Video

21:38 Here, look I'm pretty sure that's Norman Tebbit!

'We had the Comet team spirit still!' I expect the passengers of the explosively decompressing De Havilland Comet might have felt differently when Their Spirit was dismantled into the ether of the 50's prototyping. I think they solved the massive aerodynamic issues involved in the acceleration of civil aviation from Biplane AW Argosy's through to the Airbus A 320's of today. Great video guys. The interviews are so interesting. Gold dust indeed. The first jet airliner I travelled in was a DH 121 Trident Three with the lil' (RB 162? ) booster which out of over 40 flights to Frankfurt and Berlin, I never once heard (felt!) one being lit.

I belong in those times ❤

Gosh I just loved this clever aircraft, wonderful design and engineering with it’s beautiful clean lines she just looked compact sleek n fast. The possibilities of English aviation were massive but lacked governmental positive backing as usual, just wasting potential so sad. May God bless England

Captain Chumley Warner and his crew.......

Absolutely a fantastic film. Brings back many memories of the early 70s.

Those where the days when the Raf had there own Navy...

Awesome , I flew in VC10’s as a passenger a fair few times .

The dear ol' Trident handled like a fighter- way better than the 737. Trouble is it had the range of a fighter too but without the power. London- Rome was about the limit for the Trident 1. Getting out of Milan was also problematic until the original engines were upgraded to 505-5Fs. Lot left out of this video- the Trident wing cracks for instance ( the wings for the T2 &3 not being properly stress tested). After the Trident flying the similar size 737-200 was like a breath of fresh air and far more flexible and economic. Actually faster too on the shorter European routes. Just for comparison, the T3 had the same number of seats as the A 320. Coming out of Istanbul the full fuel capacity of 20,160 kgs was required . The CM 56 powered A 320 needed about 12,600-13,000.

Please get the aspect ratio correct with your uploads. This 16:9 aspect was playing in 4:3 ratio.

Thought it made sense to have the BEA/BOAC split than one airline company trying to operate everywhere

"By the mid 1970s a thousand or more flights are expected daily in and out of Heathrow"; that was a bit over-optimistic, as according to current figures there's about 1300 a day in and out of LHR. And "cruising speeds up to 650 mph"? Up to, perhaps, counting Concorde, but 450 - 550 is more usual

Everyone was immaculate back then. Not one person with a tattoo or body piercings. So lovely to hear how people spoke to each other

The Trident & VC-10 production were similar in that they only followed the requirements of 1 airline, the Trident BEA & the VC-10 BOAC which later merged into British airways in 1974. Vickers were going to stretch the VC-10 further than the Super VC-10 which would have carried 200-250 passengers but because BOAC weren't interested they cancelled it.

Standards are in the toilet now

Loved those times served 1968 until 1990 on four continents how lucky were we.

The Mini on the flightline!

10:28 - And please don't worry about the oxygen masks that just fell from the overhead compartment. Nothing to see here.

I flew on BEA trident to Nicosia, Cyprus from 1970 to 1973 on main school holiday from my school in Basingstokento stay with my parents in Famagusta. My father worked for MOD as civil servant at the British army base. Thankfully, my family went back home to Britain in 1973 a year before the Turkish invasion in 1974. Nice Nicosa airport but sadly it is in ruin and closed except as a UN base. The Cyprus airways Trident still there up to now still damaged beyond repair. I remember flying with BEA except for one trip in a Cyprus airways Trident. As you may well known, in the late 1970's BEA merged with BOAC to became British Airways in which I start flying in 1976 to Hong Kong.

Worked on Nimrod in the RAF what a Aircraft did so much above and beyond the call of duty. Now we have a 737 say no more

Load of crap now, rubbish service and attitude, sims up this rat hole of a country now.

I worked at Inverness airport where Dan Air flew the route to Heathrow with a Bac 1-11 sometimes via Aberdeen. BA took over the route with the Trident in the early 80s i think.

How amazing, how nostalgic..........

A good video

They were one hell of a plane. But the RAF crews were and still are the BEST in the WORLD!! True PROS. Thank you R.A.F😊❤😊❤😊

I remember the buccaneers at RAF Honnington in the late 70s. I lived just down the road in a village called Ingham . We had a squadron leader Williams that lived in the village a true Gent😊 happy days ❤😊👍

A yellow Whirlwind HAR Mk. 10. Beautiful. 👏👏

Thank you J M for these uploads 😊 much enjoyed regards😊😊👍👍👍

Memories, had to wear a suit, first time out the country V.C ten an route Salalaha

WOW!! This brught back many happy memories for me. I was stationed at RAF Changi in 1959/62 and worked as a mechanic at SASS, Staging Aircraft Servicing Section, where every flight of Comets and Britannias from the UK landed as well as every other visiting aircraft. It was a very great feeling welcoming all the new arrivals as well as saying your farewells to those returning home. Seeing the Hastings at Changi was also very poignant, as they, 48 Sdn shared the same dispersal as SASS and I had a number of friends that worked there. I like to say that I did not fly out to Singapore with the RAF, but by a chartered Britannia belonging to Hunting Clan and we landed at Paya Lebar Airport,

Amazing to think that those Comet 4c's ended up flying for Dan Air

Not one of them get their landing gear up after take off

In1973 I went to Tennessee from Heathrow, amazing memories, love this film. ❤

It was so much easier for Boeing to develop the successful 727. They had the fuselage and the customer base from the successful 707 and 720, they knew what the customers needed and didn’t have to rely on one unreliable customer (BEA). The 727 was very straightforward, no messing around with engine options, one major upgrade (-200 Advanced). And the GBP didn’t help either.

Back in the days when customer service was proper customer service and staff actually cared......unlike "customer service " nowadays in the UK!

Pity that Boeing didn't follow the 'triplex' safety design philosophy for their 737 Max.

The tears welled up in my eyes at the disappointment of how British aviation failed to deliver on their potential despite being ahead of airplane manufacturers from other countries.

5：20 What is that communication machine with a rolling strip of paper? machine and how does it work?

De Havilands (Hawker Siddeley Hatfield) should have ignored BEA and gone for the Global market even if it meant going for private funding. Mind you, they would not have “scooped the world” because Hatfield never had the production capability nor could it have financed it. The Board was too male, stale and pale - mired in tradition and playing cricket (same for the Commercial Dept). I spent seven years as an employee there in the late sixties, early seventies and the stale nature of the company was evident. Shame because the Trident technology was certainly world beating (especially CATIII Autoland). One thing though, as mentioned by the commercial director, a major disadvantage commercially was the USD/GBP exchange rate which made the product more expensive than the B727. Another tragic story of British technological dominance at the time that was scuppered by lack of gov assistance and interference.

If only they had made it the original size that it was supposed to be and with the original larger engines then they might have got a lot more 727 operators to buy it but it seems that catering to one Airline always goes bad

It sounds optimistic in tone. And yet, by 1971, the British aircraft industry was in terminal decline by 1971. In fact, the entire British manufacturing industry was in a terrible state everywhere. Ship yards, motor vehicle manufacturers, coal mining, steel, virtually every conceivable industry that made something was closing down, or in merger negotiations, or dealing with strikes etc. The choices had already been made. Then trident, the Vc10, the Britannia etc. So it is quite interesting to see how happy and optimistic the tone is, and how we look at those days as being optimistic. Perhaps it really was? Perhaps, we imagine that it was doom and gloom only knowing what happened by the early ‘80s, when the Thatcher era was really the final nail in the coffin. But life was maybe better then. And people were hopeful? Even when the economics of it didn’t reflect that?

Thanks for posting this. Fascinating stuff from a different age.

05:15 “..Returning by BE023 from Orly on the 19th, yes his accommodation is confirmed for 5 nights at the George V.. “ Ooh Very swanky! A night at the George Cinq would probably cost about the same as the value of my car! A popular inn for the very well heeled along with the next door Prince de Galle don’t you know 😄

Interesting they used 1R to board. That door has a low ceiling!

We built a great airplane, then slung three pedal and pop motors on it.

This is clearly a piece of deception to trick the enemy into thinking they can't be photographed anymore. RAF Luton will still be watching!

I obtained in the 80s one of the Wray f6.3 , 5 inch 5 element lenses for £25.

Why is "Auto Land" still not a viable thing? Surely in the 21st century, if visibility was zero, say, surely planes should be able to land themselves as the Trident would seem like a model airplane out of a box compared to the technology today.

The Trident *COULD* have been a world-beater had they build the originally-planned model with the Rolls-Royce Medway engine. Instead, they ended up with too-small of an airliner, one that wasn't much better than the Sud-Aviation Caravelle and certainly inferior to the Boeing 727.

Very interesting to look back. I was born in 1975 the year after BA was formed but really wished I had flown BEA ❤