FlyPast 03.2018

March 2018 FLYPAST 81

Early jetliners were as aesthetically pleasing as they were revolutionary, as evidenced by these previously

unseen early 1960s views from London Heathrow airport.

A group of vehicles surround Alitalia Sud Aviation Caravelle I-DABA, while a BEA Comet 4B taxies
past in the background. How pleasant to hark back to a time when airliners were usually given
names rather than codes and numbers.

Originally registered as EC-WMS when new, Convair 440 EC-AMS ‘Alcazar’ of Iberia Airlines is seen

here on short fi nals. The Metropolitan – the manufacturer’s name for the type – later passed to

the Spanish Air Force, before fi nishing its days as XA-LAF with Aerovias Caribe in 1986.

First fl own from Toulouse on November 3, 1960, Air France’s Caravelle F-BHRU ‘Politou’ gleams in the sunshine. Last fl own on August 29, 1980, the nose section of the jet was saved and is now

preserved at the La Ferté Alais museum.

Maintenance vehicles cluster around British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC)’s G-APFE, a nearly-new Boeing 707-436 fi tted with Rolls-Royce Conway engines. This aircraft was lost, together with
124 passengers and crew, when it fl ew into extreme rotor turbulence near Mt Fuji, Japan on March 4, 1966 and broke apart mid-air.