The Vickers VC10, a British design, first flew in June 1962. The Standard VC10 was designed for the hot high short runways in Africa which is why it was configured with engines at the rear, giving a large clean wing with leading edge slats and large trailing edge Fowler flaps.
In May 1964 a longer version made its maiden flight. This aircraft, the Super VC10, took advantage of the superior take-off performance to carry more passengers on the North Atlantic. Although slightly more expensive to operate than the Boeing 707, it more than made up for this by its passenger appeal. The legendary quietness of its cabin inspired the sales slogan:
A Super VC10, G-ASGC, is preserved at the Imperial War Museum, Duxford.
And even though no longer in airline service, VC10s are still being used by the Royal Air Force:
My friend, Phil Hogge, has written an article about flying the VC10 through Africa. It is reproduced here with the kind permission of Jelle Hieminga who has created the VC-10 website where you can find many more reminiscences of this magnificent aircraft.
Flying the VC10 on African routes
Phil Hogge flew VC10s from 1964 to 1978 and looks back on those days with fond memories. He e-mailed me the article below about flying on the African routes for which the VC10 was designed.
“Reading this excellent website has set so many memories going. I was on the first Hamble intake to join BOAC in 1962, converting to VC10s in 1964. This was my first jet type, and looking back, I realise now how lucky I was, not only to fly this magnificent aircraft, but also to do so on such an extensive route structure, first to West Africa, and then to the rest of Africa, the Far East, the Americas and across the Pacific to Australia.
In the early 1960s, the world had not changed so much from pre-war days, and, except in the USA and a few other places, high rise buildings were the exception. Dubai for example was still a small trading station on a creek in the desert with wooden dhows drawn up on the strand. The crew hotel was one of the tallest buildings in town, all of about four or five storeys – a far cry from the ‘Las Vegas’ it has become today.
I have few exciting tales to tell, most of my memories are of the wonder of being able to explore much of the world before it became homogenised. Of all these memories, flying through Africa is perhaps the most intense.
Communications were, by modern standards, primitive (overseas telephone calls had to be pre-booked several hours ahead), HF communications could be hit and miss, navigation aids frequently did not work, airfield lighting was sometimes only partly available, met reports could be highly dubious (it was better to ask the BOAC station officer to look out of the window and tell you what he saw than to rely on the official observation) and en-route ATC was often ‘do it yourself’. When away from London, you were very much on your own with no instant data-link back to head office – far more fun, if somewhat less efficient.
Most of the captains I first flew with were either ex-Imperial Airways or ex-RAF bomber pilots. Their stories of flying boats through Africa told of a magical mix of flying, ‘sea faring’, night stops in lonely staging posts on rivers and lakes, and low sight-seeing over vast herds of wild game. The ex-RAF people, understandably, had less to say, some of their experiences being too harrowing to tell except after many beers. But all felt that flying was ‘not what it was’, a feeling that exists in every generation, including my own.
The VC10 was designed for the hot high short runways of the African routes. Therefore it had an excellent take-off performance, a little over-powered from an accountant’s point of view, but much enjoyed by us pilots. It was a real pilot’s aircraft; lots of performance, precise powerful controls, very stable and with an ability to flatter even the most ham-fisted pilot. It also had a roomy well laid out flight deck, with large windows giving good visibility, and a legendarily quiet cabin.
But it was Africa which captured one’s heart. Flying south from Cairo towards Khartoum along the Nile, you could see this thin green ribbon stretching far out ahead, winding through the vast brown desert, first far out to the eastern horizon towards Luxor and Aswan, then back underneath near Wadi Halfa, only to disappear in the west towards Dongola, returning once again as it wound its way east towards Atbara, and finally to Khartoum. This was indeed to see one of the wonders of the natural world.
I have always been fascinated by exploration, and having read about the Victorian explorers, Burton, Speke, Grant and others, searching for the source of this mysterious river, and now seeing it with my own eyes really drove home the modern wonders of jet travel. Whereas they had sweated and struggled here was I, comfortably sitting in my shirt sleeves, taking the same journey in a matter of hours. I remember once, later when I became a captain, going through the cabin to talk to the passengers after a long delay in Rome on our way to Nairobi, being accosted by an irate lady passenger who was upset by being only a few hours late. She was most unimpressed when I pointed out that the journey we were now taking in little more than six hours would have taken her over six months only 100 years before.
In the 1960s, when daily services were a rarity, one had many days off at slip stations. There was time to explore: to hire horses in Cairo and ride out into the desert to see the stepped pyramids at Saqqara; or to go sailing in Khartoum on the Blue Nile from Blue Nile Sailing Club whose club house was the Melik, Kitchener’s gunboat, built in 1896 and used at the relief of Khartoum in 1898. There was time to hire cars and drive out from Nairobi up the Rift Valley to Naivasha, and then north around Mount Kenya via Gilgil, Nakuru, Thomson’s Falls, Nanuki, Meru, Embu and Fort Hall. On one memorable trip we hired a car in Kampala and drove to Murchison Falls and Lake Albert, arriving just after a thunderstorm had passed. The sky was dark blue/black, the earth and trees newly washed sparkling clean. There was no one around, the only sign of human existence being a low pipe rail fence. And there before us, only yards away, the whole White Nile thundered 140ft down through a gap just over 20ft wide. That image is still vivid in my mind.
Other occasions that live in my memory include hiring a minibus and driver in Addis Ababa and taking an entire VC10 crew to the Blue Nile gorge, second only in size to the Grand Canyon; taking the train from Lusaka and staying in the Victoria Falls Hotel right on the edge of the falls; going down a gold mine near Johannesburg to a depth of around 6000ft (well below sea level); walking through an African village on the banks of Lake Malawi at dawn (I was still on the wrong time zone and couldn’t sleep) and being greeted by happy villagers who must have been very surprised to see a lone white man passing by.
I remember one day early on in my career the aircraft went sick in Kano (even VC10s did that sometimes), forcing us to stay until the spares arrived. It was a real lesson in how to handle a problem, one that I tried to emulate later in my career. The captain and station manager organised hotels and hired buses for us all (passengers and crew) to tour around the old city. In 1965 Kano was like something out of Beau Geste, with aircraft being greeted on landing by robed men on camels blowing long trumpets! At the end of our enforced stay one of the passengers remarked that he had never really wanted to visit Kano but had enjoyed the tour very much. I could go on and on…..
But there were darker sides too. Like several days spent at the Ikeja Arms hotel in Lagos with no power or telephones while rumours of riots ran rife. This was shortly after the massacres in The Congo and the imagination runs away so easily. Being driven to Lagos airport in the crew bus during the Biafran war, coming to a road block with soldiers armed with rifles and machine guns, and the driver not stopping at the barrier but accelerating through, and all of us crew members throwing ourselves under the seats – but nothing happened, although it was the only time I saw a black African go white with fear! On another occasion, unloading the aircraft at gunpoint in Tripoli while Algerian air force fighters refuelled on their way to Cairo to support the Egyptians in the Six Day War. No one would refuel our aircraft or unload the holds and when we started to do it ourselves the army stopped us by surrounding the aircraft. Eventually after a lot of shouting and arguing we unloaded everything onto the tarmac, threw the joining passengers’ luggage into the holds and departed. The fastest start, taxi and take off that I can remember – just in case they changed their minds.
Some of the flying problems were interesting too. Early morning arrivals at Nairobi often encountered low cloud which, before the days of autoland, meant holding before the cloud lifted. On some occasions it was necessary to have to work out how best to make the approach with a mixture of aids that were only partly working. Or arriving in Lagos to find that half the runway lights were unserviceable because the locals had stolen the copper wires to make bangles. Or taxiing out at Entebbe for a heavy weight departure for London with a growing feeling that something was wrong until it dawned on us that the grass was leaning the wrong way. We stopped on the taxiway and, after a long ‘discussion’ with the tower, got them to admit that the anemometer had been broken for several days and the wind data they had given us was three days old. So we each made an assessment of the wind speed and direction by looking at the grass, re-did the take-off calculations using our combined estimates, and took off in the opposite direction to ensure we had a head wind!
I have often been asked which was my favourite route. To me, the best was a 10 day triangular trip that could be done in either direction with different selections of stops. For example, the first leg might be to Bahrain, the next to Bombay or Calcutta. Then to Singapore and Hong Kong; back via Singapore and Colombo; then across to the Seychelles and on to either Blantyre or Johannesburg. And finally back to London via Nairobi or Entebbe with night stops all along the way. What a diverse selection of cultures and aeronautical problems; the monsoon in India, the Chung Cheu ADF approach through the harbour to Hong Kong; back to Colombo flying along beside the awe inspiring thunderstorms of the ITCZ, filled with sheets of almost continuous lightening. The VOR let down on limits to the Seychelles which involved flying overhead the VOR, heading southeast out to sea, descending to break cloud and then turning back towards the island, peering through low cloud and driving rain trying to see the lighthouse at Victoria and then flying along the coast until the approach lights of the airport appeared behind the hill. All good Mark 1 eyeball stuff.
Then on to Africa for a landing at Blantyre where the narrower than normal runway made it difficult to judge the flare height – the locals used to come to watch the resulting spectacular bounces. Or, alternatively, to Johannesburg with an elevation of 5,500ft.
What a wonderful trip, and with time off at most of the stops to explore. Rose-tinted spectacles? Yes, most certainly – but that is what memories are made of. What a magnificent aircraft and what wonderfully diverse routes for us to enjoy!”
Here is a very nice promotional video from Youtube entitled ‘BOAC presents: The VC10’, showing the VC10 in action during route proving. From 2:08 onwards you’ll see footage of an arrival at Kano, Nigeria, including the men on camels with trumpets as mentioned in the article above.
