Red, Black & White
With their pristine looking maintenance hangars in the distance, one of British European Airways red, black and white liveried Vickers V.953 Vanguards sits ready for her next sector on the Queens Building stands at London's Heathrow Airport circa 1960.
Designed as follow-on to the highly successful Viscount, the Vanguard was largely pipped at the post by the incoming pure jet-age traffic and with only 44 built they were mainly sold to Trans Canada Airways as well as to our own BEA.
When withdrawn from passenger use they passed to various operators - mostly on freight work - in fact around 1968, BEA had several converted to pure freight by Aviation Traders at Southend where a large freight door was installed forward of the wing along with a new internal roller floor for pallet handling.
In this new guise the type emerged as the 'V953C Merchantman' and as such was amongst the first pure freighters to populate the then airport's new Heathrow Cargo Terminal.
This one looks to be BEA's G-APES which was one of the ones converted to a Merchantmen and after BEA use, eventually passed to Hunting Cargo Airlines carrying the name 'Swiftsure'.
When finally retired she was scrapped but the nose remains preserved at the East Midlands Aeropark.
Scanned print
Red, Black & White
With their pristine looking maintenance hangars in the distance, one of British European Airways red, black and white liveried Vickers V.953 Vanguards sits ready for her next sector on the Queens Building stands at London's Heathrow Airport circa 1960.
Designed as follow-on to the highly successful Viscount, the Vanguard was largely pipped at the post by the incoming pure jet-age traffic and with only 44 built they were mainly sold to Trans Canada Airways as well as to our own BEA.
When withdrawn from passenger use they passed to various operators - mostly on freight work - in fact around 1968, BEA had several converted to pure freight by Aviation Traders at Southend where a large freight door was installed forward of the wing along with a new internal roller floor for pallet handling.
In this new guise the type emerged as the 'V953C Merchantman' and as such was amongst the first pure freighters to populate the then airport's new Heathrow Cargo Terminal.
This one looks to be BEA's G-APES which was one of the ones converted to a Merchantmen and after BEA use, eventually passed to Hunting Cargo Airlines carrying the name 'Swiftsure'.
When finally retired she was scrapped but the nose remains preserved at the East Midlands Aeropark.
Scanned print