and USAir. The jets flew out of Orlando to cities in Alabama,
Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, as
well as half a dozen intra-Florida runs.
Following Braniff ’s bankruptcy in 1981, the brand was
resurrected three years later and known colloquially as Braniff II.
In April 1988 the new airline bought Florida Express, repainting
the BAC 1-11s back into Braniff Express livery. Alas the merged
airline, with its headquarters in Orlando, only survived for one
more year, shutting down in November 1989.
Another Florida-based operator was Atlantic Gulf Airlines,
which flew a pair of ex-Cascade series -401s and an Air Illinois
series -203. However, it soon ran into trouble with the Federal
Aviation Authority as its training material and manuals were all
for the -200, rather than the more powerful -400.
Additionally, the FAA insisted that the Stage One noise
waivers obtained from Cascade were non-transferrable and, with
an in-depth D check needed for one of the jets, Atlantic Gulf
was soon down to a single BAC 1-11. That machine provided
stalwart service and did not suffer a single technical delay despite
spending nearly 500 hours a month in the air. However, when
an engine inhaled a piece of FOD (foreign object debris) on
take-off at Miami, the absence of an available spare engine meant
the end of Atlantic Gulf Airlines in 1986.
One Eleven Bizjets
The BAC 1-11 also found a niche as a VIP and executive jet
in the USA. Tenneco, an automotive parts giant based at the
time in Houston, acquired N502T in March 1966 and this was
followed by N503T in July 1969. In 1975, the first executive
configured BAC 1-11 (D-ABHH) was sold by German retail
magnate Helmut Horton to Tenneco to become N504T and
complete the company’s trio.
The BAC 1-11-400 prototype (G-ASYE) was sold to Victor
Comptometers in September 1966 to become N3939V. A
comptometer was a mechanical adding machine, so the dawn of
the microchip and the pocket calculator cannot have been
an easy time for the firm, and consequently its jet was sold to
the Chesapeake & Ohio Railway in October 1972 and
re-registered as N77CS.
Like other executive BAC 1-11s in the USA, this aircraft had
many owners over the decades, as N17VK in the 1980s and from
1990 until scrapping in Tulsa at the end of 2007 as N17MK.
When American Airlines put its 30 aircraft under the
auctioneer’s hammer at the end of their service in 1972, a total
of 16 were bought by National Aircraft Leasing for conversion
to executive transports. American performed a heavy check on
each aircraft before Dee Howard (a major maintenance, repairs,
overhaul facility or MRO) undertook the executive conversions
in San Antonio, Texas.
The fifth BAC 1-11 built (G-ASJA), flew with BUA for
four years and was then passed to Marshall of Cambridge for
conversion to executive standard for Barwick Industries, with
whom it flew as N734EB. A subsequent stint with the Mexican
Air Force was followed by a return to the USA to become music
star Kenny Rogers’ private jet in the 1980s, suitably re-registered
as N97KR.Last of the Breed
Of the 244 BAC 1-11s built just one remains flyable today
and currently operates in the testbed role in the USA.
A pair of ex-American Airlines BAC 1-11-401s were initially
transferred to Dan-Air in the UK in 1969 before passing in
1983 to Westinghouse Electric for use as weapons avionics flying
laboratories. Based out of Baltimore-Washington Airport as
N162W and N164W, the two were fitted antennae for data
capture and telemetry and were used in the development of the
test systems for USAF military aircraft.
Today, only N164W remains in service although as the
official type certificate has now been withdrawn, it flies on an
‘experimental’ permit.
Sadly, retirement for the last-remaining example is looming
with the final flight expected in 2019 or 2020. When the
parking brake is set for the last time, it will mark the end of 55
consecutive years of BAC 1-11 flying in USA, a country that
took the little jet from leafy Weybridge into its hearts.San Antonio, Texas-
based Dee Howard
converted various
BAC 1-11s including
N650DH, which
was equipped with
Tay engines and
appeared at the 1990
Farnborough Airshow.
A M B Washington State-
based Cascade
Airways acquired
three ex-British
Caledonian BAC
1-11-201s and two
ex-Bahamasair BAC
1-11- 4 01s. It used
the jets on services
out of Spokane in
the mid-80s but had
gone bankrupt by the
end of the decade.
T S
C 58 AIRLINER Classics 2018