Yuri Gagarin at the controls of a BEA Viscount en-route from London to Manchester (1961) Gagarin (a former foundryman) visited the city on 12 July at the invitation of the Amalgated Union of Foundry Workers. The Captain was Stanley Key, who died in the Staines Disaster in 1972.

The England ⚽️ team head out to Mexico on BOAC for the World Cup - BA675 via Kingston (1970) Emlyn Hughes (Liverpool), Geoff Hurst (West Ham) & Jeff Astle (WBA) wait in the recently renamed Terminal 3 at LHR. Haven’t portable electronic devices come a long way since then…

BEA Comet departure (early 1960s) The Comet 4B was only really a stop-gap for BEA until the Tridents arrived, but proved its worth on longer routes such as Moscow (journey time halved to 3h 30m). On Comets entry was via the right side - and a bit of a stoop was needed!

Traversing the Middle East on a Handley Page HP42 of Imperial Airways (c.1932-40). Home movie, digitally enhanced & colourised. The silhouetted First Officer looks like he is wearing a Wolseley-pattern pith helmet, standard British Army-issue at the time.

JFK flies into Gatwick (via RAF Waddington) aboard VC-137C SAM 26000 for the ‘Sussex Summit’, 29 June 1963. This would be his last visit to the UK. SAM 26000 entered service in 1962 and was retired only in 1998, although only used as a backup aircraft from 1972.

Air Hotel (1936) The first flying boat for Imperial Airways takes to the air on The Medway next to Short’s Rochester factory. These made enormous sense when few aerodromes that could take large aircraft. Wartime aviation expansion meant they were an anachronism after 1945.

A very different Edinburgh Airport (1971) - a crosswind-prone 6,000ft main runway, small 1950s north side terminal, baggage handed to passengers through a hatch from the back of a flatback. The BCal BAC 1-11 was the Gatwick service, inherited from BUA in the 1970 takeover.

Hong Kong’s Kai Tak airport (1966). An RAF VC10 departs back to the UK via Gan & Akrotiri - No 10 Squadron at Brize Norton had just taken delivery of the type. An interesting look at when 10 Sqn was essentially a scheduled airline, with service & style to match!

George Best⚽️ doing some kind of promotion with Caledonian/BUA (1971) The two airlines would have a merged British Caledonian identity by the end of the year. If you expand you can see George’s name above the door of the BAC 1-11.

What the passengers on that first BOAC 747 flight would have seen - a guided tour of the cabin. Some innovations that we now take for granted (overhead lockers, instead of hat racks), whilst others that have now disappeared (wall art that converts into a cinema screen).

Further to Archive Sketcher’s excellent recreation, here is the actual Farman F.60 Goliath F-GEAC doing the Paris-London run sometime in the early 1920s. Visible in the aerial scenes are Dungeness Lighthouse (minus the now-adjacent nuclear power station) and Walland Marsh.

Women in aviation, 1934 vs 2024. Shona treading in the footsteps of illustrious forebears…

60 years ago the Forth Road Bridge was officially opened by HM The Queen. Not sure if this is from the opening day but the flags are still up & the new bridge has considerably shortened this family’s journey to Edinburgh Airport. A BEA Vanguard is shown arriving (1964) #OTD

Following their retirement from long-haul a few of BOAC’s Bristol Britannias enjoyed a new lease of life flying regional services with BKS (seen here 1966). The quoted 70 minutes NCL-LHR wasn’t significantly improved on after Tridents were introduced in 1969 (or indeed today).