1960 saw a change of direction for Channel with the purchase of the airline’s first non-British equipment. The decision to add three ex-BEA Dakotas to the fleet wasn’t controversial; the Vikings had represented a reasonable choice at the time and were giving good service on the airline’s more mainstream routes but C-47s might have been a better original choice as they could also operate from the grass runways at Ipswich, Rochester and Portsmouth. There was a ready supply of Dakota spares and, with use of the Channel shoehorn, forty passengers could be accommodated. The first to arrive was G-AJIB on 26th February 1960 followed by G-AMDZ on April 4th and G-AGZD on 26th July 1960. As well-maintained ex-BEA aircraft, they all arrived with full documentation and were, unusually for Channel, in airline service within days. One was based at Shoreham, one at Portsmouth and they operated Channel Islands and Paris schedules and Coach Air services. One of the Bristol Freighters, G-AIFO, also emerged for the 1960 season while G-AICT remained in storage. ‘FO also flew some of the Rochester to Channel Islands services, spring passenger services to Rotterdam and summer freight charters between Manchester and Belfast. The three Vikings operated concrete-runway services from Southend to the Channel Islands and Ostend plus some IT flights out of Manchester. Of the smaller aircraft, one Dove was sold in June 1960 for operation by BLR Pocock’s Libyan Aviation. Rapide G-AEMH remained in storage while G-AKRN flew some feeder services on the Ipswich/ Southend/ Rochester triangle and, occasionally, routes out of Portsmouth and Shoreham. It made its final flight on June 27th on a service between Southend and Ipswich where it would remain parked for a number of years. The winter months of 1961/ 62 remained challenging with most of the fleet parked up at Southend. Rotterdam remained a popular destination with two services daily from Southend. Channel aircraft could remain parked-up for months at a time but, in te case of Freighter G-AICT , it was years. The Freighter’s emergence from hibernation on 31st March 1961 led to her first flight since 1959. It must have been successful as, less than four hours later, fifty-three passengers were embarked for Ostend. There was a certain amount of component exchange between the two Bristol Freighters which may explain why there was frequently only one in service. Extra spares were purchased from British United Air Ferries as they withdrew Mk 31 Freighters during the early sixties.
A further ex-BEA Dakota was purchased in late 1960. G-AGZB had been charged with flying BEA’s last Dakota passenger flight out of Heathrow with a service to Birmingham Elmdon on Monday October 31st. After a low key celebration at Heathrow, Captain Peter Griffin, who was the Acting Flight Manager for BEA’s Pionairs, took-off and headed for a foggy Birmingham Airport. Touching-down too far down the runway, the Dak ran off the end of the strip, ploughed through a picket fence and came to rest in an area of marshy rough pasture. Fortunately, there were no injuries after this ignominious event but there was substantial damage to the aircraft. Coincidentally, some months earlier, Don Everall Aviation had experienced a similar incident at Elmdon with one of their two C-47s. G-AMSF was scheduled to depart on a charter flight on the morning of Saturday March 5th carrying 28 rugby team players and supporters. The Dakota experienced starboard engine failure on take-off and veered to the right allowing the starboard wing tip to strike the ground. Coming to rest minus its undercarriage, a small fire broke-out in the port engine. There were no serious injuries although quite extensive damage was sustained to the port engine nacelle and forward fuselage. In October 1960, G-AGZB would experience trauma on the opposing (starboard) side. G-AMSF must have remained largely intact even after eight months and this prompted Jack Jones to consider combining the two injured Dakotas into a single airframe. G-AGZB was trucked to Southend with the usable remains of G-AMSF and handed-over to BKS Engineering for a rebuild. Registered to East Anglian Flying Services on December 13th 1960, ‘ZB only emerged from the rebuild hangar on 18th April 1961 in time for the Spring season. An initial test flight lasting 17 minutes was carried out by Captain Philip Diesbach, a pilot whose future with G-AGZB would end in tragedy. A second successful flight was made the following day, April 19th, and the Dakota entered passenger service on the Rotterdam route on April 20th.
Continuing with the ex-BEA Pionair theme, EAFS/ Channel added G-AGNK on 26th May and G-AHCV on 8th June 1961. Accompanying these into service was the second B170 Freighter, G-AIFO, which had been overhauled by Field’s at Heathrow before flying a revenue-earning route from Southend to Rotterdam on May 7th. The Bristol Freighters were often called upon to provide extra capacity on the Southend to Rotterdam and Ostend passenger services but also offered freight charter options. During mid-May 1961, both Freighters were chartered to Silver City to fly newspapers between Blackpool and Belfast.
On August 23rd 1961, G-AOZW became the second Dove to be sold to BLR Pocock, which left Channel with two Doves, six Dakotas and three Vikings as well as the Bristol Freighters. During 1961 the airline carried in excess of 166,000 passengers which was a ten-fold increase on the 16,641 transported just five years earlier in 1956 (1). The Vikings and Dakotas were kept busy on up to seventy round trips per week between Southend and Ostend, over ten per week to Jersey and Guernsey. The Doves and Dakotas no longer operated from Shoreham but flights to the Channel Islands continued from Portsmouth. Channel Airways had adopted the airfield at Portsmouth as it offered the shortest viable flight to Guernsey and Jersey. The City Council had contributed little to the development of the low-lying grass airfield which had previously been home to Neville Shute’s Airspeed aircraft factory. Channel built their own terminal building to handle coach air services but the airfield had no proper air traffic control, radio or radar facilities and would, ultimately, prove very treacherous for the airline.
Channel continued to operate inclusive tours during the early sixties with new routes added to Strasbourg and Treviso. However, longer range IT destinations such as the Canaries were left to their Southend neighbours, Tradair and Continental. The financial performance of Tradair during the early sixties certainly wasn’t enough to tempt Channel away from their established operating pattern and the majority of the fleet went into hibernation for the winter of 1961/ 62.
(1) Passenger figures from British Independent Airlines 1946-1976 by Tony Merton-Jones.
With the winter maintenance and bookings period drawing to a close, Dove G-ANVU and Viking G-AGRU were recommissioned at Southend during March 1962. While Dakotas G-AJIB, G-AGZD and G-AMDZ had returned to service by April 2nd, a sad accident had occurred on March 8th during maintenance work on G-AHCV. The C-47s undercarriage collapsed while being serviced and an engineer was killed; ‘CV would not fly again during 1962. Dakota G-AGZB returned to service on April 10th and both Bristol Freighters were test flown two days later. G-AIFO was pronounced ready for service after a test flight which is reputed to have lasted four minutes! The 1960 Civil Aviation (Licensing) Act included provisions to tighten-up the safety environment and the early sixties had seen the demise of eleven independent carriers. The majority of these failures were due to under-capitalisation and the ATLB began to make increased share capital a proviso for permissions to operate even IT flights. Companies such as Falcon Airways and Independent had also given rise to safety concerns and, with their winter storage and short test flights, Channel must have led to some raised eyebrows at times. Worse was to follow: on May 6th 1962, Channel suffered their first fatal flying accident when the ‘rebuilt’ Dakota G-AGZB crashed in poor weather conditions at St.Boniface Down, Isle of Wight, while inbound to Portsmouth. The subsequent enquiry focused on the primitive facilities at Portsmouth, Channel’s reputation for continuing operations during marginal weather conditions, the experience of the pilots and the ‘mix-and-match’ nature of C-47 G-AGZB. The Accidents Investigation Branch of the Ministry of Aviation report was issued in August 1963 and largely exonerated the airline on almost all counts.
1962 was also the year when Channel Airways hoped to start operating car ferry flights. Old, slow cross-channel sea ferries had provided the impetus for Silver City and Air Charter to start air ferry services with Bristol Freighters from Lympne, Lydd and Southend. By the early sixties, the advent of the Bristol Superfreighter meant that transporting a car across the English Channel with one of the air ferry companies was no more expensive than by sea ferry. The speed and elan of the service made it popular with customers and other operators were keen to enter the market. Channel’s fellow Southend resident, BKS Air Transport, fancied their chances but didn’t want to go up against the established operators on the cross-channel routes. They therefore applied for a licence to operate Mk 21 Bristol Freighters between Liverpool and Dublin during the 1960 season. Granted with the initial blessing of the Irish government, the route was popular during the 1960 and 1961 Summer seasons. By the end of summer 1961, however, BKS were facing financial restructuring difficulties and withdrew from the route. Channel Airways saw their chance and applied to take over the service and to potentially add services from Bristol to Cork, Haverfordwest to Cork and Cork and Dublin to the Channel Islands. however, this time the Irish Tourist Board did object on partisan grounds – they wanted Aer Lingus to provide the services. The Irish State airline duly ordered two Carvairs for the summer season of 1963 and a third for summer 1964. Many of the routes requested by Channel were assigned to them: Dublin to Bristol, Cork to Bristol, Dublin to Cherbourg and Liverpool to Dublin. The Aer Lingus operation was never a great success, largely owing to maintenance issues with the Carvair engines and the fleet was put up for sale in late 1966. Channel Airways never did diversify into the car ferry market although there may have been one by-product: Douglas DC-4 G-ARYY/ N33679 was purchased from Riddle in Florida during March 1962, possibly with a view to having Aviation Traders convert the passenger craft to a Carvair. A Channel Airways captain ferried the DC-4 to Field Aircraft Services at Wymeswold via Gander. Arriving in Britain on April 25th 1962, it was modified for UK operation and painted in Channel’s contemporary green and yellow scheme. A new C of A was issued on July 2nd but the DC-4 didn’t depart for Southend until October 5th 1962. Stored over-winter, G-ARYY emerged in April 1963 to become Channel’s first 4-engined airliner in service. With Channel’s customary tight seating, G-ARYY offered a capacity of 88 and became a mainstay of flights between Southend and Ostend, Southend and Rotterdam plus mid-week flights to the Channel Islands. It became Channel’s most-utilised aircraft during 1963, logging 1709 hours compared with a fleet average of 1251 for the Vikings, a surprising 1176 for the Bristol Freighters and 833 for the Dakotas (1). While the Dakota fleet of six carried a total of 57,714 passengers during 1963, the two Freighters uplifted 46,552 and G-ARYY carried 50,239 all by itself (1). The DC-4 also flew some of the longer IT services such as those to Perpignan as well as weekend services between Manchester and Ostend.
In many ways, G-ARYY’s arrival was the peak of Channel’s piston airliner operations. The Dakota fleet was being reduced during 1963 with, unusually, G-AGZD sold to Bahamas Airways in May, G-AGNK flying its last service in the same month and G-ALXN not re-entering service after winter 1962. The Viking fleet was also in a state of flux: of the four aircraft bought by Channel, one had been written-off in 1959, G-AJJN had been withdrawn in May 1962 and G-AHOZ flew its last service in January 1963. With technical restrictions due to limit the Viking passenger load for arrivals at Southend to just 25 as from January 1st 1965, the aircraft was due to become uneconomical and the fourth Viking, G-AGRU, was withdrawn during autumn 1963. There had, however, been a major development for Channel which impacted their future fleet choices. Fellow Southend operator Tradair had suffered financial problems during 1961 following their expansion into turboprop operations. During 1962, Tradair and BKS were both given some leeway to escape bankruptcy but, although the latter recovered successfully, Tradair made insufficient progress. Channel began negotiations to absorb the airline and preserve employment at Southend. Part of the debit side of Tradair’s accounts included Southend Airport landing fees and Jack Jones managed to get these written-off before taking over the company’s operations on 20th December 1962. This brought some changes of direction for Channel; they had been aiming to phase-out their Viking fleet but now inherited another seven; a move to turboprop operations had been anticipated with some financial trepidation but now they had Viscount G-APZC dropped in their lap.
Indeed, Channel and their new acquisition were very different operations. Tradair’s history was ten years shorter than Channel’s and it had burst on the scene with considerable enthusiasm. Two ex-Airwork Vikings were operated in the 1958 inaugural season, a further three ex-Queens Flight Vikings added before the end of the year and two more ex-Airwork Vikings acquired for the 1959 season. While the single-type written-down airliners made sound financial sense, the rapid build-up based largely on Inclusive Tour operations was more dramatic than Jack Jones’ steady expansion at Channel. The financial implications of this were that, while Channel’s growth was largely financed by past operations and the Company was 8% family-owned, Tradair were more exposed to the money market at a time when the collapse of Overseas Aviation had made banks nervous.
With the ex-Airwork and Queens Flight Vikings, Tradair had acquired well-maintained, smart airliners which were popular with passengers. A 36-seat configuration was quite frugal but not as cramped as Channel’s 40-seat layout. The smart blue and white scheme promoted an efficient image for the Inclusive Tour flights and, from the start, IT was the main breadwinner for the airline. Tradair flew to more distant destinations than Channel : Basle, Pisa, Perpignan, Palma, Gibraltar, Sicily, Athens. The longer sectors prompted Tradair’s next expansion move, one which proved a step too far, too soon. In January 1960, Aer Lingus was selling-off four 707 series Viscounts and Harold Bamberg’s ambitious Eagle took two of them; Tradair took the other two for the 1960 season. It proved difficult to fill both 60-seat aircraft adequately, even in summer, and one was despatched on a short lease to Kuwait Airways. The other Viscount was moved to operate IT flights from Berlin on weekdays, returning to Southend at weekends for IT flights to the Canaries and other long-distance destinations. The turboprops were too capital-intensive to be left standing idle during the winter months but, in November 1960, the pair of Viscounts managed only 25 hours flying time (2). This led to further chartering during 1961 with the Viscounts flying for BEA, BOAC and Aer Lingus. The Receiver appointed in November 1961 to oversee Tradair’s operations grounded the Viscounts before leasing one to BEA from June to October 1962 for services out of the Berlin hub. In November 1962, Viscount G-APZB was sold to Starways but G-APZC remained on the books to become Channel’s first turboprop.
(2) From article by Tony Merton Jones in Propliner #51.
The Tradair Vikings remained in demand during the 1962 season after a winter Channel-style hibernation for many of the fleet. In earlier, more flamboyant times Tradair had sought to alleviate the winter hiatus with 3-week long aerial cruises to destinations in Spain and North Africa for 15 or 20 well-heeled customers. No longer practicable, a more mundane way to supplement income was required. Tradair had always maintained a greater interest in freight than Channel and this proved beneficial. When the first two Vikings had been delivered from Airwork, Tradair employed BKS Engineering to install large port-side freight doors. This convertible configuration proved useful for both ad hoc charters and empty legs of IT flights. During 1960, the two Vikings had been moved to Glasgow to operate a series of freight charters and 1961 had seen the establishment of a regular freight route between Southend and Malmo. The success of the service to Sweden prompted plans to add further freight-only routes. The last season of operation, 1962, also saw IT routes added to innovative destinations such as Zaragoza in Spain and Clermont Ferrand in France’s Massif Central. A passenger route opened between Southend and Maastricht also proved popular.
Channel’s takeover in December 1962 saw a sea-change in operation with both successful and failing facets rejected. The long-distance IT routes were abandoned; one Viscount had gone, one had been taken on (probably on very advantageous terms) for the 1963 season. Channel never really developed freight operations and, while scheduled passenger operations were their staple, the Southend to Maastricht route was dropped. Tradair’s well regarded maintenance team and facilities joined Channel. Although Tradair’s last revenue-earning flight was on December 18th 1962, a couple of the Vikings flew on in Tradair’s colours and titles. Boxes full of Tradair tickets remained in their old hangar ten years later at the time of Channel’s closing sale in summer 1972!
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