From what I’ve read the VC-10 was as good or better performing than the 707, and I know this doesn’t really matter but it was certainly better looking. It’s actually my 3rd fav aircraft(well the military variant is anyway).

So why didn’t it get a foothold into the market? I’m sure the answer is online somewhere but is there a short answer?

I would have loved to join in this debate, something about it being designed specifically for one airline, who then didn't really want it, with too much power in order to cater for hot-and-high conditions. Probably an awesome thrust to weight ratio too, combined with a clean wing. And a super quiet cabin.

But unfortunately I got my fingers burned on another thread.

Andre3k wrote:

I enjoy watching people get bent out of shape every now and then.

So I'll just sit this one out.

SheikhDjibouti wrote:

I would have loved to join in this debate, something about it being designed specifically for one airline, who then didn't really want it, with too much power in order to cater for hot-and-high conditions. Probably an awesome thrust to weight ratio too, combined with a clean wing. And a super quiet cabin.

But unfortunately I got my fingers burned on another thread.

Andre3k wrote:

I enjoy watching people get bent out of shape every now and then.

So I'll just sit this one out.

Your not gonna get burned man. It seems you know quite a bit about it, whereas I don’t. Take that other topic with a grain of salt.

Let me tell you why I love the VC-10. When I was deployed there was an assortment of large airliner style planes on station. Kc-135’s, RC-135 rivet joints, e-8 j-stars, c-17’s, b-1’s, one nimrod, and 2 super vc-10’s.

The vc-10 seemed more powerful and was pure auditory bliss. I love the nose design and the t-tail. Btw this is written on a tiny iPhone 5 so it’s probably going to look pretty sloppy.

I love the double pod tail mounted engines. Not sure if that russian plane came first or the vc-10 but Vickers did it better.

Call me immature for the responses in the other topic but don’t be scared to enlighten me.

I must be getting soft in my old age, but since you have been decent about things, I'll rejoin the discussion.

From what I’ve read the VC-10 was as good or better performing than the 707, and I know this doesn’t really matter but it was certainly better looking.

Performance is both a matter for cold statistics, and yet also subjective. I am not even going to look at the actual numbers when I say the VC-10 had better flying performance than the 707, and indeed better than anything else on the planet. (IMO). But with performance comes a price; poorer economics.

So why didn’t it get a foothold into the market? I’m sure the answer is online somewhere but is there a short answer?

The short answer is poorer economics, unfortunate timing, and political considerations. Each of those headings can be expanded, but I'll save that for another post.

Andre3K wrote:

Let me tell you why I love the VC-10. When I was deployed there was an assortment of large airliner style planes on station. Kc-135’s, RC-135 rivet joints, e-8 j-stars, c-17’s, b-1’s, one nimrod, and 2 super vc-10’s.

I can't quite picture where "there" was - any station I come up with only satisfies at best 4 out of 7, so you will have to help me out. If security issues prevent you from specifying (although I cannot see why) I'll settle for an initial letter as a clue. As with scrabble, you get bonus points for any places beginning with Q, X or Z. Or possibly W.

The vc-10 seemed more powerful and was pure auditory bliss.

I love the double pod tail mounted engines.

Even lovers of the VC-10 and the IL-62 don't always recognise what it is about a plane that makes it so right.

Here is a picture that encapsulates your last point absolutely.


On the left, two RR Conways, looking mean and sleek, and aesthetically balanced.
On the right, one RB211 test engine, highly fuel efficient, but clumsy (when mounted in this situation.)
Credit to K.White at http://www.VC10.net

Not sure if that russian plane came first or the vc-10 but Vickers did it better.

The article that says it all, including debunking the "Russian copy" myth, is here
http://www.vc10.net/History/Comp_il62.html
And yes, that is a VC-10 fan site, but I guess they have no problem because the truth is always the truth.

It was Al Udied in Qatar. Only saw the mentioned planes there in 2005. When I went back in 2008 the nimrod was retired I think and the VC-10 just wasn’t there anymore. Which was a bummer.

Also i never knew anyone put a high bypass on side pylons before. That’s interesting. I think some manufacture should try that again someday. It surely has to be a more quiet ride. Does look ugly though.

Andre3K wrote:

It was Al Udied in Qatar. Only saw the mentioned planes there in 2005. When I went back in 2008 the nimrod was retired I think and the VC-10 just wasn’t there anymore. Which was a bummer.

Also i never knew anyone put a high bypass on side pylons before. That’s interesting. I think some manufacture should try that again someday. It surely has to be a more quiet ride. Does look ugly though.

OMG - so much to talk about, we could start two new threads just as offshoots from here...
First off; when you said Al Udied, Qatar, I assumed you were just racking up a good scrabble score (U= 1pt, Q= 10pts)
But it turns out you weren't joking.
I can see a VC-10 there in Dec 2006, and I'm surprised you didn't mention the P-3s. (Google Earth)
And is that an Il-76 parked amongst the four C-17s (May 2009)? And an An-12 in Sept 2009, with a Qatari C-17 too?
That base has got everything



As for putting a high bypass on a side pylon; surely the MD-90 qualifies too (IAE V2500) ?
To my eyes that engine seems disproportionate, although not excessively so. You must allow for the fact I was brought up on DC-9s with slimline JT-8Ds
The V2500 is only a baby in terms of thrust and fan diameter, but from there it's only a small step to the RB211-535 (757 etc) and another small step to the full blown RB211-22B which is more or less what we are seeing on the VC-10.
But I don't want to get into an argument about it

SheikhDjibouti wrote:

Andre3K wrote:

It was Al Udied in Qatar. Only saw the mentioned planes there in 2005. When I went back in 2008 the nimrod was retired I think and the VC-10 just wasn’t there anymore. Which was a bummer.

Also i never knew anyone put a high bypass on side pylons before. That’s interesting. I think some manufacture should try that again someday. It surely has to be a more quiet ride. Does look ugly though.

OMG - so much to talk about, we could start two new threads just as offshoots from here...
First off; when you said Al Udied, Qatar, I assumed you were just racking up a good scrabble score (U= 1pt, Q= 10pts)
But it turns out you weren't joking.
I can see a VC-10 there in Dec 2006, and I'm surprised you didn't mention the P-3s. (Google Earth)
And is that an Il-76 parked amongst the four C-17s (May 2009)? And an An-12 in Sept 2009, with a Qatari C-17 too?
That base has got everything

As for putting a high bypass on a side pylon; surely the MD-90 qualifies too (IAE V2500) ?
To my eyes that engine seems disproportionate, although not excessively so. You must allow for the fact I was brought up on DC-9s with slimline JT-8Ds
The V2500 is only a baby in terms of thrust and fan diameter, but from there it's only a small step to the RB211-535 (757 etc) and another small step to the full blown RB211-22B which is more or less what we are seeing on the VC-10.
But I don't want to get into an argument about it

When I think high bypass(for this particular instance) i'm thinking in the 35,000lb thrust and up range. But yeah the V2500 is much higher bypass than a typical business jet engine.

Here are all the planes that were there when I went in 2005 and when i went in 2008.

2005
Navy P-3 (2 or 3 different types ive never seen before with all kinds of weird radar things hanging off of them
Navy E-8 TACAMO
Some GR-4's or maybe GR-3 Tornado's
C-130E's and C-130J's(Herc ramp used to have ALOT of C-130's)
F-15E's
KC-135's
J-Stars
RC-135 (they called them Wreckies)
C-17's
1 Nimrod
One Army King Air with a bunch of odd black antennae on it.
Sometimes we saw the Qatari Mig 2000's (or something like that)
2 Super VC-10 tankers
Occasional EA-6B Growler
Occasional C-5
Occasional Evergreen 747 Cargo
Occasional DC-8 with the old engines
Occasional IL-76
A U-2 stopped by
An F-117 stopped by(they moved a F-15E just to put it under the fighter hut)
One time the Queen of England's BAE 146 came thru. I went on it. Man it smelled like mothballs and had 1970's furnishings in it. I didn't really know what to think about that.
Oh and an E-4 Doomsday plane came thru as well. We had to give it several times the support equipment that a typical heavy used. 4 Air conditioners(each big enough to cool a 30 unit apartment building, 6 generators (4 really big ones(Tri Electron) and 2 normal -86 generators), 2 hydraulic test stands and tons of maintenance stands.
2008

6 B-1B's (only five when I left. More on that after the list)
KC-135's
KC-135's
J-Stars
RC-135
C-17's
I can't remember if they still had Tornado's.
Randomly had 2 Super Stallions come thru. They really do make hurricanes when they land.
I think that was about it on my second deployment. But the B-1's made up for the lack of types with it's noise and power.
I literally sat baseball throw distance from them during takeoff with no hearing protection, and amazingly to me the VC-10's were still louder. Either that or my hearing started taking a dump from the first deployment.

As I said there were only 5 B-1's when I left because on April 8 2008 (I hope i remembered the date) we had one explode after landing(got pic's, wasn't supposed to, didn't show anyone the pics for years after it happened).
What happened was, they landed and on the taxi back they lost ALL hydraulic fluid, so no braking and no steering. They were headed at a steep angle towards Herc Ramp(where they kept all the C-130's at the time), and rather than hit it at slow speed, they throttled up the #4 engine to steer away from it. Well that only worked to a degree but instead of moving at walking pace they were now at full on sprint pace. Don't ask me why they didn't just shut down.

The B-1's over there always take off with a certain load of bombs and loiter in the AOR until needed, and if they aren't they come back with a full load of bombs just as they left with. Well you know what happened next. Crashed into the wall, the plane collapsed and caught fire. The crew got out and ran like 150 yards away. Well until the first bomb went off. Then they just kept running. This was after only 2 minutes of burning. The bombs are supposed to last for like 5 hours in a low temp fire(wtf is that even?). Well this fire must have been hot as hell. Now to be fair the bombs went off at a fraction of their true power.

So i'm sleep and they come knocking on everyone's doors yelling that a B-1 crashed. I get up, go outside and light up a cig, and its like almost 9 at night so i can see the glow on the horizon(well really not that far but you get the point, look at how close the dorms are to the old Herc Ramp). Suddenly I see a mushroom cloud coming up. And a little while later the dull thud of a 2000 pounder going off. It was the last one that went off too.

For the next few days we couldn't use the phone or email. There were bomb chunks and plane pieces strewn all over out there. I still remember the smell of that burnt plane and those explosive chunks.

That was the most excitement I had in the AF.

Andre3K wrote:

Here are all the planes that were there when I went in 2005 and when i went in 2008.
......
Sometimes we saw the Qatari Mig 2000's (or something like that)

Mirage 2000..... Mig 2000..... meh, same thing really

One time the Queen of England's BAE 146 came thru. I went on it. Man it smelled like mothballs and had 1970's furnishings in it. I didn't really know what to think about that.

Are you suggesting that our 91 year old queen smells of mothballs? I would be very careful next time you pass thru' LHR; the last person who said something like that spent the rest of his days occupying a suite at The Tower of London.

6 B-1B's (only five when I left. More on that after the list)

As I said there were only 5 B-1's when I left because .....

Jeez, you love to live dangerously, don't you!
That's gonna get you on someone else's black list.
So where exactly are you hiding now; somewhere there is no extradition either to the UK or back to the USA?

Seriously, thanks for all that; you've totally made my day.

SheikhDjibouti wrote:

Andre3K wrote:

Here are all the planes that were there when I went in 2005 and when i went in 2008.
......
Sometimes we saw the Qatari Mig 2000's (or something like that)

Mirage 2000..... Mig 2000..... meh, same thing really

One time the Queen of England's BAE 146 came thru. I went on it. Man it smelled like mothballs and had 1970's furnishings in it. I didn't really know what to think about that.

Are you suggesting that our 91 year old queen smells of mothballs? I would be very careful next time you pass thru' LHR; the last person who said something like that spent the rest of his days occupying a suite at The Tower of London.

6 B-1B's (only five when I left. More on that after the list)

As I said there were only 5 B-1's when I left because .....

Jeez, you love to live dangerously, don't you!
That's gonna get you on someone else's black list.
So where exactly are you hiding now; somewhere there is no extradition either to the UK or back to the USA?

Seriously, thanks for all that; you've totally made my day.

When I get home if I remember i’ll Post some pictures.

Andre3K wrote:

SheikhDjibouti wrote:

Andre3K wrote:

It was Al Udied in Qatar. Only saw the mentioned planes there in 2005. When I went back in 2008 the nimrod was retired I think and the VC-10 just wasn’t there anymore. Which was a bummer.

Also i never knew anyone put a high bypass on side pylons before. That’s interesting. I think some manufacture should try that again someday. It surely has to be a more quiet ride. Does look ugly though.

OMG - so much to talk about, we could start two new threads just as offshoots from here...
First off; when you said Al Udied, Qatar, I assumed you were just racking up a good scrabble score (U= 1pt, Q= 10pts)
But it turns out you weren't joking.
I can see a VC-10 there in Dec 2006, and I'm surprised you didn't mention the P-3s. (Google Earth)
And is that an Il-76 parked amongst the four C-17s (May 2009)? And an An-12 in Sept 2009, with a Qatari C-17 too?
That base has got everything

As for putting a high bypass on a side pylon; surely the MD-90 qualifies too (IAE V2500) ?
To my eyes that engine seems disproportionate, although not excessively so. You must allow for the fact I was brought up on DC-9s with slimline JT-8Ds
The V2500 is only a baby in terms of thrust and fan diameter, but from there it's only a small step to the RB211-535 (757 etc) and another small step to the full blown RB211-22B which is more or less what we are seeing on the VC-10.
But I don't want to get into an argument about it

When I think high bypass(for this particular instance) i'm thinking in the 35,000lb thrust and up range. But yeah the V2500 is much higher bypass than a typical business jet engine.

Here are all the planes that were there when I went in 2005 and when i went in 2008.

2005
Navy P-3 (2 or 3 different types ive never seen before with all kinds of weird radar things hanging off of them
Navy E-8 TACAMO
Some GR-4's or maybe GR-3 Tornado's
C-130E's and C-130J's(Herc ramp used to have ALOT of C-130's)
F-15E's
KC-135's
J-Stars
RC-135 (they called them Wreckies)
C-17's
1 Nimrod
One Army King Air with a bunch of odd black antennae on it.
Sometimes we saw the Qatari Mig 2000's (or something like that)
2 Super VC-10 tankers
Occasional EA-6B Growler
Occasional C-5
Occasional Evergreen 747 Cargo
Occasional DC-8 with the old engines
Occasional IL-76
A U-2 stopped by
An F-117 stopped by(they moved a F-15E just to put it under the fighter hut)
One time the Queen of England's BAE 146 came thru. I went on it. Man it smelled like mothballs and had 1970's furnishings in it. I didn't really know what to think about that.
Oh and an E-4 Doomsday plane came thru as well. We had to give it several times the support equipment that a typical heavy used. 4 Air conditioners(each big enough to cool a 30 unit apartment building, 6 generators (4 really big ones(Tri Electron) and 2 normal -86 generators), 2 hydraulic test stands and tons of maintenance stands.
2008

6 B-1B's (only five when I left. More on that after the list)
KC-135's
KC-135's
J-Stars
RC-135
C-17's
I can't remember if they still had Tornado's.
Randomly had 2 Super Stallions come thru. They really do make hurricanes when they land.
I think that was about it on my second deployment. But the B-1's made up for the lack of types with it's noise and power.
I literally sat baseball throw distance from them during takeoff with no hearing protection, and amazingly to me the VC-10's were still louder. Either that or my hearing started taking a dump from the first deployment.

As I said there were only 5 B-1's when I left because on April 8 2008 (I hope i remembered the date) we had one explode after landing(got pic's, wasn't supposed to, didn't show anyone the pics for years after it happened).
What happened was, they landed and on the taxi back they lost ALL hydraulic fluid, so no braking and no steering. They were headed at a steep angle towards Herc Ramp(where they kept all the C-130's at the time), and rather than hit it at slow speed, they throttled up the #4 engine to steer away from it. Well that only worked to a degree but instead of moving at walking pace they were now at full on sprint pace. Don't ask me why they didn't just shut down.

The B-1's over there always take off with a certain load of bombs and loiter in the AOR until needed, and if they aren't they come back with a full load of bombs just as they left with. Well you know what happened next. Crashed into the wall, the plane collapsed and caught fire. The crew got out and ran like 150 yards away. Well until the first bomb went off. Then they just kept running. This was after only 2 minutes of burning. The bombs are supposed to last for like 5 hours in a low temp fire(wtf is that even?). Well this fire must have been hot as hell. Now to be fair the bombs went off at a fraction of their true power.

So i'm sleep and they come knocking on everyone's doors yelling that a B-1 crashed. I get up, go outside and light up a cig, and its like almost 9 at night so i can see the glow on the horizon(well really not that far but you get the point, look at how close the dorms are to the old Herc Ramp). Suddenly I see a mushroom cloud coming up. And a little while later the dull thud of a 2000 pounder going off. It was the last one that went off too.

For the next few days we couldn't use the phone or email. There were bomb chunks and plane pieces strewn all over out there. I still remember the smell of that burnt plane and those explosive chunks.

That was the most excitement I had in the AF.

As promised. I think since there are official pictures on the internet now it’s ok to show these.

I took them while driving a bobtail(my job was Aerospace Ground Equipment Journeyman) or GSE Mech in the civilian world.

https://flickr.com/photos/12060440@N06/ ... 8688589771

I always felt that the VC10 (and indeed the Trident) were screwed by their local home carriers. Boeing had BOAC management in the bag by then and thus little interest in local home grown products. How many times were the specs changed at BOAC's request and how many of these changes impacted VC10's ability to compete for other orders?

If the VC10 had been designed with some growth potential upto 200 seats it might have seen more interest and orders competing with the 707/DC8. 140 seat VC10-A and a 200 seat VC10B would have given it more fighting chance in the market.

BawliBooch wrote:

I always felt that the VC10 (and indeed the Trident) were screwed by their local home carriers. Boeing had BOAC management in the bag by then and thus little interest in local home grown products. How many times were the specs changed at BOAC's request and how many of these changes impacted VC10's ability to compete for other orders?

If the VC10 had been designed with some growth potential upto 200 seats it might have seen more interest and orders competing with the 707/DC8. 140 seat VC10-A and a 200 seat VC10B would have given it more fighting chance in the market.

It certainly would have been a nice addition for some airlines here in the states.

I wonder which ones would have ordered it back then.

SheikhDjibouti wrote:

combined with a clean wing.

The "clean wing" fallacy is one of the most common ones here, but it turns out that a "clean wing" is not the benefit that you'd think.

The advantages of tail-mounted engines and a "clean wing" are
*lower ground clearance for the fuselage, for easier loading at airports with limited airstairs and belt loader equipment
*decreased risk of FOD ingestion/ability to operate out of semi-prepared airfields.
*quieter fuselage, especially forward

The advantages of wing-mounted engines and a "contaminated wing" are
*Use of forward-mounted engines as antishock bodies to soften the sudden cross-sectional area increase at the wing root(1)
*Weight of the engines on the spars reduces bending moment at the wing root, resulting in a lighter wing
*Less overall length
*Less need to reinforce the fuselage as a thrust-bearing structure
*Easier access to engines for maintenance and replacement
*CG nearer to the geometric center of the aircraft, which makes handling at landing more stable and reliable
*Smaller tailplane/tailfin because of further distance from CG.

So you can see there is a very good reason why Airbus has never mounted engines in the tail and Boeing only did it once.

(1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Area_rule

The VC-10 WAS successful!

It did exactly what BOAC wanted. That is to fly from some airports in Africa non-stop to the UK. At the time, the 707 and DC-8 could not. With uprated engines on the DC-8/707 and lengthened runways in Africa, the VC-10's capabilities became a liability, as the larger engines and thicker wings made cruise fuel burn higher.

BOAC did note a passenger preference for the aircraft, but it was not enough to overcome higher operating costs.

Much like the Trident, it would appear that designing an aircraft for one airline's specifications is never a good idea.

CrewBunk wrote:

The VC-10 WAS successful!

It did exactly what BOAC wanted. That is to fly from some airports in Africa non-stop to the UK. At the time, the 707 and DC-8 could not. With uprated engines on the DC-8/707 and lengthened runways in Africa, the VC-10's capabilities became a liability, as the larger engines and thicker wings made cruise fuel burn higher.

BOAC did note a passenger preference for the aircraft, but it was not enough to overcome higher operating costs.

Much like the Trident, it would appear that designing an aircraft for one airline's specifications is never a good idea.

This has played out it more recent times too has it not. I’d say the 777-200LR and -8 have suffered this issue. Not sure about the A318 and 737-600 though as that could have been due to shrinks always selling poorly.