In 1996, the world’s last operational Vickers Vanguard G-APEP was retired and flown to the Brooklands Museum. The Merchantman aircraft was operated by Hunting Cargo Airlines, formerly Air Bridge Carrier, and was used on nightly cargo flights between Coventry, Belfast and Liverpool for the Royal Mail’s Parcel Force operation, managed by Reed Aviation of Coventry.

This video takes the viewer along for a flight-deck ride between Belfast and Coventry, filmed in 1996 just before the aircraft was permanently retired. Which was a typical flight during the final month’s of the aircraft’s operation. The video starts with the palletized cargo being loaded onto the Vanguard and the pilot doing his pre-flight inspection, and we then join the crew on the flight-deck for the start-up of the Rolls Royce Tyne engines and departure from Belfast. The video concludes with a night-time landing in Coventry, which was very typical as Coventry was Parcel Force’s night-time hub at the time.

Air Bridge Carriers had acquired the British Airways fleet of Vickers Vanguard Merchantman freighters in the late 1970s, and they were frequent visitors to many airports in the UK and Continental Europe during the 1980s through to the mid 1990s. In later years, spare parts and maintenance related costs for the Tyne engines increased dramatically, and even though the Vickers Vanguard airframe was capable of flying for many more years, engine serviceability brought the Vanguard to what is best described as a premature forced retirement.

This nice little film preserves our memories of this fantastic feat of British aeronautical engineering, albeit one that is often overlooked due to being eclipsed by the jet age airliners like the Comet, 707 and DC-8. The Vickers Vanguard was an efficient, safe and reliable airliner that is fondly remembered by all who has the opportunity to fly on it.