Vickers Vanguard

Vanguard G-APEP
G-APEP is the only complete Vanguard and is preserved at the Brooklands Museum in the UK
Vickers' Vanguard emerged after the company developed its type 870 to a requirement by British European Airways for a 100-seat turboprop replacement for its Viscounts.
The design was then modified when Trans-Canada Airlines expressed its interest and became the type 950, which flew for the first time on January 20, 1959.
The type featured a double-bubble fuselage, with a wide upper section to give a room cabin, and four 4,000hp Rolls-Royce Tyne engines. BEA ordered 20 and put the aircraft into service on its European routes in 1961.
TCA bought 23 952s, with more powerful engines and greater take-off weight. BEA then converted all but six of its order to the type 953, with another power increase and extra seating. These 43 aircraft were the only ones built as the type lost out to new short-range jet airliners.
The Vanguard enjoyed a new lease of life when TCA experimentally converted onee aircraft to a freighter as the Cargoliner. BEA took note and from the early 1970s its surviving fleet also became freighters, called the Merchantman.
Several BEA, later British Airways, aircrfat were passed on to Air Bridge Carriers, in the UK, This later became Hunting Cargo Airlines, which retired the last flying example in 1996. This was G-APEP, which was flown to the Brooklands Museum on October 17 that year and is the only complete example still in existence.

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