 the Saturday Gatwick to Las Palmas, “British United 451” & the Sunday “British United 453” to Tenerife - both Bristol Britannias - trundling their way across from ALD to FRQ (consol beacon), whereupon they changed over from Paris West 129.0 to Paris Radio on 5551.5 / 5626.5 / 6567.0 HF for the trip onwards to LG (another consol). The estimates between Paris & Madrid were also passed on the same frequencies; usually after 5 or 10 minutes of blind calls on the radio. This would be followed by them working Canarias & Casablanca on HF about 75 mins further on. These were the only 2 flights per week from the UK to the Canaries at the time. How times change - nowadays there must be well over a 100 per week ! In those days, internal Iberia & Aviaco CV440s operating between Madrid & airports in NW Spain could also be heard on these frequencies calling for their clearances from Madrid whilst on the ground, & later , making position reports when airborne.
Although BUA did fly their VC-10's down to Las Palmas from 1965? (fuel stop and BUA had traffic rights) on the West African and South American scheduled runs.
(Did the 1-11 200 also do the West African run that early, stops at Lisbon and LPA on the way?)
The BUA charter Brits would soon be accompanied a year or so later to the Canaries by charter jets of -
Dan Air (Comet) Laker (1-11) Channel AW (Trident, which I gather set a record for fastest STN-LPA flight in 3hrs 15 mins)
and Caledonian also got their 2 new 707's in 1967 - Global and Horizon Holidays chartered them for holiday flights to Spain, Balearic's and to the Canaries.
Ooops sorry thread creeper
http://www.timetableimages.com/ttima...64/br64-06.jpg
In fact the first aircraft were late in delivery and so the Viscounts had to carry on until April. One of the downsides of old printed timetables with long lead times. This also shows the Britannia services to the Canaries in winter 64/65 - it was seen at the time as principally a winter destination. The BUA Britannias had only recently come available for such services, as from new, pre the BUA merger, they had been mainly occupied by military charters.
Yes kcockayne, that makes sense.
You'll recall that BUA only existed as such from about 1960 to late-1970, when it was taken over by Caledonian to form Caledonian-BUA - soon to be renamed British Caledonian. At some stage in the 1960s BUA started using "British United" plus the last two letters of the a/c reg on some short-haul flights including, IIRC, BUA[CI] flights out of Jersey and BUA [Manx] out of Blackpool. (Both those companies sported BUA livery.)
Mortons, a BUA-associate company at LGW, continued using just the a/c registration (usually abbreviation of) until it and the others merged into BUIA in the late summer of 1968. Perhaps someone will remember what we used in BUIA/BIA (I have a theory). And what about BUAF?
I think the 1-11 (200 series) "Inter-Jet" flights from LGW to EDI, GLA and BFS (from early 1966) used "British United Juliett-Charlie", or whatever, but doubt that applied on the aforementioned, One-Eleven West African service that WHBM mentions.
As you suggest, at least by the late 1960s, medium and long-haul flights seem to have adopted "British United" plus the numerals of the flight number.
chevvron may not remember that the callsign for all British Caledonian flights was simply "Caledonian" plus the flight numbers. (The written flight numbers all used "BR" as the prefix, as had those of British United.) During the early months of the merger, early in 1971, I can remember using the "British United" callsign on VC10 services.
Re. the Consol/NDBs you mention, readers might be interested that 'FRQ' was Ploneis, near Quimper, and 'LG' was Lugo, in N.W. Spain, so both well-placed for London-Canaries routings.
You'll recall that BUA only existed as such from about 1960 to late-1970, when it was taken over by Caledonian to form Caledonian-BUA - soon to be renamed British Caledonian. At some stage in the 1960s BUA started using "British United" plus the last two letters of the a/c reg on some short-haul flights including, IIRC, BUA[CI] flights out of Jersey and BUA [Manx] out of Blackpool. (Both those companies sported BUA livery.)
Mortons, a BUA-associate company at LGW, continued using just the a/c registration (usually abbreviation of) until it and the others merged into BUIA in the late summer of 1968. Perhaps someone will remember what we used in BUIA/BIA (I have a theory). And what about BUAF?
I think the 1-11 (200 series) "Inter-Jet" flights from LGW to EDI, GLA and BFS (from early 1966) used "British United Juliett-Charlie", or whatever, but doubt that applied on the aforementioned, One-Eleven West African service that WHBM mentions.
As you suggest, at least by the late 1960s, medium and long-haul flights seem to have adopted "British United" plus the numerals of the flight number.
chevvron may not remember that the callsign for all British Caledonian flights was simply "Caledonian" plus the flight numbers. (The written flight numbers all used "BR" as the prefix, as had those of British United.) During the early months of the merger, early in 1971, I can remember using the "British United" callsign on VC10 services.
Re. the Consol/NDBs you mention, readers might be interested that 'FRQ' was Ploneis, near Quimper, and 'LG' was Lugo, in N.W. Spain, so both well-placed for London-Canaries routings.
Love the BUA 1965 Timetable showing the West African route that leisurely made its way down to the Dark Continent over 2 days with a Las Palmas night stop (both ways) - I gather the Hotac was included in one's ticket price.
The Viscount was also used on the GIB and AGP flights.
I note the BUA VC-10 to East Africa flew 3 times a week non stop to EBB with two going on to NBO, and one to Ndola, Lusaka, and finally Salisbury arriving 13.05 Thursday.
The jet then seems to stay at Salisbury until 08.00 the next morning before making its way back home.
Very surprised at such a long layover - But I guess if the VC-10 was to head back up straight away say around 15.00 to LUS, NLA, EBB was it held back because of the temperatures or a too early morning arrival time at LGW (or bit of both?)
However leaving Salisbury at 08.00 it eventually leaves EBB at 15.15 (heat of the day) with an arrival at LGW 20.30
#Puzzled lol
The Viscount was also used on the GIB and AGP flights.
I note the BUA VC-10 to East Africa flew 3 times a week non stop to EBB with two going on to NBO, and one to Ndola, Lusaka, and finally Salisbury arriving 13.05 Thursday.
The jet then seems to stay at Salisbury until 08.00 the next morning before making its way back home.
Very surprised at such a long layover - But I guess if the VC-10 was to head back up straight away say around 15.00 to LUS, NLA, EBB was it held back because of the temperatures or a too early morning arrival time at LGW (or bit of both?)
However leaving Salisbury at 08.00 it eventually leaves EBB at 15.15 (heat of the day) with an arrival at LGW 20.30
#Puzzled lol
As Salisbury was served only once a week, it allowed the crew who likely were changed at Entebbe to return with the aircraft instead of them all stopping over for a week. The VC-10 was perfectly able to handle Hot & High departures, that is what it was designed for. The leisurely West African flight kept the same crew throughout its 4-day round trip, with all the night stops. They took a flight engineer to sign it off each morning and deal with any issues, and probably took quite an extensive spares pack just in case as well. The cabin crew were always one steward and one stewardess. I read (here, actually, some years ago) that the crew were given a different hotel at Las Palmas to the passengers. What our grandparents got up to …
All these services originated with the 1950s "aircoach" cheap rate services, by BUA's predecessors Airwork and Hunting Clan, to both East and West Africa, allowed by the government from the early 1950s, to BOAC's dismay, which operated originally with Vickers Vikings, and later Viscounts, on a very low frequency. The weekly West Africa run was handled fortnightly by the two operators, each alternating, and again the crew stayed with the aircraft all the way round. They only operated by day, in stages of less than 1,000 miles, and also night-stopped along the way. The West African one had traffic rights at the Las Palmas nightstop, which is how BUA were able to develop it as a destination in its own right.
All these services originated with the 1950s "aircoach" cheap rate services, by BUA's predecessors Airwork and Hunting Clan, to both East and West Africa, allowed by the government from the early 1950s, to BOAC's dismay, which operated originally with Vickers Vikings, and later Viscounts, on a very low frequency. The weekly West Africa run was handled fortnightly by the two operators, each alternating, and again the crew stayed with the aircraft all the way round. They only operated by day, in stages of less than 1,000 miles, and also night-stopped along the way. The West African one had traffic rights at the Las Palmas nightstop, which is how BUA were able to develop it as a destination in its own right.
BUA move towards all-jet fleet in 1964/5
Hi rog747 and WHBM,
This topic could merit a thread of its own, considering it marked BUA's planned switch from turboprop to jet equipment on short, medium and long-haul services. And thanks for bringing it to attention with the BUA Winter Timetable for 1964/5, WHBM. Another of your blasts from the past...
You've alluded to the delay - though not the sad reasons for it - in delivery of the first One Elevens, which rendered that part of the plan unachievable. Thus the switch to jets was limited to the VC10s for the time being.
Early one Thursday afternoon in October '64, the first weekly BUA VC10 service arrived at SAY (Salisbury, Rhodesia) from Gatwick.. The operating crew would have indeed flown the a/c only from Entebbe, via Ndola and Lusaka. After an hour or two, however, G-ASIW took off again to do circuit-bashing for crew training. This probably became a regular feature for the BUA trainers such as W M (Bill) Evans and John Moss on Thursday afternoons in Salisbury for a while. I don't know if BAC training captains were still involved at that stage. There wold have followed a decent evening and night's sleep at "the pub", followed by a fairly leisurely start the following morning.
This was a typical example of an embryonic fleet with an urgent training requirement to cater for the pending delivery of G-ASIX, BUA's second Type-1103 (combi, with Super wing) VC10. (As you know, "IX" was eventually sold to the Sultan of Oman, and now resides back at its birth place of Brooklands.)
To answer rog747's questions in more detail: short/hot/high aerodromes were, as WHBM says, what the VC10 was particularly good at. At an elevation of 4725 ft, SAY was already fairly long (later to be extended to over 15,000 ft for sanctions-busting B707s and DC-8s) but Lusaka was less than an hour away. Lusaka (City) was/is only 6500 ft long at an elevation of 4200 ft and Ndola, at a similar elevation, may have been shorter at that time. But even the hop from Ndola to Entebbe was only two hours, so take-off weight was presumably not a problem. Entebbe, at 3789 ft elevation, would have been low enough to permit MTOW from the WAT (altitude and temperature) criteria, even in the afternoon, but the single runway was, at under 8000 ft in length, just a bit too short for that. The direct EBB/LGW sector of around 7:45 airborne was, however, do-able with a full pax load.
NBO/LGW direct, departing at lunchtime (see BR102) would have been more restrictive. The elevation of 5327 ft and the afternoon temperature of maybe 26C (ISA +22) would knock a tonne or so off the MTOW, and the typical flight time was over 8 hours. By the way, BOAC's standard VC10s, introduced to Africa about six months earlier, had the standard wing, which lacked the lower (8 deg) flap setting for take-off that gave a big improvement to the RTOW when the latter was WAT-limited. Contemporary B707s would have been seriously restricted out of Nairobi. (Years later, B707-320 performance out of NBO was improved considerably by the introduction of what was later known as optimised VR and V2, in which (as you know well) surplus runway length is used to accelerate to a higher V2, giving a better second-segment climb-gradient. But even that and the 707-320's lighter APS weight didn't allow it quite to match the earlier payload capability of BUA/BCAL's Type 1103 VC10s on NBO/LON direct.).
Quote from WHBM on the West African service's scheduled night-stop at Las Palmas: "What our grandparents got up to.."
Not sure about grandparents
but yes, I remember later in the 1970s when BCAL VC10 crews (two pilots, F/E, Nav and 6 cabin-crew) regularly positioned from Gatwick to Freetown to operate FNA/EZE/SCL when the a/c arrived from LGW. Like the One Eleven crew, we did stay at a different hotel from the pax. Unlike them, however, we didn't need to observe the 8-hour curfew (we positioned in civvies) and much of the night was spent in a local discotheque...
To nit-pick slightly, WHBM, don't forget that Airwork's Safari service extended also to so-called Central Africa (Ndola, Lusaka and Salisbury), the home of Central African Airways (CAA) with its rival "Zambesi" service to London. Until Rhodesia's UDI in late 1965, after which the BR211 terminated at Lusaka, BUA had also continued Hunting Clan's freight services through SAY to Johannesburg with the DC-6A.
This topic could merit a thread of its own, considering it marked BUA's planned switch from turboprop to jet equipment on short, medium and long-haul services. And thanks for bringing it to attention with the BUA Winter Timetable for 1964/5, WHBM. Another of your blasts from the past...
You've alluded to the delay - though not the sad reasons for it - in delivery of the first One Elevens, which rendered that part of the plan unachievable. Thus the switch to jets was limited to the VC10s for the time being.
Early one Thursday afternoon in October '64, the first weekly BUA VC10 service arrived at SAY (Salisbury, Rhodesia) from Gatwick.. The operating crew would have indeed flown the a/c only from Entebbe, via Ndola and Lusaka. After an hour or two, however, G-ASIW took off again to do circuit-bashing for crew training. This probably became a regular feature for the BUA trainers such as W M (Bill) Evans and John Moss on Thursday afternoons in Salisbury for a while. I don't know if BAC training captains were still involved at that stage. There wold have followed a decent evening and night's sleep at "the pub", followed by a fairly leisurely start the following morning.
This was a typical example of an embryonic fleet with an urgent training requirement to cater for the pending delivery of G-ASIX, BUA's second Type-1103 (combi, with Super wing) VC10. (As you know, "IX" was eventually sold to the Sultan of Oman, and now resides back at its birth place of Brooklands.)
To answer rog747's questions in more detail: short/hot/high aerodromes were, as WHBM says, what the VC10 was particularly good at. At an elevation of 4725 ft, SAY was already fairly long (later to be extended to over 15,000 ft for sanctions-busting B707s and DC-8s) but Lusaka was less than an hour away. Lusaka (City) was/is only 6500 ft long at an elevation of 4200 ft and Ndola, at a similar elevation, may have been shorter at that time. But even the hop from Ndola to Entebbe was only two hours, so take-off weight was presumably not a problem. Entebbe, at 3789 ft elevation, would have been low enough to permit MTOW from the WAT (altitude and temperature) criteria, even in the afternoon, but the single runway was, at under 8000 ft in length, just a bit too short for that. The direct EBB/LGW sector of around 7:45 airborne was, however, do-able with a full pax load.
NBO/LGW direct, departing at lunchtime (see BR102) would have been more restrictive. The elevation of 5327 ft and the afternoon temperature of maybe 26C (ISA +22) would knock a tonne or so off the MTOW, and the typical flight time was over 8 hours. By the way, BOAC's standard VC10s, introduced to Africa about six months earlier, had the standard wing, which lacked the lower (8 deg) flap setting for take-off that gave a big improvement to the RTOW when the latter was WAT-limited. Contemporary B707s would have been seriously restricted out of Nairobi. (Years later, B707-320 performance out of NBO was improved considerably by the introduction of what was later known as optimised VR and V2, in which (as you know well) surplus runway length is used to accelerate to a higher V2, giving a better second-segment climb-gradient. But even that and the 707-320's lighter APS weight didn't allow it quite to match the earlier payload capability of BUA/BCAL's Type 1103 VC10s on NBO/LON direct.).
Quote from WHBM on the West African service's scheduled night-stop at Las Palmas: "What our grandparents got up to.."
Not sure about grandparents
but yes, I remember later in the 1970s when BCAL VC10 crews (two pilots, F/E, Nav and 6 cabin-crew) regularly positioned from Gatwick to Freetown to operate FNA/EZE/SCL when the a/c arrived from LGW. Like the One Eleven crew, we did stay at a different hotel from the pax. Unlike them, however, we didn't need to observe the 8-hour curfew (we positioned in civvies) and much of the night was spent in a local discotheque...To nit-pick slightly, WHBM, don't forget that Airwork's Safari service extended also to so-called Central Africa (Ndola, Lusaka and Salisbury), the home of Central African Airways (CAA) with its rival "Zambesi" service to London. Until Rhodesia's UDI in late 1965, after which the BR211 terminated at Lusaka, BUA had also continued Hunting Clan's freight services through SAY to Johannesburg with the DC-6A.
Fascinating and pioneering times of our aviation history and reminiscing of our careers - thanks to you all.
Oh for a time machine to go back and plod down to Africa in a Viscount with a night in Las Palmas...
My last long plod in a Viscount was our night charter from LPL to Palma which I last did around summer 1980 or 81, on free tickets for us at BMA LHR.
Flight time was 4hrs 45mins, tasty hot meal (lamb chops with pommes noisette, how on earth how did I recall that?) and the skipper came down the back to sit with me and eat his dinner.
Oh for a time machine to go back and plod down to Africa in a Viscount with a night in Las Palmas...
My last long plod in a Viscount was our night charter from LPL to Palma which I last did around summer 1980 or 81, on free tickets for us at BMA LHR.
Flight time was 4hrs 45mins, tasty hot meal (lamb chops with pommes noisette, how on earth how did I recall that?) and the skipper came down the back to sit with me and eat his dinner.
