Vickers VC10: an icon of the air

Description

Other books have charted the VC10 in airline life, but this book blends that story with a well-researched tale of corporate and political power play. It asks; just what lay behind the sales failure of the VC1O? Politics played an important part of course, as did BOAC's tactics, and a 'who dunnit' cast of politico-corporate events and machinations at the highest level of society during the dying days of Empire in 1960s Britain. Key players in the story, from Tony Benn to famous test pilot Brian Trubshaw (Concorde), are cited and quoted. The VC10 was the nation's biggest jet airliner of its age and regarded as the world's best looking airliner. It was safe, fast, and designed to take off from short runways in Africa and Asia, at the request of its main operator BOAC - the airline that would later go on to become today's British Airways. The VC10 and the larger Super VC10 were beloved by pilots and passengers alike and became icons of the 1960s. They were hugely popular all over the...