British Civil Aviation in 1950 - Part 2

Part 1

7-8 July
A Royal Air Force display is held over two days at the Royal Aircraft Establishment airfield in Farnborough.

22 July
Royal Air Force Reserve Command becomes known as Home Command.

26 July
British flying and gliding clubs are permitted to claim relief for extra expenditure due to increases in petrol tax.

29 July
A prototype Vickers Viscount V630 (G-AHRF) is experimentally introduced on British European Airways Corporation's London to Paris and London to Edinburgh routes and flies until 22 August 1950. It is the world's first scheduled service by a turboprop-powered airliner.

3 August
British European Airways Corporation (BEAC) signs an order for 28 Vickers Viscount airliners, with Rolls Royce Dart propeller-turbine engines.

15 August
British European Airways provides a London to Edinburgh route using the Vickers Viscount V630. This is the first United Kingdom domestic service to be flown by a gas-turbine powered airliner.

September
Yvonne Pope becomes the first woman air traffic controller in the United Kingdom.

5-10 September
The 11th Society of British Aircraft Constructors is held at Farnborough airfield, but Russian Embassy officials and representatives from the Soviet bloc are not invited.

7 October
The last Avro York is withdrawn from the British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC) passenger services, but BOAC retains ten Yorks to be used as freighters.

2 November
The Ministry of Civil Aviation announces that new equipment using heat to disperse fog over airfield runways is under test at the Royal Aircraft Establishment at Farnborough.

8 November
British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC) starts a non-stop service between New York and Nassau in the Bahamas, using Boeing Stratocruisers.

14 November
The last Solent flying boat to be operated by British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC) on a regular service, arrives at Southampton from Johannesburg, to be replaced by Handley Page Hermes aircraft.

Part 1