Vickers VC10 - the lost flagship

hello aviation fans sky here and it's been a while since we looked at a large eminent aircraft today we will get acquainted with one of the icons of its time which although did not become an industry leader definitely left a mark in history we are heading to the united kingdom and meeting probably the coolest creation of her majesty's civil aviation industry [Music] vickers vc10 is a narrow body long-range airliner developed by british vickers armstrong's conglomerate in the early 1960s one of the most advanced airliners of its time and the representative of a special breed of planes that implemented a tail-mounted four-engine power plant along with the soviet brother illusion ill-62 and the little lockhead jetstar and so let's go to the past the british aviation industry was always very strong and in the late 1940s it demonstrated its leadership by being the first country to introduce the world to a new generation of revolutionary power plants the d heveland comet became the first jet airliner in history and vicar's vikant in turn the first turboprop this revolution did not avoid tragedies but the technological capabilities of local aviators were undeniable vickers armstrong's was formed back in the 1920s after the merger of obviously the vickers and armstrong whitworth companies it was they who lifted the first vicar's vikon turboprop airliner back in 1948 which was very successful 445 aircraft were delivered and in the late 1950s they created its larger air vickers vanguard comparable in performance with the l18 and lockheed electra but this time not gaining popularity in the military field these guys were not wasting time as well the apogee of their work in this direction was one of the three famous v bombers the strategic bomber vigorous valiant and it became the starting point on the whittling path to the main civilian project in 1951 just when the valiant made its first flight the authorities published a request to create a transport using the experience received from the bomber it was supposed to be a fairly versatile long-range transport which moreover could have a civilian version complementing the successful development comment the series of disasters that brought this success down happened a few years later the british air force was the customer for the transport and the civilian version was interesting to the boac in 1952 vickers received the contract for creation of the prototypes that received the names v1000 in the military version and vickers commercial vc7 in the civilian however the work was being delayed because of a big amount of necessary research and the need to create a new engine the avons installed in a bomber did not fit here the prototype assembly began in 1955 just when due to the budget optimization the air force decided to abandon the aircraft vickers attempts to find alternative financing were unsuccessful the boac refused to carry the project alone it was cancelled in this regard boac's decision is understandable in the near future airlines were about to start receiving the latest and most efficient planes while the domestic aircraft caused a lot of difficulties making the airline itself uncompetitive in addition the comet disasters and their cancelled operation led to the fact that they lost a hefty piece of fleet and suffered reputational damage in the end boac ordered the boeing 707 however it did not get much easier the british business model involved active flights to the middle east africa and asia while the boeings were too large demanding to infrastructure and did not work well with heat and high altitude airports europe and america are good but what to do in the east it became obvious that neither boeing nor douglas could offer anything suitable so they decided to do it themselves offers came from all major manufacturers but the most interesting was the concept from vickers at the time of the beginning of active work on the project the engineers already knew what boac needed and it was a serious task it was necessary to create a fairly large long-haul airliner capable of competing an economy with the american flagships but at the same time much more flexible in operation and able to work in more severe conditions plus such capabilities were made keeping the potential military demand in mind these requirements became the basis for the design of the aircraft called vickers commercial vc10 given the traffic on the routes intended for the aircraft making it very large like the flagships of boeing and douglas was not worth it the capacity was to be about 150 passengers 20 to 30 less than that of the americans the remaining conditions were only one hand harsh and requiring serious study but on the other already familiar to aviators self of the english channel yes the french sudovicion caraval was created for similar conditions as it had to be able to work in africa and the middle east the plane of course was much smaller than what the british required but the concept itself was quite appropriate the basis was accepted the airliner was to have a low swept wing and engines mounted in the rear of the fuselage and then the specific designs came in firstly two engines suited the caravel fine but here it was necessary to mount four without options the requirements for thrust to weight ratio were high other placement options did not fit to put the engines into the wing was already considered inefficient and to put them on pylons under the wing was also not optimal it was dangerous when flying to low quality airfields and besides there was not enough space for engines in such an arrangement they didn't want to raise the plane very high enlarging the landing gear that already required reinforcement and so we returned to the rear engine quad layout a promising but difficult design no one had done it before the engines themselves were already on their way the work that was started in rolls-royce for the v1000 project was implemented in the latest conway engines these were the first british turbo fans which at their 100 kilonewtons of thrust were quite powerful and economical and the new reverse mechanisms improved flexibility at airfields besides the rear four engine layout although requiring structural reinforcement and addition of some elements turned out to be quite successful the thrust of these engines coupled with the qualities of the airframe was enough to fly at cruising speeds of up to 480 knots or 900 kilometers per hour at altitudes about 13 kilometers or 43 000 feet these indicators were not stunning for that time but the range of up to 5 000 miles or almost 9 500 kilometers was impressive even the two huge american flagships did not learn to jump that far right away maintaining engines in such an arrangement was more difficult than motors in individual nacelles but much easier than the engines inside the wing speaking of the wing one of the main advantages of the rear engine arrangement was the ability to achieve high aerodynamic quality of the wing free of interfering elements vickers engineers put all their effort into it along with several research centers in the country they spent a lot of time to create the most optimal design allowing to maintain both low takeoff and landing speeds and high cruise they succeeded with a span of 146 feet and 2 inches 44.55 meters and an area of 2851 square feet the clean swept wing was large enough to create the necessary lift in all flight modes and the aerodynamic profile was at that time the most advanced for aircraft of this class but beside the dimensions themselves it received a very developed and complex mechanization the pretty large flaps have a fouler design which means they extend from the wing significantly increasing the lifting force plus the front part of the wing received slats along almost the entire length three spoilers were placed on each wing console every one of which could be controlled individually giving some flexibility both in flight and on landing the tail also took a lot of work the airliner received a t-tail with a rather large increased sweep horizontal stabilizer this design required an active use of boosters but improved maneuvering at minimum speeds another requirement of low quality runways concerned the landing gear it had to be able to withstand increased loads the layout of the gear is standard three legs to reduce the risk of damage from lateral loads the legs were made quite short so the plane sits pretty close to the ground the front bogey received two wheels while the main gears had four the wheels themselves are also quite large with slightly reduced pressure which also improves their ability to swallow bumps a kind of off-road option the advantage of the vc10 over many other aircraft of this layout was the lack of inclination to you know fall in its tail this was achieved by shifting the main landing gear back which required modification of the tail but protected the aircraft from excesses it still failed a couple of times but usually it was the result of violations in ground handling procedures thanks to these solutions as well as the high thrust ratio the 150 ton airliner could take off and land from strips up to 8200 feet or two and a half kilometers long while the long-haul airliners existing at that time required strips on average 1500 feet longer vigorous great pride on the vc10 was avionics the aircraft control system was one of the most complex and advanced in the world and included a highly developed autopilot and functionality that made it possible to land at first by instruments in bad meteorological conditions and later completely automatically the most difficult part with the aircraft control complex a duplicated hydraulic system with individual connection to the engines and the use of a decent number of boosters did complicate the design although simplified the piloting which could easily be handled by a crew of four people two pilots a navigator and a flight engineer yes the task of teaching the aircraft to work in bad conditions was taken by vickers very seriously the plane received an oval fuselage with dimensions well fitting the concept of narrow body airliners in terms of widths it was almost no different from its peers boeing 707 dc8 and ill-62 the aircraft capacities changed from modification to modification the early models accommodated up to 151 passengers maximum and up to 109 in the usual 2 class layout with the creation of the super vc10 version these numbers increased to 139 in 2 classes and 174 maximum the layout of the cabins was quite classic four or six seats in a row with one aisle despite the challenges and revisions the aircraft was very interesting and promising boac ordered 25 units to fly to difficult destinations however already at the stage of preparation for flight tests the market began to change pulling the rock from under the future plane passenger traffic and aviation was growing at a tremendous pace and a hub transportation system started to take shape requiring an increasing capacity of airliners seeing this even when creating the basic aircraft vickers began work on the version super 200 with an extended fuselage boosted engines and a capacity of up to 212 passengers the aircraft was supposed to conquer the changing industry and compete first of all with new versions of the boeing 707 which were already on the line and quickly capturing the market the simultaneous creation of not just a complex aircraft but also its modifications devoured resources of the company forcing it to request government support the situation improved although the super 200 project had to be greatly simplified now the company introduced the basic vc10 standard type 1100 accommodating up to 151 passengers and the elongated super vc10 type 1150 accommodating up to 174 people finally in june 1962 the vc10 prototype made its maiden flight as part of the tests three machines performed hundreds of flights and many changes were made to the design certification lasted until 1964 when the operation finally began then another seemingly unrelated factor started pressing on the newborn vc10 the decolonization the empire on which the sun never sets was reducing its colonial territories ironically the vc-10 was being created primarily for flights to dominions in africa the middle east and asia and now the demand for them started to decline the boac simply had no need for a big vc-10 fleet in addition the decrease in flights to the east had shifted the priorities of airlines now trying to increase their shares in europe and on transatlantic flights and there the big american airliners which had already undergone many modifications were feeling much better besides most destinations began to receive more developed airports with good infrastructures the flight advantages of the vc10 became insignificant and the cost of their operation turned out to be higher than the more demanding but also more capacious american airliners the popularity of which often made the operation even easier as a result the main customer of the aircraft boac clearly preferred the boeing 707 and to all the complaints they answered simply that they were a commercial airline not a charitable foundation and if vickers wanted to compete in the market they have to make the aircraft more efficient this was pretty ironic given that most of the aircraft's specifications which now turned out to be useless were initially formed precisely in accordance with the wishes of boac vickers then already a part of the united british aircraft corporation or bac placed their bets on the super bc10 in the new conditions the large capacity made it more efficient in the first year of operation 12 basic vc10 were delivered and until 1969 17 more super vc-10s joined them these aircraft were adored by both the crews who were proud of the aircraft with incomparable technology and capabilities and the passengers who received a high level of comfort and speed the brainchild of vickers became the fastest civilian plane performing transatlantic flights its record was broken only by the concorde it even got to the point where people would specifically customize their travel plans to get on a flight performed by the vickers boac actively operated the planes although facing many problems in the very first years of flight it became clear that the aircraft was too complex and some of its functions were unnecessary at first they got rid of the reverse thrust systems on internal engines already installed on the early liners then it turned out that the advanced automatic landing system was almost never used pilots didn't trust the autopilot completely the topic of flight automation is controversial even now and in the 1960s it seemed almost a heresy besides while in england and northern europe it was often foggy and the system could be used in the southern regions it was not necessary at all the former colonies as much as they could also operated the plains that went to the fleets of several airlines in africa and the middle east although their numbers of course were very modest in the beginning carriers from eastern europe and china were also interested but after some time they took to their fleets the soviet ill-62 vigors could barely support the production of airliners that failed to become massive many projects of modernization the creation of a transport aircraft and even double deck models were never implemented there was not enough resources for this work the competitors were moving forward while the british started to lag the vickers planes were more difficult to maintain the bigger mass of the structure caused higher fuel consumption with a lower capacity and the noise level with the development of aviation was already too high flexibility in working with poor airfields was not in great demand smaller and simpler planes were flying there the vc10 military service was most successful the aircraft flying in the royal air force fleet were a modification of the vc10 with booster engines additional fuel tanks and the possibility of aerial refuelling they began deliveries in 1965 and were actively operated in the late 1970s british aerospace took up modification of the aircraft and the creation of aerial tankers on their bases in total from 1962 to 1970 54 vigorous vc10 aircraft of several major modifications were built probably the most advanced purely british airliner fell victim to concept errors political clashes and fierce competition but despite the failure the plane confirmed its reliability some disasters involving the airliners were the result of human errors besides we should take into account the areas where they were operated most of the losses were the result of either the military conflicts or terrorist attacks and hijacks the boac successor british airways started decommissioning the airliners in 1974 the planes were leased to other carriers or modified and transferred to the royal air fleet technically the vc10 was flying actively with some other airlines but by the beginning of the 1980s they began to lose those positions too in the end in the early 1990s the airliners were either in the military in museums or in the aircraft graveyards in the military format the vc-10 served in the royal air force until the beginning of the 21st century participating in many operations but this could not last forever the fleet modernization program has replaced both the vc10 and lockheed tristar with the new airbus a330 mrtt aerial tanker operations ended in 2013. vickers vc10 can be considered an example of an aircraft design that is too complex technically the airliner can be seen as a miracle of engineering many solutions of which were ahead of their time on the other hand the phrase ahead of its time is a polite version of the phrase in over its head many of the solutions were too complicated the transportation industry was not ready for them and considering the changes in aviation well the vc10 did not become a victory although it still remains a legend on this dramatic note let's finish today's story comment below what you think about this epic airplane fast flights and soft landings to you [Music] you

Channel: Skyships Eng

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Keywords: vickers, british aviation, bae, british aerospace, vickers vc10, vc10, vc10 aircraft, vickers-armstrong, vc10 jet, vc10 documentary, vc10 history, vickers plane, bae systems

Id: 5BRWg9TVmBE

Length: 18min 57sec (1137 seconds)

Published: Tue May 18 2021