Vickers Viscounts in the U.S.

[SaxMan]

I'm curious to know how many complete Viscounts are still extant in the U.S. I know MAAM has theirs, which has been grounded for quite some time because one of the RR Darts is garbaged. I believe the CAF has one sitting out in the weeds at the airport in Brownsville, TX in a virtually derelict condition. Does anyone know the condition of the engines on the CAF bird? Maybe MAAM and CAF could orchestrat some kind of trade?

The Viscounts have a pretty interesting history in the U.S., as Capital Airlines was the first American carrier to utililze them. It gave Capital a brief qualitative advantage over their competitors, at least until the turbojets showed up. Quick trivia: The Capital Viscounts were the first planes to be equipped with the folding tray tables. When Capital merged, United got 46 of the 60 Viscounts, 9 of them were returned to Vickers, with the remaining five having been lost in accidents.

I've had the opportunity to talk to an old Capital pilot about his experiences. It's been great hearing his stories. While we tend to focus a lot on military aviation, civil aviation from the post-war to 1960 time frame is often overlooked, but certainly no less interesting and no less important to the "full picture" of our nation's aviation history.

[WallyB]

I'm curious to know how many complete Viscounts are still extant in the U.S. I know MAAM has theirs, which has been grounded for quite some time because one of the RR Darts is garbaged. I believe the CAF has one sitting out in the weeds at the airport in Brownsville, TX in a virtually derelict condition.

Only other is N22SN in the Pima museum. A few years ago there were a number of others (SLC,MKE) lying around but AFAIK all gone to beer cans now.

The Brownsville one seems to have been turned over to the airport fire department. If the CAF aren't going to do anything with it how about giving it to someone who would - SMoF perhaps? Was an outfit in Tucson (Go Air?) who had a fleet fitted out for pop group charters and they had a stash of spare airframes none of which survived

[Jerry O'Neill]

I think MAAM has a fuselage of another Viscount. It use to be painted up with a Japanese meatball on the side.
Jerry

[Brenden S]

Plenty of F-27's flying around the world still. Can't be that hard to find a RR dart. I also know that RR still supports all the engines it has made.

[dors]

I think MAAM has a fuselage of another Viscount. It use to be painted up with a Japanese meatball on the side.
Jerry

Are you thinking of the fuselage that was painted as the fictional German "Das Hump Jumper Flug"? That one was scrapped.

I remember the MAAM Viscount and Martin 404 flying in the Reading airshow in '94 or '95. Really cool to see those vintage airliners in the air.

[CAPFlyer]

While there are still Dart engines out there, the parts are more scarce in the US and Canada than parts for the Allison (Rolls-Royce) 501, especially the Dart Mk. 510. The F-27 uses the Dart Mks. 532, 7, or 538 depending on model. However, there are only a handful of F-27's still flying anyway and none in the US. The last of the F-27 Mk 500 Freighters for FedEx were retired a few years ago due to parts shortage and replaced with ATR's.

[SaxMan]

The second Viscount MAAM had, which was a fuselage with spurrious Luftwaffe markings was the "donor" for the interior of MAAM's Capital Airlines Viscount, which was being used as a freighter at the time of its purchase. Once the donor fuselage was stripped, it was scrapped.

MAAM's current airframe has an interesting history: It was originally ordered by Capital Airlines and built to Capital Airlines specs, but never delivered, as Capital was having significant financial difficulties at the time. It was part of 15 additional Viscounts that Capital ordered, along with four DeHavilland Comets, which also were not delivered. I believe 4 of the 15 Viscounts were delivered, with the remainder being taken back over by Vickers Armstrong and literally sent all over the globe, including MAAM's example. Of the 4 that reached Capital, two of them crashed not long after delivery: One in Chase, Maryland in May 1959 during a thunderstorm where it literally was torn apart by turbulence and the second occuring in early 1960 over Holdcroft, Virginia where the plane encountered icing conditions, causing two engines to lose power. While the crew tried to restart the two engines, the other two lost power. The plane went into a flat spin and impacted the ground.

It would be nice to see MAAM's Viscount up in the air again. Recent pics seem to indicate it's going to need a paint job, too.

[CAPFlyer]

Hrm... seems my original post got truncated by my internet... oh well.

I'm aware of one ground-running capable Viscount, the one at the Brooklands Museum in the UK. I have spoken with one of the guys who's spent at lot of time with both it and their Merchantman trying to keep them running and his assessment was pretty grim on parts, especially airworthy ones. The few parts they've been able to get for both airplanes were near the end of their serviceable lives and I suspect that especially because of the very extensive changes needed for the Darts on the Viscount versus other aircraft that used them, there are few or no parts left for the MAAM Viscount as it is a Model 745D powered by the Dart 510, which while similar to the Dart 514 on the HS.748 and Convair 640, has enough differences to make them virtually incompatible.

Beyond that, I suspect that (as with most British aircraft of that era) there is significant corrosion to the internal structure. The aluminum alloy used had very high amounts of magnesium in it and it was not clad to protect against corrosion. Having sat outside for as long as it has, if the spars aren't heavily corroded, I'd be extremely surprised.

[hbtcoveralls]

I got to see the MAAM viscount fly and it was really impressive. Those Darts were really screamers with those tiny intakes. Shame that there are so few since it was really an attractive aircraft. funny story about the fuselage that was at the MAAM. I was one of the WWII Weekend guys and we set up a large WWII encampment every year for the WWII weekend. Well, a couple weeks before the event, what shows up right in the middle of our camp area but a very large Vickers Viscount fuselage. Painted blue and white (Piedmont airlines I think) this was something that was really out of place in a WWII Army camp. So taking a page out of Army history, we decided that if it moves salute it and if it doesn't, Paint it. Out came the OD paint and we quickly turned the Viscount into the very rare C-48 veteran of many flights over the hump and now a cannibalized wreck at a forward AAF base. A year or two later it became a German Condor when we made that area the ETO area. The fuselage was scrapped but became kinda famous in her own way.
Tom Bowers

[Dave Hadfield]

There are quite a few in Canada, of course, since TCA were the first big customer over here. But none running that I know of.

Nice one in the Museum in Ottawa at Rockcliffe.

Dave

[WallyB]

There are quite a few in Canada, of course, since TCA were the first big customer over here. But none running that I know of.

Nice one in the Museum in Ottawa at Rockcliffe.

Dave

Yes, Canada is well off for Viscounts but they are all grounded. The last flying one was a P&W testbed out of St.Hubert, Quebec now resident at a Tech College in Montreal.
Others (W to E):
Victoria BC
Garland MB (at a private residence, may or may not still be there)
Winnipeg MB
Ottawa ON
Montreal QC

All ex-Air Canada as is the one at Brownsville TX.

[Dave Hadfield]

Yes, when I first showed up in Winnipeg as a brand-new DC-9 F/O in 1978, memories of the Viscount were still very fresh -- it had only had its last flights (delivery flights) about 3 years earlier. They used to call the base "Viscount High".

And there seemed to be at least one Viscount parked in the weeds at every major Canadian airport.

But now, standing beside it in that museum at Rockcliffe, is the very DC-9 that I did my first line flight in, fin 711.

Good thing I don't feel old yet, although I notice on an intellectual level that evidence is starting to mount...

Dave

[SaxMan]

I interviewed a former Capital Airlines Viscount pilot this evening. Great stories. He said the pilots used to call the Viscount the "Reynolds Wrap Rocket". The "Rocket" part was because it was introduced, it was considerably faster and flew higher than the piston engine transports, and the "Reynolds Wrap" part was because the plane looked to be so delicate.

[old iron]

Wasn't there one in Maryland at one time that was designated for NASM, but never officially joined the collection? What became of it?

[Mike]

List of preserved airframes:

http://www.vickersviscount.net/Pages_Links/Links.aspx