A Trident for the office!

[petermcleland]

Garry, I flew the Two quite a lot after the flights amalgamated and I enjoyed it...I did some Simulator on the One when we did the amalgamation course but I managed to avoid flying a real One till they had all gone. I really wasn't too keen to fly a One with Droop instead of Slats and sundry other confusing differences

[Garry Russell]

Thanks for that Peter

Garry

[clavel9]

Thanks for that link

Both ex Channel Air ways 1E's went to BEA Channel Islands and that was at the time of the Flying Jack...
Garry

I had a look at two books I have at home. Channel got two Trident 1E-140's: G-AVYB and G-AVYE out of an original order of five. (G-AVYA went to Air Ceylon (as 4R-ACN), G-AVYC and G-AVYD to BKS.) YB was delivered to Channel on 31 May, 1968 and sold to BEA on 3 Dec, 1971, being delivered in Feb, 1972. She was leased to Northeast on 21 Feb, 1972 (according to Lucas) or had been sold direct to Northeast on 9 Dec, 1971 (Lo Bau). YE was delivered to Channel on 14 Jun, 1968 and sold on to BEA (Channel Island Airways Division: Lo Bau) on 20 Jan, 1972. She transferred to BA on 19 Nov, 1973 servicing former Northeast routes (along with YC and YD). According to Lucas, YE was the only 1E to appear in BEA colours as YB was in BEA ownership for either 6 days (Lo Bau) or possibly two months (Lucas). Either way it seems unlikely YB would have been painted in BEA colours, though as you say it did go to BEA. Obviously the dates conflict, but as the Lucas book was published in 1972 it carries a certain amount of authenticity. (Though this doesn't explain why Lo Bau's account, published in 1992, should differ.)

It's a minefield.

Sources: Trident: Airlines and Airliners no. 8 (ed. J. Lucas, Airline Publications and Sales, 1972); Airlines & Airliners: Trident (ed. P. Lo Bau, Aviation Data Centre, 1992)

[Garry Russell]

Thanks

That would account for the rareity of pics and those that show up only being YE.

Channel rarely flew YE as it was held by RR against non payment and bits were taken off to keep YB going

So when sold to BEA it was incomplete.......perhaps the differnce in time maybe BEA owened it for two months but it was only delivered after re activation six days before passing it on.

YE seems to have been chiefly Birmingham- Paris

It was not uncommon in those days to fully repaint an aircraft for just a few weeks but I doubt if YB was painted

Sometimes things are not what they seem.....Viscount G-BBVH was bought by BEA purley to lease to Gib Air who years later bought it.

In this case maybe BEA bought both to pass on to NE but found only one was needed so kept YE itself for a while????????. I can't see why BEA would operate an odd Trident by design..

On the other hand a lot of what they did made little sense like scrapping several V.800 in the mid seventies then leasing 2 V.810 from BMA to make up a shortfall, two aircraft that needed seperate crews.

Garry

[clavel9]

Thanks

In this case maybe BEA bought both to pass on to NE but found only one was needed so kept YE itself for a while????????. I can't see why BEA would operate an odd Trident by design..

On the other hand a lot of what they did made little sense like scrapping several V.800 in the mid seventies then leasing 2 V.810 from BMA to make up a shortfall, two aircraft that needed seperate crews.

Garry

Indeed. The scarcity of photos of YE in BA colours suggests it may have only been used on an ad hoc basis. I've no idea how the Channel/BKS/Northeast Tridents were fitted out: ie: whether they had moving maps, full autoland installed. Certainly export 1E's hadn't. Maybe the Tridents were refitted prior to entering service with BA. Then there's the whole business of engine ratings: the Speys fitted to 1E's would have been later-spec 510/5's and all up weight would have been higher than the 1C's. On top of the issues Peter has mentioned already...

There's plenty more info on BEA's Channel Islands services in Phil Lo Bau's book - probably too much to summarise here. After all, this thread started out as a discussion on Michael Wilson's Trident for X-Plane!

Brendan.