22 The Aircraft of British Aerospace and BAE SYSTEMS 1977 - 2017
engining the One-Elevens with the new
engine. Using the Tay 650 with its
powerful 15,100lb thrust, take-off
performance would be increased by 32%,
range by 500 miles and engine
maintenance costs cut by up to 40%.
With freight bay fuel tanks a Tay
One-Eleven would have a transatlantic
capability.
In July 1983 BAe Weybridge offered a
programme of re-engining both 400 and
500 series aircraft to existing operators on
the basis of thirty-five conversions. There
was hope that one or other of the large
operators would express an interest in
re-engining their fleet, but none was
forthcoming and the proposal was
withdrawn.Dee Howard and the Tay
One-Eleven
The withdrawal of this BAe proposal really
spelt the beginning of the end for the Tay
One-Eleven project, for without the
whole-hearted involvement of the
manufacturer there was unlikely to be a
viable programme. But Dee Howard of
San Antonio went ahead with it. BAe and
Rolls-Royce entered into an agreement
with Dee Howard to provide expertise
and technical data. Dee Howard assessed
there appeared a good case for the
re-engining, especially as the One-Eleven
500 series could outperform the BAe
146-300 and was probably equal to the
Fokker 100.The First Flight of the Tay
One-Eleven
On Monday 2 July 1990, the Tay One-
Eleven N650DH, marketed as the BAC
1-11 2400 made its first flight and was
demonstrated at the Farnborough Air
Show where it made a positive
impression. Substantial progress had
been made in the flight testing. John
Lewis (BAe Chief Test Pilot, Filton) who
captained the aircraft on her first flight
and had led the test programme said that
it was a superior machine to the 146. But
on 17 November the first aircraft made its
last flight and the second Tay One-Eleven
N333GB flew a mere ninety-seven hours
and was then grounded as Dee Howard
had cancelled the project.Romania and the Tay
Romaero met BAe, Rolls-Royce and Dee
Howard in September 1991 and proposals
were made to use YR-BRI and refit it with
Tays. There were many difficulties to
overcome; the lack of finance, BAe’s lack
of confidence in the Romanians and
Rolls-Royce’s desire to be supplier not an
investor.
Too late, TAROM, the Romanian airline,
announced they wanted to re-engine
their One-Eleven fleet and Dee Howard
offered the second Tay One-Eleven to
Romaero who were unable to afford it.
But these actions were pre-empted on 7
July 1993 when BAe withdrew from the
Romaero operation entirely, apparentlybecause of money owed by the
Romanians. Licence production then
ceased.
The One-Eleven continued in service
in Europe in April 2002 when services
were curtailed by new noise legislation.
Aircraft migrated to other countries but
soon faded from use. However, one
aircraft remains in use as an F-35 radar
testbed with Northrop Grumman in the
USA.Concorde – supersonic
triumph
From 1977 until 2003, we could fly in
comfort supersonically from London or
Paris to New York in a little over three
hours. This was an immense Anglo-French
technological achievement created by
BAC and Aerospatiale. The first two
prototypes, F-WTSS and G-BSST flew in
1969 and engaged on a lengthy six-year
test programme along with four other
development aircraft.The World’s first supersonic
passenger services
The first services began with
simultaneous departures from London
and Paris at 11:40 GMT on 21 January,
1976, with British Airways’ G-BOAA flying
non-stop to Bahrain and Air France’s
F-BVFA with a route from Paris to Rio de
Janeiro via Dakar. These rather
unexpected destinations were chosen as
initially Concorde was unable to fly into G-BOAC
departing London
Heathrow en route
to New York in 2003.
(Rob Ware)