Atomic Systems

Very long shot, but you never know. This will be of particular relevence to any Midland plane spotters from the 1950's and 1960's.

Don Everall, the famous coach operator from Wolverhampton, ran an airline for a while during the 50's and 60's, using Dragon Rapides, Dakotas and Vickers Dumplings - sorry, Vikings. They ran the Birmingham to London service for a while on behalf of BEA, and flew regularly to Jersey, the Isle of Man and the near continent on what would now be called package holiday flights. They also flew from Wolverhampton (Pendeford), an airport they ran on behalf of Wolverhampton Corporation, Leicester, Coventry and Nottingham on occasions, before concentrating on Birmingham. They were taken over by Air Safaris in 1961, although an air-taxi service continued from Pendeford until the airport closed in 1970.

History lesson over, my question is this. Can anyone remember what the Vickers Viking livery was? I've only been able to trace a small black and white picture of a Don Dakota, which shows a colour scheme which has a largely metallic fuselage, a white top and a solid colour band above the windows, with a solid colour swoop down over the nose - a bit like the pre Red Square BEA colour layout, but a solid colour stripe. Obviously, being a black and white picture, the stripe is grey (doh!) but, assuming the Dumplings carried a similar scheme, what colour was the stripe? I know their coaches were burnt orange and deep red, so I could assume the stripe was deep red, but perhaps there might be a 1950's plane spotter out there who remembers the planes, or even had their first flight on one. So, has anyone got a clue?

(Yes Andy, I know this is becoming a bit of an obsession, but given Classic British Flight Sim drew a blank I might as well ask here before giving up!)

Dumplings are beige.......................


Good Luck, be interested in the result if you get one..................

Dave

markw wrote:(Yes Andy, I know this is becoming a bit of an obsession, but given Classic British Flight Sim drew a blank I might as well ask here before giving up!)

Lol!

I suppose Melba Airways could be added to the list too. A subsidiary of Melba Motors of Reddish who became part of NWRCC in 1958.

Melba Airways operated from 1948-1952.

Sorry, I drew a blank on this one...

I'm told the stripe was a quite normal PO red, by a bus/coach enthusiast who lived near the Wolverhampton operation.

Dave

Yes it would be. Red on white is very popular with small airlines.

bravedan wrote:I'm told the stripe was a quite normal PO red, by a bus/coach enthusiast who lived near the Wolverhampton operation.

Dave

Just to check, that is the stripe on the plane? Only the coaches had a red band or stripe on a basically orange/tan coach.

I must admit in my repaint of the Vicker's Dumpling I assumed red on the basis it was a Don colour, their timetable for 1958 (an image of which is on the net) was printed with a red based cover and the aircraft were in a basic BEA style livery which made me think they would probably given the ex BEA craft a very simple and quick paint job by overpainting the stripe and removing the BEA logos and shields to save money, important for an independant airline in the 50's who were only allowed to fly marginal routes BEA didn't want, and charters.

Thanks for solving the mystery.

To my knowledge the coaches were a darker red than PO red, more crimson based, some of them at least (the Burlingham "Seagull's", for a start), had full deep red side panels on a tan/orange.

Corgi "Original Omnibus" researchers thought so too, not that that's everything in life.............

I think you'd be, as you say, pretty darn safe at a de-logo'd version of the BEA livery of the period.

As an aside, we painted our Worthing "Tramocar" bus replica body three times, two contemporary people insisting their recollections were correct.....and it was darker even than the third shade........then an ex-driver was discovered still alive (it's a 1924 vehicle, but read that how you like!!!.........he visited to see the bus, and his first words????

"Nice body, but far too dark, they were really bright scarlet!!"



Regards,

Dave