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Aviation History
1961
1961 - 1080.PDF
182 FLIGHT, 10 August 1961 BAC One-Eleven A CLOSER LOOK AT THE BRITISH AIRCRAFT CORPORATION'S NEW JET SUCCESSOR TO THE VISCOUNT AN aeroplane may inherit fame, but it still has to win successin an exceedingly competitive world. The fact that theBAC One-Eleven has the brand label of the Viscount will of course open many airline doors. But the aircraft must still sellon its merits in a market that is tougher and more demanding than it was when the Viscount first began to sell, and which is still,despite the Viscount, US-dominated. The British Aircraft Corporation had many questions to resolvebefore it settled for the One-Eleven. Market surveys were done, as of course they must always be done. While market research mayconfirm what should not be built, it cannot decide what should be built; it is no more than an aid to management in making the finaljudgment—the irrevocable judgment that commits a company and everything for which it stands to a new aeroplane. Obviously, BAC's new jet could not overlap the market coveredby the VC10. For a long time—from 1959 until early in 1960— project work was concentrated on the VC11, a machine of about170,0001b and 130 seats designed for the 1,000-2,500 range-band. Based on the Rolls-Royce Spey (four off) it seemed to appeal tothe market, particularly to TCA. But political events at home posed other questions, the answers to which could not be narrowed downby market surveys. The British aircraft industry was being reshaped, and as a candidate for Government support the BritishAircraft Corporation's VC11 found itself competing with the de Havilland Trident—or, more precisely, with projected develop-ments of that aircraft. Though this did not itself cause the VC11 to be withdrawn, it was undoubtedly a contributory cause, as wasthe foothold gained in Europe by the competing Boeing 727, chosen by Lufthansa. The same domestic events that brought the VC11, rightly orwrongly, into political conflict with the Trident also brought the Hunting H.107 project into the British Aircraft Corporation.Vickers and Hunting, now part of the same family, together breathed new life into this project, concentrating BAC thoughts onthe development of a true jet successor to the Viscount. Influence of the 107 project on these thoughts was considerable, and it isappropriate to trace the evolution of the One-Eleven back to the beginnings of the 107. Hunting's first 107 design study was completed in May 1956.The Bristol Orpheus was, at that time, the only suitable engine available. Serious design work began in November 1957, a mock-up was built at Luton, and low-speed wind tunnel tests were com- pleted. In September 1958 it was realized that turbofan enginesthen being developed would offer more attractive economics and the 107 was redesigned around two Bristol Siddeley BS.75s. Atthis stage it was a 48-seater with a range of up to 1,000 miles. Early in 1960 a report on the Hunting 107 was prepared for theboard of Vickers-Armstrongs (Aircraft) Ltd by the Vickers civil aircraft development group. This was shortly after the announce-ment of the forthcoming integration of Bristol, English Electric and Vickers as the British Aircraft Corporation (January 1960),and BAC's subsequent acquisition of the controlling interest in Hunting Aircraft. In May 1960 a team from Hunting led by themanaging director, Mr Arthur Summers, visited Weybridge; a presentation of the 107 was made to a Vickers team headed by SirGeorge Edwards. From this moment the project went forward as a joint Hunting-Vickers effort. At mid-1960 it appeared that the best hopes for converting the107 from a project into a firm production aircraft lay in developing it initially as a Valetta/Varsity replacement for the RAF. It wassuggested that, in the interests of rapid development, the 107 would be introduced with Orpheus engines and subsequently produced inthe more economic BS.75 version. A proposal on these lines to the Government did not meet with a positive reaction, and theproject was therefore continued as a civil transport aircraft with BS.75 engines. During this period it was decided to widen thefuselage to accommodate five-abreast seating, as in the Viscount, instead of four as in the original Hunting design, and the positionof the tailplane was moved from the middle to the top of the fin. In August 1960 there was a further presentation at Weybridgeat which features of the project in revised form were set out before members of the sales and technical sales departments of Bristol,Hunting and Vickers. This was immediately followed by explora- tory sales visits to major airlines all over the world. These visits were made by a number of British Aircraft Corpora-tion teams and had two main objects: (1) to assess the airlines' interest in a twin-jet airliner in the Viscount/Convair size bracket,and (2) to obtain airline reaction to the engineering and operational features of the aeroplane. Details of the 107 as presented to theairlines were publicly revealed at the SBAC Show in September 1960. Reactions to the world sales tour were favourable and in the lastquarter of 1960 a British Aircraft Corporation design team began to scheme the aircraft in greater detail. A number of changes weremade on the basis of airline reaction, including a switch from pneu- matics to a conventional hydraulic system. The fuselage cross-section was changed from circular to double-bubble form to meet a requirement for increased freight and luggage capacity. A circular,though larger, cross-section was re-adopted in April 1961. At the beginning of 1961, as the result of continuous liaison witha number Of firmly interested airlines, it was becoming apparent that there were, in fact, two diverging requirements for short-haul
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