was an aircraft on a short-term lease from
Mount Cook Airlines in New Zealand which
was given the registration G-AYYG, a
Series 2A.
Originally owned by the American business
magnate Howard Hughes, it was registered to
Dakota and South Bend Securities. Hughes
kept the aircraft stored at Woodford, near
Manchester, from November 1973. It wasregularly serviced and maintained in first-class
condition, but following Hughes’ death in April
1976, the aircraft was sold to Mount Cook
Airlines as ZK-MCF.
It was leased three times by Dan-Air, but
always retained the basic Mount Cook blue
livery, with Dan-Air London titles added to
the cabin roof.MAIL AND FREIGHT
The airline became an integral part of the
Post Office’s drive to speed up mail delivery
when in 1979 it became part of what was
known as ‘Spokes to Speke’. Liverpool
(Speke), now Liverpool John Lennon Airport,
was chosen by the Post Office as a hub for
its nationwide distribution system because of
its central location.
Every evening, aircraft would land at
Speke, including Dan-Air’s HS 748s, with
sacks of mail. After the post had been
processed and redirected, it was loaded
back onto the waiting aircraft for forwarding
to final destinations around the British Isles.
North of the border, Dan-Air eventually
had 14 HS 748s based in Scotland, serving
the oil industry. The aircraft worked primarily
as the fixed-wing link between Aberdeen,Glasgow and the Shetlands, where oil rig
personnel transferred to helicopters for
onward travel to the oil fields.
By 1980, at the peak of the oil boom, the
company had made in the region of 6,700
flights between Aberdeen, Glasgow and the
Shetlands.
A new member of the fleet was added
in May 1981 when a further Series 2A
machine, 5W-FAN, was purchased from
Polynesian Airlines.
It was registered to Dan-Air as G-BIUV
and delivered from Apia (Samoa) to
Manchester arriving on May 30, 1981 but
was withdrawn from passenger service on
October 1 the same year and converted to
take large items of cargo.
British Aerospace at Woodford had been
approached to quote for the freight-door
contract, but Dan-Air decided its price was
too high. The airline struck a deal to buy the
original drawings and the door, in kit form,
and it was fitted ‘in-house’ by the company’s
own engineers. The work was completed by
the following March.
In 1992 this aircraft was leased to the
Liberal Democrat Party for a three-week tour
of the country during the General Electioncampaign, adorned with the party’s name
and logo.
The aircraft went on to be used as a pure
freighter, undertaking many car-part charters
and spending time with British Nuclear Fuels
ferrying specialist cargoes to the North of
Scotland.
The changing oil charter market was
in decline. Dan-Air by the mid-1980s was
the third largest HS 748 carrier in the world
with 21 examples and had to find a new
source of revenue for many of its Scottish-
based aircraft. A number found themselves
overseas, one of the destinations for some
aircraft was the British Virgin Islands on
lease to Air BVI.
A fillip came when British Airways
changed policy on aircraft used on its
internal Scottish routes as after it retired its
Viscounts it took the view that no propeller
driven aircraft would be based north of the
border (a policy later changed), so Dan-
Air obliged by supplying aircraft for BA to
maintain its Scottish services. The first of
three aircraft to wear British Airways livery,
G-ATMJ, appeared in Aberdeen early in
March 1982. It was named Glen Nevis while
in British Airways service.‘North of the border,
Dan-Air eventually
had 14 HS 748s
based in Scotland,
serving the oil
industry’
http://www.aviation-news.co.uk 39Leased to the Liberal Democratic Party from March to April 1992, G-BIUV was the only aircraft
in the Dan-Air fleet to have a cargo door conversion completed in-house at the company’s
Manchester Ringway engineering base.Maintenance staff at Manchester Ringway preparing G-ATMI for lease to Air BVI in December- The aircraft, one of the manufacturer’s early builds, was first delivered to the British
carrier, Autair. It served many airlines before being purchased by Dan-Air.
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