Bea: The Definitive Newsreel History 1946 - 1974

Synopsis

BEA (British European Airways), was a division of the state owned BOAC formed in 1946 to run the passenger air services to continental Europe and within the UK that had been operated by the RAF during the Second World War. Most of BEA’s immediate post-war operations were out of Northolt using old piston engined Vickers Vikings and DC-3 Dakotas. These were followed by the first turbo-prop airliner, the Vickers Viscount then by the Vickers Vanguard, the DH Comet 4 and The Hawker Siddeley Trident series.

There’s a nostalgic look at flying from Northolt in 1949 before a series of hard hitting news stories such as The Viking ‘Vigilant’ with a huge hole in the fuselage caused by a time-bomb detonated over the Channel. In 1953, another Viking hit a mast on its approach to Belfast - there were no survivors. The worst disaster was in 1965 when a BEA Vickers Vanguard made three attempts to land in fog at London Airport - it somersaulted down the runway killing all on board. ITN’s Peter Snow gives a graphic description of the crash. Ironically, BEA were the pioneers of the Automatic Landing System (Autoland) originally on the Trident Fleet and for this BEA was awarded the Queen’s Award For Industry.

1955 saw severe strikes at London Airport. Gatwick was opened in 1958 becoming London’s second airport and BEA soon became a leader in the package tour industry and the first airline to offer a local helicopter service.

Other aircraft featured in this overview include the Airspeed Ambassador, the BAC 1-11, the Boeing 707, the Hawker Siddeley Argosy, the Dragon Rapide and many more.

BEA was amalgamated with BOAC in 1974 to form the British Airways of today.

Language

English

Country

Great Britain

Year of release

2011

Subjects

Transport

Keywords

air crashes; aircraft; airports; airlines

Distribution Formats

Type

DVD

Format

Region 0 PAL

Price

£14.99

Availability

Sale

Duration/Size

152 minutes

Year

2017

Publisher

Name

Strike Force Entertainment

Distributor

Name

Cherry Red Records

Web

http://cherryred.co.uk External site opens in new window

Phone

020 7371 5844

Fax

020 7384 1854

Address

Unit 17
First Floor
Eysium Gate West
126-128 New King’s Road
London
SW6 4LZ

 

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