Once again, the British government inteferes with things they dont understand and force a single customer to make all the decisions. If allowed to develop the plane themselves and then sell it, it is likely that it would have got to market first and sold across Europe and beyond.
Maybe the 'British Government' sold out the aircraft industry as it did with most other major industries over the decades, regardless of changrs in its political colour.
If it hadn't been for the British government Hawker Siddeley would have become defunct in 1946. The company existed primarily as a subsidized government jobs program, the company could have never survived as an private independent aircraft manufacturer. The entire British aircraft industry was doomed to failure after 1945 and only survive as long as it did because of socialist government welfare programs.
Makes perfect sense. Get four weak British aircraft makers to start a brawl among themselves and the government. When that got boring, they put in a call to Boeing and, with no firm orders or even any kind of mutual production pact, flew across the pond to boast of their designs and give away all the details. I guess they never saw the guys in the back of the room furiously taking notes. This right here is a great example of why the British aircraft industry failed. BTW, this was another excellent video. I'm always amazed at your knowledge of almost all types of "things in motion".
@@donaldstanfield8862 Absolutely. Their cars, particularly of British Leyland brand, are still revered for their attention to detail and perfect engineering. Which is why Britain is still the leading car manufacturer in the world even today.
@Tower Bridge Yes, The Brtish were great inventors and engineers. They weren't so good at protecting their work, whether from leftists passing it on to the enemy or the British just being too trusting when it came to business relationships.
@@tomsommer8372 leading car manufacturer? Sorry to tell you Tom but none of the classic British car makers are in British hands anymore, they are all fully owned by the Germans, French, Americans and Indians. Plus Germany is the leading car manufacturer in Europe followed by the French and Italians England is fighting fourth place with Spain
Auto land was a big hit with savvy travellers; my Dad had an early experience of it and was very impressed, foggy Heathrow no obstacle. Unique at the time, business people loved it.
On the other hand, from what I can tell, Tony Benn actively supported the development of Concorde. Though, to be fair, not exactly a commercial success in the end, but still a magnificent achievement
Theres some sort of middle ground required. Look at Boeing, in pursuit of profit they trashed their reputation with the 737 and tankers for the USAF. Poor construction, corners cut on safety and numerous corners cut. Without external oversight or feeling that they weren't responsible to anyone they did what they wanted. It's the excessive power that can go to the head of anyone. Everyone needs a moral framework and someone to say 'no' to them
Sat in Milan's totally fogged in airport, awaiting my flight to London. Both arrivals and departures shown on the board were totally cancelled. Then they announced the arrival of my TRIDENT. I was amazed. It was so bad that they would not let the aircraft come to the terminal gate. So they bused us out to the aircraft waiting on the field. We could hardly see the aircraft until just a few feet from it, really, that is how bad visibility was. We boarded, moved into position and took off. Just a great airplane that British politicians screwed up. In fact the same pols destroyed the best aircraft design capability in the world after the war. What a shame.
Had to get over to the Belfast Festival from Gatwick with my theatre company. Gatwick was non operational due to rapidly thickening fog so we trained it over to Heathrow where the Tridents were still operating. BA held the flight for us and other stranded passengers and we took off in what looked like almost zero visibility. Felt weird taking off in that muffled gloom listening to the servos whirring and clunking and operating the flaps and feeling the Trident changing course with slightly robotic nudges and jerks. The thick fog continued all the way to Belfast and we landed robotically barely having seen the ground all flight. All worked very well but missed the imperceptible smoothness of the human hand.
I really liked the Trident and based plenty of my study towards becoming a Licenced Aircraft Engineer on this aircraft's systems. Testing the autopilot often required you to work rather quickly as the controls would drift leading to cut-out if you were too slow. The autopilot being unusual compared to many by being a rate-rate system. Spent many hours down the forward equipment bay (FEB) reading the MEDU or resetting the Datum Balancers. The tiny buttons caused sore fingers and thumbs! The rear equipment bay, the REB, was a different story. Often slippery from hydraulic fluid, often noisy if the standby hydraulic pump was switched on. as a passenger it was super quiet inside due to the rear engines and very clean wings which unlike many other types had no pods for flap screw jacks due to the very good design in keeping the components within the wing shape. Thanks for this great video .
I'm seriously in love with this channel amazing less heard documentaries. Focusing on hard-core facts and not on any melodrama. Good work @Ruairidh MacVeigh.
Standing on the observation deck roof area at Heathrow in the mid 70s with half a dozen Tridents running their engines was an ear splitting event. Tu 134s VC10s Comet 4s IL62s were my highlights of a visit..And Concorde too.
Thank you for explaining the details of the design, development, production and sales. All my years, it was never explained to me why the British trident was so similar to the 727. Excellent work!!!!! What is fond here for me. The BAC-111 purchased second hand by USAir (Allegheny) was my first solo commercial flight as kid along with the DC-9-30. Amazing how technology advancements from various manufacturers propelled the industry forward.
Fascinating; gives insight into the struggling manufacturers and beauracracy of the UK. As said in the video the Trident was an example of UKs jet age innovation, but is mostly forgotten, while its Boeing contemporaries are still relavent in civilian cargo and military.
Its maiden flight being a couple of months before I was born, the Trident was my favorite aircraft during my 1970s aircraft spotting years. I well remember hearing the news flash of the Papa India crash on a Sunday afternoon in 1972. They either interrupted the Top-20 countdown, or it was the first item on the news immediately afterwards . Very tragic. The tail of Papa Charlie (the prototype that stalled) was for some reason in the grass at the back of Southend airport. I used to see it on my frequent clandestine trips to the hangars of that airport to see what planes Aviation Traders were working on. I got stopped by security on more than one occasion, and was transported back to the terminal one of of their blue Transit vans! It’s a shame that British engineering talent was stymied by government interference and BEA’s sheepishness. Imagine if the Trident had sold even half the number of 727s!
Sweet memories of my first flight as a UM from Frankfurt to London. Sitting at the table, flying with the back to the flying direction, the cockpit visit with an overwhelming array of instruments. And the engines were very loud. Very confusing, the whole array - the plane was fully booked and people's bags and coats and other things were everywhere.
Excellent research from Ruairidh again, thanks for the upload! Loved the old Trident, ruined, like so many other British designed classics, by Govt bungling bureaucracy
Yet another example of Britain's public servants and MPs demonstrating their commercial incompetance and lack of real-world private sector free-market experience. How many times does history record similar debacles? In the case of The UK, a lot.
A slight omission in the BEA fleet description given in this video is that BEA operated the jet powered Comet 4b on medium range routes replacing the Viscount on Eastern Mediterranean operations. These aircraft were subsequently operated by BEA Airtours in the late 60s/early 70s. A significant difference between the B727 and the Trident was the lack of ventral air stairs on the latter.
Sir Sidney Camm of Hawkers said that Government policy was one of the four rules of flight that an aircraft designer had to keep in mind. BOAC too, were notorious for their exacting specifications, limiting the manufacturer's export potential...and then buying American.
It really was a case of 727s vs DC9s down here in Australia in the 70's, like football teams, and TAA might have started with the 727 advantage but Ansett did catch on and the DC9's days were numbered. I flew on a few but it wasn't long before it was 727s all the way.
It always seemed that the Two-Airline Agreement favoured Ansett, despite TAA being government owned, as Ansett alwys seemed to get their preferred choice of fleet, schedules and routes, and TAA was forced to mirror what Ansett had chosen or demanded. In the end Ansett of course died, but that was long after deregulation.
Good video thanks. Tragic story. It really was a shame what happened to DeHavilland. I wondered if the Trident's story parallels the Comet's. Initially, a groundbreaking design with the potential for large market share only for the venture to be wrecked by a series of unfortunate events. As a child living near Glasgow Airport in the 70's, I remember Tridents were a familiar site. You certainly knew when one was taking off due to the noise. For years the only remaining Trident at Glasgow I believe was a 1C, G-ARPP, used the airport's fire service for training. The burnt out fuselage sat quite close to the perimeter fence and main road around the airfield and was a familiar site for many years after they were taken out of service.
As a manufacturer of stuff, if a potential client comes along with the changes BEA asked for here, I send them straight out the door. This is the product, if you don't like it, bugger off and go somewhere else. And for those who think it won't work, you are wrong. It does. Nicely.
Thanks for this, which encapsulates why nationalisation is a terrible idea. My Dad was the technical author for the autopilot at Smiths Industries, and I remember well his great frustration over the appalling indecision and delays that you mention in the video.
@@ellenorbjornsdottir1166 In my experience, that's not so. Nationalised, government, quango and national third sector organisations are very large, and so have to be bureaucratic. Most are also subject to political control, which in a democracy is subject to policy abruption, and in centralised economies - such as the USSR at that time - inflict extremely rigid planning (and so entrepreneurship is largely expressed as corruption). The private sector (in liberal democracies) is able to express far more agility, and entrepreneurship is driven by creativity to meet needs as percieved by the founder. Of course, toxic sub-cultures, criminals and incompetents pervade all types of organisations - but in my experience, natural selection is a brake on their activity. In the public and third sectors, it is easier for failures and corruption to be covered up. And yes, I do have long personal experience of working inside all three sectors, and in cross-sector working (although not much in the third sector). Distrust of people in other sectors has ever been the default mode. Fortunately, most I have worked with have been decent people - but it takes all types to make a world.
I flew in a Trident between Zurich and London. It was comfortable and quiet, the best I remember. It was when I embarked that I looked back and realized that it was something special, a Trident, an aircraft I had never flow on before.
A lot of research has produced an excellent video thank you. I was flying on Tridents in the 1960s and 70s, yet we of course were told less than the Boeing people were told and given it was long before the age of the Internet it was just about impossible to learn anything of what was really going on. A very sad tale.. :( Again thank you for an excellent educational video....
There was another close shave over Hatfield. A Trident had a hydraulic failure and the test pilot (John Cunningham) got it back by steering it with the engines! Luckily, he wasn't far away and the aeroplane was already set up for landing. Nobody was hurt!
I learned about the crash of one years ago before proper crew resource management. The captain had a heart attack, retracted the flaps early and the aircraft crashed
I think the Rolls Royce turboprop engines on the BEA Viscount from LHR to SZG made the Viscount fly smoothly as mentioned in an advertisement in the Pan Am periodical.
Ruairidh, As usual a well thought out and researched video, I must apologise for not subscribing earlier, your videos are top rate. What a fool I've been viewing but not subscribing.....
I’ve noticed he consistently pronounces it Carvel in his videos. From what I remember of my schoolboy French, even French pronunciation wouldn’t omit that syllable, but I could be wrong.
Loved these aircraft and, always prayed there would be one on the London HR to Newcastle arm when I travelled in mid - 70s. Otherwise, a vickers Viscount (I believe) filled in. Iain
My father witnessed the first flight of Trident in January 1962, at Hatfield, while on training for the Comet 4B. Seeing the Pathe newsreel, he told me he was in the crowd outside the hangar.... It was flying too much nose up and they did mods in the leading edge droop snoot
Was lucky enough to fly on a few Tridents but at the time when I lived near near Heathrow so bored seeing ‘another flipping Trident’. Yes, an amazing aircraft, De Havilland seemed unaware at the time that it may be of interest to other airlines. I have read it was the Bristol 200 that was being marketed to the Americans, and that DH only got involved as an afterthought. Indeed DH forced a member of their marketing department to sign a statement to the effect that the revised Spey version would still find a sizeable market. Of course, the biggest casualty of the scaling down was the Medway engine, which would then effect the future development of the Trident, as the Spey was maxed out from the start. Fitting JT8Ds, as France did with their later Caravelles, was unthinkable in the U.K.! As indeed was buying the Caravelle.
What really killed the Trident was its reliance on the Rolls-Royce Spey engine, which was far inferior to the then-new Pratt & Whitney JT8D that the 727 pioneered. And even the smaller 727-100 was superior to the Trident model of its time, and the 727-200 pretty much completed its dominance over the Trident.
While heavily compared to the Boeing 727, I really think it was the much more successful 737 and the McDonald Douglas DC-9 that really pushed the Trident into the fringes. The Tri-Jets were always going to be much more expensive to operate than the twin engined regional jets. But really the only benefit to the Tri-Jet was they allowed for longer flights over open water. Which wasn’t a huge requirement for most regional jets. As most regional flight routes tended to be within a given continental landmass. Pacific routes generally needed longer haul aircraft, not regional.
Isn't it sad the way the industry was treated!? They came up with such amazing products so often lost to inept leadership. The engineering accomplishments were stunning!
Governments are always inefficient at producing goods and services, sometimes a factor that isn't critical and a necessary compromise, but this was yet another case where government policy was a major problem.
The L-1011 was substantially more sophisticated, much larger, and flew substantially later. Having said that, the L-1011 is my favorite aircraft in my career. I’m not implying anything negative about the Trident, I just have no experience flying it.
Sharing details of aviation engineering secrets with the Americans has never gone badly for the project/company in question. Oh, sorry, well, I meant well.
When will they ever learn that government amateurs interfering in the professional world of business and equipment manufacture will always result in failure and loss?
@@martinr1834 it collapsed anyway. Beechings plan was an utter failure.and not well thought out. It was just pretty much just cut stuff. Just like with the auto and aircraft, it was the nationalization meant to save it that ultimately destroyed it.
Great video. Trident was a very advanced aircraft and as usual government meddling ruined it. What strikes me is that Boeing, having scarpered with the tech details never incorporated Class III autoland into the 727.
The problem with CAT-IIIc in the US is that both the aircraft and airport must be suitably equipped to handle the conditions and these aircraft respectively, and in the US, only a handful of airports had these capabilities so there wasn't much of an incentive for the aircraft manufacturers to move up to IIIc. The first American airliner with IIIc was the Lockheed L-1011, and while Lockheed marketed the L-1011s autolanding capabilities, I'd imagine only British Airways used the autolanding to its full potential.
Good point. Although ILS probably wasn't a high priority for most operators at the time, quite a different story nowadays! DH were way ahead of the game. I cannot help but wonder if they could have designed a basic cheaper version of the original Trident. Would they have had a "Boeing 727" available before Boeing that could have had optional extras like ILS? Then again, even if they got a pile of orders, would the British aircraft industry have had the resource to produce at anything like the rate Boeing could manage?
Leave it to the Britain Aviation Industry for making extremely advanced aircraft only for their own market turn their backs on them. When you have Boeing 727 and Tu-154 for the entire world things will favour simpler aircraft that does not need fancy instruments or powerful lifting accessories to climb out faster. It’s a gorgeous aircraft, but the 60’s aircraft market was already too overcrowded with both the Soviet and American-built commercials. DH spilling the beans on their project details to Boeing, as well as the politics behind the merging of BAC was just rubbing salt on the massive wound for Britain.
I agree, the Trident was a bloody brilliant aircraft but was ultimately stymied by both the reliance on BEA's and the Governments directives. And although the 727 ended up selling more than both the Trident and TU154, for me, the definitive aircraft in this group has to be the TU154M which was by far and away the best of all of them. Everything about it is just 'right'.
Great vlog as always! I have read that the 727 was to have had RR Spey engines, but UA and EA beeing from the US insisted on the JTD-9. Even thow the Spey is a better engine.
I was an RAF aircraft engineer I love aviation and flying myself. Sadly it sums up the whole British aviation industry DESTROYED by interfering MP's who had no business meddling in matters they little understood. I worked on the mighty VC-10 and many other great British aircraft. Where is the UK aviation industry now you ask............GONE! A few parts like Airbus wings are made here thats it. All those jobs and industry destroyed. The UK led the world in aviation and we let it all slip away due to underfunding, stupid negative decision making and governments intent on destroying the strong aircraft manufacturing industry we had. The Trident, BAC-111, VC-10, Comet etc all destroyed and now just things people 'read about' in museums.🤬🤬🤬
Thank you for another terrifically researched and well presented article regarding aviation history. That 'Trident' would have to be one of the UGLIEST most dysmorphic airliners to ever assault the sky! It has zero aesthetic appeal. Even a DC-9 ad all of its 'MadDog' iterations is a more attractive aircraft, thats really saying something because those DC-9s are hideous airframes also! The ONLY thing going for the Trident, at the time, was its auto-landing capability. That is its only redeeming feature though. Quite impressive technology for its day, even if the cluttered unattractive flight deck had limited ergonomics and zero aesthetics. Why they couldn't just call their leading edge slats by that name rather than the ridiculous sounding 'droops'. Avionics space or not, there is no excuse for that idiotic looking offset nose gear, it could and should have been placed slightly further aft. It is no wonder no one really wanted that Frankenstein's monster of a Trident, 13:57 What is with the insane seating configuration? Are they attempting to emulate a train's cabin? HS certainly shot themselves in the foot with their snooty arrogance regarding the BAC-111 missed opportunity! Thank goodness TAA came to their senses and cancelled that ugmo in favour of the successful B727 which was operated right through their re-branding to Australian Airlines and retired after many well-served years into the mid-90's, that pig of a Trident would never have lasted the distance nor would it have been suited to operating in Australian/South Pacific skies. TAA's and later Australian's Kangaroo would have jumped off the tail in humiliation if that creepy looking bird had have tried assaulting our skies. I'll bet British Airways were glad to see the back of it! There is just no competition when it comes to the sleek, swift and contemporary B727, it looked fast and it was FAST, truly built for speed and comfort all the way. If the B727 had have had a B737-styled dual pilot flight deck eliminating the need for a flight engineer, it may have seen a longer service life with re-engining options to maintain contemporary appeal and operating economics. It just wanted to fly and was well at home aloft, quite simply a beautiful overpowered 'sports-car' of an aircraft that rocketed skyward and climbed swiftly to altitude like no other - until the stunning and still-awesome B757 came along! The ugly, sadly a British-built airframe that we did end up having to suffer down here, was the gutless underpowered 4-engined joke of a BAe-146 (146 = 1 aircraft, 4 gutless engines (or hairdryers), but really needs 6!) An aircraft totally unsuited to our flying conditions, all thanks to Sir Peter Ables with his penchant for visiting airshows and shopping for aircraft that both that we did not need and were completely inappropriate for the missions deployed on. BAe-146s and A320s - worst decisions made by him ever that weakened and broke a great airline!
That HS134 certainly looks like the Boeing 757 doesn’t it? The three big unbuilt British airliners of the late 1960s; the HS 134, the BAC 2-11 and the 3-11 would all make for an interesting, if depressing, video.
Can I just make sure im hearing properly an emergency deent profile capable of a 10,000ft/min decent "permissible by the use of reverse thrust", so they could deploy reverse thurst durign flight?
I don't see the Trident as a competitor to the Boeing 727 but rather the DC-9, but the British could not build a better jet engine and hence had to fit three. So in the end it is actually a competitor to the BAC 1-11. 'Doh 'doh deh 'doh 'doh.
The Bristol 200 proposal included a 4-engine version in a layout like the VC-10. Likely this led to the error here, with the original tri-engine and quad-engine types being conflated.
Another plane that "could've been." That way again the English gave up their first place position in aviation to America. Another well prepared historic capsule with your outstanding narration ability. U should that kind of work profesionally.
Funny how they always added a fuselage plug for more seats back then. Nowadays airlines are smarter; they just shove in more seats without wasting time and money making the plane any bigger.
Giving away all technical info to the Americans and getting nothing in return seems incredibly naive. Just when you then British management couldn't have been any worse, out comes another nugget to lower the bar even further.
Reminds me of BOAC complaining that they wanted the Pratt Whitney engines on their 707 for better fuel economy put the British government said no RR engines must go on it to have some British on it same with PAN AM and AIR Canada coming over to look at the VC 10 and asking if the could order it with the PRATTS instead of the CONWAYS and the Government said no they only come with British Engines at least United Airlines was able to get the Caravelle without the British engines might have been a different outcome if they just listened to what World airlines wanted not just a couple of local airlines
@@tomsommer8372 the original Comet had a range of 1,300nm so I would classify that as regional, although deployed on "Empire" routes frequent refuelling was required.
an English aircraft that was disabled from suits above It could have been the best in the world, some new RR Conways and give it size back it was a unique plane, the world wood take forever to catch up, as it always dus the tail could caused the super stall, England had to warn them
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Once again, the British government inteferes with things they dont understand and force a single customer to make all the decisions. If allowed to develop the plane themselves and then sell it, it is likely that it would have got to market first and sold across Europe and beyond.
Maybe the 'British Government' sold out the aircraft industry as it did with most other major industries over the decades, regardless of changrs in its political colour.
If it hadn't been for the British government Hawker Siddeley would have become defunct in 1946.
The company existed primarily as a subsidized government jobs program, the company could have never survived as an private independent aircraft manufacturer.
The entire British aircraft industry was doomed to failure after 1945 and only survive as long as it did because of socialist government welfare programs.
Makes perfect sense. Get four weak British aircraft makers to start a brawl among themselves and the government. When that got boring, they put in a call to Boeing and, with no firm orders or even any kind of mutual production pact, flew across the pond to boast of their designs and give away all the details. I guess they never saw the guys in the back of the room furiously taking notes. This right here is a great example of why the British aircraft industry failed.
BTW, this was another excellent video. I'm always amazed at your knowledge of almost all types of "things in motion".
UK engineering skills are amazing, sad they were abused after developing stunning aircraft and systems.
@@donaldstanfield8862 Absolutely. Their cars, particularly of British Leyland brand, are still revered for their attention to detail and perfect engineering. Which is why Britain is still the leading car manufacturer in the world even today.
@Tower Bridge Yes, The Brtish were great inventors and engineers. They weren't so good at protecting their work, whether from leftists passing it on to the enemy or the British just being too trusting when it came to business relationships.
@@tomsommer8372 leading car manufacturer? Sorry to tell you Tom but none of the classic British car makers are in British hands anymore, they are all fully owned by the Germans, French, Americans and Indians. Plus Germany is the leading car manufacturer in Europe followed by the French and Italians England is fighting fourth place with Spain
@@donaldstanfield8862 They were F;cked in the ass by our own Government
Auto land was a big hit with savvy travellers; my Dad had an early experience of it and was very impressed, foggy Heathrow no obstacle. Unique at the time, business people loved it.
Excellent video. It goes to demonstrate that Ringo Starr’s first and only law of politics is true: ”Everything politicians touch, turns to crap.”
On the other hand, from what I can tell, Tony Benn actively supported the development of Concorde. Though, to be fair, not exactly a commercial success in the end, but still a magnificent achievement
Theres some sort of middle ground required. Look at Boeing, in pursuit of profit they trashed their reputation with the 737 and tankers for the USAF. Poor construction, corners cut on safety and numerous corners cut. Without external oversight or feeling that they weren't responsible to anyone they did what they wanted. It's the excessive power that can go to the head of anyone. Everyone needs a moral framework and someone to say 'no' to them
Sat in Milan's totally fogged in airport, awaiting my flight to London. Both arrivals and departures shown on the board were totally cancelled. Then they announced the arrival of my TRIDENT. I was amazed.
It was so bad that they would not let the aircraft come to the terminal gate. So they bused us out to the aircraft waiting on the field. We could hardly see the aircraft until just a few feet from it, really, that is how bad visibility was. We boarded, moved into position and took off. Just a great airplane that British politicians screwed up. In fact the same pols destroyed the best aircraft design capability in the world after the war. What a shame.
Had to get over to the Belfast Festival from Gatwick with my theatre company. Gatwick was non operational due to rapidly thickening fog so we trained it over to Heathrow where the Tridents were still operating. BA held the flight for us and other stranded passengers and we took off in what looked like almost zero visibility. Felt weird taking off in that muffled gloom listening to the servos whirring and clunking and operating the flaps and feeling the Trident changing course with slightly robotic nudges and jerks. The thick fog continued all the way to Belfast and we landed robotically barely having seen the ground all flight. All worked very well but missed the imperceptible smoothness of the human hand.
I really liked the Trident and based plenty of my study towards becoming a Licenced Aircraft Engineer on this aircraft's systems. Testing the autopilot often required you to work rather quickly as the controls would drift leading to cut-out if you were too slow. The autopilot being unusual compared to many by being a rate-rate system. Spent many hours down the forward equipment bay (FEB) reading the MEDU or resetting the Datum Balancers. The tiny buttons caused sore fingers and thumbs! The rear equipment bay, the REB, was a different story. Often slippery from hydraulic fluid, often noisy if the standby hydraulic pump was switched on. as a passenger it was super quiet inside due to the rear engines and very clean wings which unlike many other types had no pods for flap screw jacks due to the very good design in keeping the components within the wing shape. Thanks for this great video .
Another example of how govt. intervention into business only mucks thing up.
I'm seriously in love with this channel amazing less heard documentaries. Focusing on hard-core facts and not on any melodrama. Good work @Ruairidh MacVeigh.
Really looking forward to seeing more of your videos ☺️☺️
Standing on the observation deck roof area at Heathrow in the mid 70s with half a dozen Tridents running their engines was an ear splitting event.
Tu 134s VC10s Comet 4s IL62s were my highlights of a visit..And Concorde too.
Thank you for explaining the details of the design, development, production and sales. All my years, it was never explained to me why the British trident was so similar to the 727. Excellent work!!!!! What is fond here for me. The BAC-111 purchased second hand by USAir (Allegheny) was my first solo commercial flight as kid along with the DC-9-30. Amazing how technology advancements from various manufacturers propelled the industry forward.
Fascinating; gives insight into the struggling manufacturers and beauracracy of the UK. As said in the video the Trident was an example of UKs jet age innovation, but is mostly forgotten, while its Boeing contemporaries are still relavent in civilian cargo and military.
Well paced delivery, and interesting content. Thankyou.
Wish a lot of the old ones were preserved for driving tours for Airline enthusiasts.
This site is absolutely brilliant, informative and concise. And extremely enjoyable. Thanks.
Its maiden flight being a couple of months before I was born, the Trident was my favorite aircraft during my 1970s aircraft spotting years. I well remember hearing the news flash of the Papa India crash on a Sunday afternoon in 1972. They either interrupted the Top-20 countdown, or it was the first item on the news immediately afterwards . Very tragic. The tail of Papa Charlie (the prototype that stalled) was for some reason in the grass at the back of Southend airport. I used to see it on my frequent clandestine trips to the hangars of that airport to see what planes Aviation Traders were working on. I got stopped by security on more than one occasion, and was transported back to the terminal one of of their blue Transit vans!
It’s a shame that British engineering talent was stymied by government interference and BEA’s sheepishness. Imagine if the Trident had sold even half the number of 727s!
Sweet memories of my first flight as a UM from Frankfurt to London. Sitting at the table, flying with the back to the flying direction, the cockpit visit with an overwhelming array of instruments. And the engines were very loud. Very confusing, the whole array - the plane was fully booked and people's bags and coats and other things were everywhere.
Excellent research from Ruairidh again, thanks for the upload! Loved the old Trident, ruined, like so many other British designed classics, by Govt bungling bureaucracy
Great video, typical example of how it’s not about technology, but other factors often beyond the manufactures control.
Yet another example of Britain's public servants and MPs demonstrating their commercial incompetance and lack of real-world private sector free-market experience. How many times does history record similar debacles? In the case of The UK, a lot.
A slight omission in the BEA fleet description given in this video is that BEA operated the jet powered Comet 4b on medium range routes replacing the Viscount on Eastern Mediterranean operations. These aircraft were subsequently operated by BEA Airtours in the late 60s/early 70s.
A significant difference between the B727 and the Trident was the lack of ventral air stairs on the latter.
Superb video as always. 👍🙂
Sir Sidney Camm of Hawkers said that Government policy was one of the four rules of flight that an aircraft designer had to keep in mind. BOAC too, were notorious for their exacting specifications, limiting the manufacturer's export potential...and then buying American.
It really was a case of 727s vs DC9s down here in Australia in the 70's, like football teams, and TAA might have started with the 727 advantage but Ansett did catch on and the DC9's days were numbered. I flew on a few but it wasn't long before it was 727s all the way.
It always seemed that the Two-Airline Agreement favoured Ansett, despite TAA being government owned, as Ansett alwys seemed to get their preferred choice of fleet, schedules and routes, and TAA was forced to mirror what Ansett had chosen or demanded. In the end Ansett of course died, but that was long after deregulation.
I flew on BEA trident from LHR -ORY in 1972 . School trip to UK & France.
And flew over on a LH “707” charter flight :)
Good video thanks. Tragic story. It really was a shame what happened to DeHavilland. I wondered if the Trident's story parallels the Comet's. Initially, a groundbreaking design with the potential for large market share only for the venture to be wrecked by a series of unfortunate events.
As a child living near Glasgow Airport in the 70's, I remember Tridents were a familiar site. You certainly knew when one was taking off due to the noise.
For years the only remaining Trident at Glasgow I believe was a 1C, G-ARPP, used the airport's fire service for training. The burnt out fuselage sat quite close to the perimeter fence and main road around the airfield and was a familiar site for many years after they were taken out of service.
As a manufacturer of stuff, if a potential client comes along with the changes BEA asked for here, I send them straight out the door. This is the product, if you don't like it, bugger off and go somewhere else. And for those who think it won't work, you are wrong. It does. Nicely.
Thanks for this, which encapsulates why nationalisation is a terrible idea. My Dad was the technical author for the autopilot at Smiths Industries, and I remember well his great frustration over the appalling indecision and delays that you mention in the video.
inflexibility and high control sucks. national ownership or private ownership is utterly irrelevant to that.
@@ellenorbjornsdottir1166 In my experience, that's not so. Nationalised, government, quango and national third sector organisations are very large, and so have to be bureaucratic. Most are also subject to political control, which in a democracy is subject to policy abruption, and in centralised economies - such as the USSR at that time - inflict extremely rigid planning (and so entrepreneurship is largely expressed as corruption).
The private sector (in liberal democracies) is able to express far more agility, and entrepreneurship is driven by creativity to meet needs as percieved by the founder.
Of course, toxic sub-cultures, criminals and incompetents pervade all types of organisations - but in my experience, natural selection is a brake on their activity. In the public and third sectors, it is easier for failures and corruption to be covered up.
And yes, I do have long personal experience of working inside all three sectors, and in cross-sector working (although not much in the third sector). Distrust of people in other sectors has ever been the default mode. Fortunately, most I have worked with have been decent people - but it takes all types to make a world.
What an aircraft: the only "Five engined, three-engined jet in exitance!" - still awesome!
Thanks for another great episode.
I flew in a Trident between Zurich and London. It was comfortable and quiet, the best I remember. It was when I embarked that I looked back and realized that it was something special, a Trident, an aircraft I had never flow on before.
Very rare experience, today there are no British commercial jets in operational service except for the BAe 146
keep Going with more Videos
A lot of research has produced an excellent video thank you. I was flying on Tridents in the 1960s and 70s, yet we of course were told less than the Boeing people were told and given it was long before the age of the Internet it was just about impossible to learn anything of what was really going on. A very sad tale.. :( Again thank you for an excellent educational video....
There was another close shave over Hatfield. A Trident had a hydraulic failure and the test pilot (John Cunningham) got it back by steering it with the engines! Luckily, he wasn't far away and the aeroplane was already set up for landing. Nobody was hurt!
I learned about the crash of one years ago before proper crew resource management. The captain had a heart attack, retracted the flaps early and the aircraft crashed
I think the Rolls Royce turboprop engines on the BEA Viscount from LHR to SZG made the Viscount fly smoothly as mentioned in an advertisement in the Pan Am periodical.
Another absolutely excellent video. Detailed and to the point. Well presented and researched.
Nicely done documentary of the trident. A+
Thanks, Rurdy. I love the Trident and I like your videos, mate.
Ruairidh,
As usual a well thought out and researched video, I must apologise for not subscribing earlier, your videos are top rate. What a fool I've been viewing but not subscribing.....
Don’t be too hard on yourself, I too watched quite a few videos on this channel before succumbing ! 🇬🇧🏍
The Bristol type 200 was designed for 3 engines, not the four you stated. The Sud Aviation offering was called the CARAVELLE, not the Carvel.
There was 4-engind Type 2 proposal, likely the two were conflated.
I’ve noticed he consistently pronounces it Carvel in his videos. From what I remember of my schoolboy French, even French pronunciation wouldn’t omit that syllable, but I could be wrong.
'Tis a pity, for this is one of my favorite airplanes to fly in FSX, a real sweetheart, and the self-landing system is nifty hat-trick.
Loved these aircraft and, always prayed there would be one on the London HR to Newcastle arm when I travelled in mid - 70s. Otherwise, a vickers Viscount (I believe) filled in. Iain
My father witnessed the first flight of Trident in January 1962, at Hatfield, while on training for the Comet 4B. Seeing the Pathe newsreel, he told me he was in the crowd outside the hangar....
It was flying too much nose up and they did mods in the leading edge droop snoot
Was lucky enough to fly on a few Tridents but at the time when I lived near near Heathrow so bored seeing ‘another flipping Trident’. Yes, an amazing aircraft, De Havilland seemed unaware at the time that it may be of interest to other airlines. I have read it was the Bristol 200 that was being marketed to the Americans, and that DH only got involved as an afterthought. Indeed DH forced a member of their marketing department to sign a statement to the effect that the revised Spey version would still find a sizeable market. Of course, the biggest casualty of the scaling down was the Medway engine, which would then effect the future development of the Trident, as the Spey was maxed out from the start. Fitting JT8Ds, as France did with their later Caravelles, was unthinkable in the U.K.! As indeed was buying the Caravelle.
Should do One about Hawker Siddeley Company. It will Big Info with Transit, Airplanes, Coaches
What really killed the Trident was its reliance on the Rolls-Royce Spey engine, which was far inferior to the then-new Pratt & Whitney JT8D that the 727 pioneered. And even the smaller 727-100 was superior to the Trident model of its time, and the 727-200 pretty much completed its dominance over the Trident.
Please make a video about the history of an Airbus A300.
I remember the Trident from my young days as a plane spotter.
My favorite tri-jet that needed four engines to actually fly plane ever, the 727 was a party pooper and only used three engines.
very interesting..................thanks
LIKE THIS A LOT WELL DONE.
Dude how do you pronounce your name!?
This channel is AWESOME! I particularly like the dc8 video and trijet video.
I read the Bristol 200 as the 'Bristol ZOO' lol. Great vid as usual Rauiridh.
While heavily compared to the Boeing 727, I really think it was the much more successful 737 and the McDonald Douglas DC-9 that really pushed the Trident into the fringes. The Tri-Jets were always going to be much more expensive to operate than the twin engined regional jets. But really the only benefit to the Tri-Jet was they allowed for longer flights over open water. Which wasn’t a huge requirement for most regional jets. As most regional flight routes tended to be within a given continental landmass. Pacific routes generally needed longer haul aircraft, not regional.
Boeing deserved its success after all that meddling the British govt did with its actually really innovative commercial aviation industry.
I don't know why I watch these things, they just depress me. It shouldn't be like this.
Isn't it sad the way the industry was treated!? They came up with such amazing products so often lost to inept leadership.
The engineering accomplishments were stunning!
Given enough time and money, there's nothing government can't ruin.
Bravo. Well said! 🎯
Governments are always inefficient at producing goods and services, sometimes a factor that isn't critical and a necessary compromise, but this was yet another case where government policy was a major problem.
Where would the Lockheed L1011 fit into this story?.
Very informative by the way, thank you
The L-1011 was substantially more sophisticated, much larger, and flew substantially later. Having said that, the L-1011 is my favorite aircraft in my career. I’m not implying anything negative about the Trident, I just have no experience flying it.
@@HEDGE1011 thanks for your reply
While a Tri Jet, the L-1011 and the similar DC-10 were really designed for a much different “long range” service than the Trident was specked for.
Sharing details of aviation engineering secrets with the Americans has never gone badly for the project/company in question.
Oh, sorry, well, I meant well.
When will they ever learn that government amateurs interfering in the professional world of business and equipment manufacture will always result in failure and loss?
Irs usually "Lord So and So" they put in charge. Same thing happened to the auto industry there. But they did use a Dr. to ruin the railroads.
@@martinr1834 it collapsed anyway. Beechings plan was an utter failure.and not well thought out. It was just pretty much just cut stuff. Just like with the auto and aircraft, it was the nationalization meant to save it that ultimately destroyed it.
I wouldn't equate the notoriously incompetent british government with that of more advanced nations.
Most of the Tridents ended up as fire-training hulks at the end of runways as far as I could tell.
Great video. Trident was a very advanced aircraft and as usual government meddling ruined it. What strikes me is that Boeing, having scarpered with the tech details never incorporated Class III autoland into the 727.
The problem with CAT-IIIc in the US is that both the aircraft and airport must be suitably equipped to handle the conditions and these aircraft respectively, and in the US, only a handful of airports had these capabilities so there wasn't much of an incentive for the aircraft manufacturers to move up to IIIc. The first American airliner with IIIc was the Lockheed L-1011, and while Lockheed marketed the L-1011s autolanding capabilities, I'd imagine only British Airways used the autolanding to its full potential.
Good point. Although ILS probably wasn't a high priority for most operators at the time, quite a different story nowadays! DH were way ahead of the game. I cannot help but wonder if they could have designed a basic cheaper version of the original Trident. Would they have had a "Boeing 727" available before Boeing that could have had optional extras like ILS? Then again, even if they got a pile of orders, would the British aircraft industry have had the resource to produce at anything like the rate Boeing could manage?
Wasn't the Bristol 200 project also a trijet?
Ah, the mess that British aviation deliberately created for itself - I remember it well. . .
The Trident demonstrates what happens when you build an aircraft too closely based on the specifications of one customer.
It looks lik3 Tu-154 was influenced by Trident same as Il-62 by VC-10
Great aircraft.
another british innovation carefully gamed out by US rivals
Leave it to the Britain Aviation Industry for making extremely advanced aircraft only for their own market turn their backs on them. When you have Boeing 727 and Tu-154 for the entire world things will favour simpler aircraft that does not need fancy instruments or powerful lifting accessories to climb out faster.
It’s a gorgeous aircraft, but the 60’s aircraft market was already too overcrowded with both the Soviet and American-built commercials. DH spilling the beans on their project details to Boeing, as well as the politics behind the merging of BAC was just rubbing salt on the massive wound for Britain.
It's amazing what they engineered, only to be tossed aside. Sad to think how the industry could have advanced had it not been choked by government.
I agree, the Trident was a bloody brilliant aircraft but was ultimately stymied by both the reliance on BEA's and the Governments directives.
And although the 727 ended up selling more than both the Trident and TU154, for me, the definitive aircraft in this group has to be the TU154M which was by far and away the best of all of them. Everything about it is just 'right'.
@@simonlb24sadly, the Tu-154M variant was too late. By the time it came along, Boeing already had the 737-400 and the 757 which outclassed it.
Great vlog as always! I have read that the 727 was to have had RR Spey engines, but UA and EA beeing from the US insisted on the JTD-9. Even thow the Spey is a better engine.
NOT the JT9D, try the JT8D
6:35. Oops. I think he means "first domestic REGIONAL jet airliner, regarding the Boeing 727.
The Trident is far better looking than the 727 in my opinion
The cockpit is I agree
The airlines shared a very different opinion... the 727 was a massive success while the Trident flopped.
Its a shame when you see what we used to do now we just out shorce quite sad really
beautiful plane-time was off.
Its the same with the a380 Great plane but wrong time
Wasn't the VC-11 of a slightly later vintage than the Airco/De Havilland Trident?
Slightly later, yes.
I was an RAF aircraft engineer I love aviation and flying myself. Sadly it sums up the whole British aviation industry DESTROYED by interfering MP's who had no business meddling in matters they little understood. I worked on the mighty VC-10 and many other great British aircraft. Where is the UK aviation industry now you ask............GONE! A few parts like Airbus wings are made here thats it. All those jobs and industry destroyed. The UK led the world in aviation and we let it all slip away due to underfunding, stupid negative decision making and governments intent on destroying the strong aircraft manufacturing industry we had. The Trident, BAC-111, VC-10, Comet etc all destroyed and now just things people 'read about' in museums.🤬🤬🤬
It's unfortunate that britain didn't have the technology to build better planes... have always lagged behind the Germans, French and Americans
Trident at Manchester if you want to walk around one. Even smells like the 70's.
Thank you for another terrifically researched and well presented article regarding aviation history.
That 'Trident' would have to be one of the UGLIEST most dysmorphic airliners to ever assault the sky! It has zero aesthetic appeal. Even a DC-9 ad all of its 'MadDog' iterations is a more attractive aircraft, thats really saying something because those DC-9s are hideous airframes also!
The ONLY thing going for the Trident, at the time, was its auto-landing capability. That is its only redeeming feature though. Quite impressive technology for its day, even if the cluttered unattractive flight deck had limited ergonomics and zero aesthetics.
Why they couldn't just call their leading edge slats by that name rather than the ridiculous sounding 'droops'.
Avionics space or not, there is no excuse for that idiotic looking offset nose gear, it could and should have been placed slightly further aft.
It is no wonder no one really wanted that Frankenstein's monster of a Trident,
13:57 What is with the insane seating configuration? Are they attempting to emulate a train's cabin?
HS certainly shot themselves in the foot with their snooty arrogance regarding the BAC-111 missed opportunity!
Thank goodness TAA came to their senses and cancelled that ugmo in favour of the successful B727 which was operated right through their re-branding to Australian Airlines and retired after many well-served years into the mid-90's, that pig of a Trident would never have lasted the distance nor would it have been suited to operating in Australian/South Pacific skies. TAA's and later Australian's Kangaroo would have jumped off the tail in humiliation if that creepy looking bird had have tried assaulting our skies. I'll bet British Airways were glad to see the back of it!
There is just no competition when it comes to the sleek, swift and contemporary B727, it looked fast and it was FAST, truly built for speed and comfort all the way. If the B727 had have had a B737-styled dual pilot flight deck eliminating the need for a flight engineer, it may have seen a longer service life with re-engining options to maintain contemporary appeal and operating economics. It just wanted to fly and was well at home aloft, quite simply a beautiful overpowered 'sports-car' of an aircraft that rocketed skyward and climbed swiftly to altitude like no other - until the stunning and still-awesome B757 came along!
The ugly, sadly a British-built airframe that we did end up having to suffer down here, was the gutless underpowered 4-engined joke of a BAe-146 (146 = 1 aircraft, 4 gutless engines (or hairdryers), but really needs 6!)
An aircraft totally unsuited to our flying conditions, all thanks to Sir Peter Ables with his penchant for visiting airshows and shopping for aircraft that both that we did not need and were completely inappropriate for the missions deployed on.
BAe-146s and A320s - worst decisions made by him ever that weakened and broke a great airline!
Didn't the uk give most of info about Comet and recieve nothing back? You would think they would have learnt not to divulge every thing :(
Sad saga of incompetence, rivalry, and government interference led to the demise of the British aircraft industry virtually overnight
grossly underpowered made climbout an adventure
Maybe next episode about Boeing 757/767
That HS134 certainly looks like the Boeing 757 doesn’t it? The three big unbuilt British airliners of the late 1960s; the HS 134, the BAC 2-11 and the 3-11 would all make for an interesting, if depressing, video.
@@mikerichards6065 I agree with you
Can I just make sure im hearing properly an emergency deent profile capable of a 10,000ft/min decent "permissible by the use of reverse thrust", so they could deploy reverse thurst durign flight?
Trident has a huge impact in a very unlikely place, China. The success of trident lead directly to China licensing Spey engine.
I don't see the Trident as a competitor to the Boeing 727 but rather the DC-9, but the British could not build a better jet engine and hence had to fit three. So in the end it is actually a competitor to the BAC 1-11. 'Doh 'doh deh 'doh 'doh.
Surely the Bristol 200 was 3- not 4-engined? Or are you including the APU?
The Bristol 200 proposal included a 4-engine version in a layout like the VC-10. Likely this led to the error here, with the original tri-engine and quad-engine types being conflated.
Another plane that "could've been." That way again the English gave up their first place position in aviation to America. Another well prepared historic capsule with your outstanding narration ability. U should that kind of work profesionally.
Britain has never had a first place position in aviation, it's a country that has always lagged years behind the Germans French and Americans.
Trident with 4 engines….. nice
the main landing gear just looks so weird 🤣
Shame they were up against the far more economical and better powered 727. Otherwise it might have stood a small chance on the international market.
Funny how they always added a fuselage plug for more seats back then. Nowadays airlines are smarter; they just shove in more seats without wasting time and money making the plane any bigger.
Giving away all technical info to the Americans and getting nothing in return seems incredibly naive. Just when you then British management couldn't have been any worse, out comes another nugget to lower the bar even further.
Your information on the 1972 crash is wrong. It didn't enter a deep stall, the captain had a heart attack.
Well, at least the British never disclosed any jet engine designs to the former Soviet Union.... Wait! Uhm... nevermind...
Reminds me of BOAC complaining that they wanted the Pratt Whitney engines on their 707 for better fuel economy put the British government said no RR engines must go on it to have some British on it same with PAN AM and AIR Canada coming over to look at the VC 10 and asking if the could order it with the PRATTS instead of the CONWAYS and the Government said no they only come with British Engines at least United Airlines was able to get the Caravelle without the British engines might have been a different outcome if they just listened to what World airlines wanted not just a couple of local airlines
Why have the British been so good at blowing every opportunity in the postwar period?
Britain lost the war...
Great video, spolit by poor quality voice commentary.
The caravelle was the first regonal jet? Thought that was the comet by about 5 years.
The comet was long range rather than regional.
@@tomsommer8372 I see. Thank you.
@@tomsommer8372 the original Comet had a range of 1,300nm so I would classify that as regional, although deployed on "Empire" routes frequent refuelling was required.
an English aircraft that was disabled from suits above
It could have been the best in the world, some new RR Conways and give it size back
it was a unique plane, the world wood take forever to catch up, as it always dus
the tail could caused the super stall, England had to warn them