A Little VC10derness

Yesterday I was lucky enough to spend a few minutes in the Aladdin cave at Brooklands of old Vickers/BAC documents and saw a drawing of a BUA Super VC10 and I also heard of an internal BAC memo that states that BAC turned down an order for two more VC10's from BUA because the material lead time was too long, presumably this must have been in 1969/70 when production was coming to an end.

Happy new year to you all

Paul

Think I read about this somewhere else, a case of too little too late as I think the production line had already ceased.

That's a new story for me, but it doesn't surprise me, there are lots of gems hidden in the tech archives at Brooklands! I had a quick look at Henderson's book as he included a chapter about the sales that fell through and at Laker's biography but neither of them mentioned this. Next time you're there, better take a camera Paul!

Edited to add: the merger with Caledonian was in November 1970. 5H-MOG was delivered in February 1970 so 1969 or early in 1970 makes sense. At that point BAC was finishing off the last orders and it had been a while since any new orders had turned up.

This story reminds me of the Chinese interest in the VC-10 but how it was to late and the production line was sadly closed.........

The Chinese ordered 707's instead- a shame considering a further order from BUA and from CAAC would perhaps have meant Vickers turning a profit on the VC-10..................

(Apparently Vickers lost around 20 million on the VC-10 program)

This shows how leaky my memory can be. Browsing through some of my photos from September of last year I realised that the drawing you're referring to Paul is probably this one:



This is in the exhibition in 'VM's fuselage on one of the panels that describe the VC10's history. For an impression of the exhibition have a look at the last three images on the page about 'VM: http://www.vc10.net/History/Individual/GARVM.html

I took photos of the panels, the display cases and the layout of the fuselage but apparently also forgot what I had seen.

yep, that's the one, Jelle

Paul