the freighters were used primarily to carry
equipment and personnel in connection with
the Blue Streak missile project in Woomera,
South Australia, and also on trooping
contracts to the British military outposts in
the Middle and Far East. (Blue Streak was
an ultimately doomed British medium-range
ballistic missile that for a limited time was
tested in Australia.)
On the European front, having received
permission in 1964 to begin a scheduled
Viscount link to Stuttgart direct from London,
Eagle discovered that Lufthansa was also
eyeing the same route and intent on matching
its flights head to head. In 1966, both airlines
had introduced jets – Lufthansa with the
Boeing 727 and British Eagle with the BAC
One-Eleven. Lufthansa eventually withdrew
its service in May 1967, leaving the British
firm as the sole carrier on the route.
With domestic, European and long-haul
charter work firmly in its grasp, Eagle’s fleet
had grown substantially and by 1966, it
comprised 27 aircraft: 15 Britannias, seven
Viscounts, four One-Elevens and a DH Dove.The latter, G-AROI, and named Eaglet,
was something of an oddity. It was based
at Dundee and used exclusively to connect
the London to Glasgow flights with Dundee,
with two return trips on weekdays. At this
time, Dundee Airport had a grass runway.
When the aircraft had to be positioned to
Liverpool for maintenance, a similar type was
chartered from Strathallan Air Services. The
route, having begun on July 5, 1966, was
never a commercial success and following
increasing losses, it was dropped little more
than a year later.
During 1966 and 1967, British Eagle took
delivery of seven new One-Elevens. These
were quickly put to work on new and existing
services. For the summer of 1967, there
were to be new routes, including Liverpool-
Manchester-Frankfurt, the rights to which
had been awarded some months before.
Additionally, the type was to be used on
IT flights from Birmingham, Liverpool and
Manchester. The most popular destinations
were to the Mediterranean, but an unusual
one at that time was Tunisia, both to thecapital, Tunis and the island of Djerba.
Additionally, licences had been granted to
operate IT services to Bermuda and Nassau,
as well as Nairobi and Mombasa, and the
Boeing 707s, several of which had been
purchased from Qantas, were put onto these
routes. One exception was VR-BBW, the
type 465, which had been delivered new to
the then Cunard Eagle Airways in February- Just eight months later, following
the break-up of Cunard Eagle, it had been
transferred to BOAC.
A CRUEL END
Just as Eagle appeared to be firmly
established in the airline market, several
factors beyond its control began to
undermine its position. In July 1966, the
government of the day imposed a £50 limit
on the travel allowance for British citizens
going abroad. This was the maximum
amount allowed to be taken out of the
country in a failed effort to narrow a huge
balance of payments deficit and revive the
economy. It began to have a dramatichttp://www.aviation-news.co.uk 81Eagle Airways DC-6 G-APSA and airline personnel.Douglas C-47B Dakota G-AMYB at London Airport. ‘Yankee-Bravo’ was operated by Eagle for four years, starting in 1953.78-82_eagleDC.mfDC.mfDC.mf.indd 81 06/07/2018 12:00