The Whispering Giant
The flagship aircraft of the Brabazon Committee’s recommendations was supposed to be the Bristol Aeroplane Company’s gigantic ‘Brabazon’, a mighty machine worthy of the Empire that the British government expected to be re-established after World War Two. A prototype of the Brabazon was flying by 1950, but it proved to a complicated and inefficient anachronism. The project was cancelled in 1953, as no customers were interested in the ungainly behemoth. The parallels with the ultimate fate of the British Empire are fascinating, but best left for another forum.
However, other initiatives of the committee turned out to be reasonably successful airplanes, including the pioneering de Havilland Comet jetliner, the Dove and Heron from the same Hatfield, Hertfordshire stable, and the Vickers Viscount. Bristol also designed another airliner, in response to the Brabazon Committee’s Type III specification, as a replacement for the Lockheed Constellation. This was intended to service the ‘Empire Routes’ and was christened the Britannia, a typically uninspired and jingoistic name selection, probably by yet another committee.
Development woes
Initially the prototype was to be fitted with radial (piston) engines as turboprops were still in their infancy. However, by the time the first flight took place, Bristol had designed its own turboprop engine, the Proteus, characterized by its unique reverse-flow design. The Proteus proved to be overweight, under-powered and prone to mechanical problems — literally a millstone around the Britannia’s neck.
The development of the aircraft was plagued with problems, commencing with its first flight in 1952. An engine fire during a test flight with a delegation from KLM on-board, interrupted a demonstration of the second prototype in 1954. The Britannia was forced to ditch in the Severn Estuary during low tide and got stuck in the mud — a humiliating public relations disaster. Thankfully, there were no injuries, but it was an inauspicious start to the aircraft’s life.
The unusual design of the Proteus engine made it very susceptible to engine icing, and curing this glitch proved to be a headache for the engineers. If engine problems weren’t enough, the mysterious crashes of the early de Havilland Comet spooked the British aviation authorities and certification of the Britannia became an uphill battle.
Delayed introduction to service
A prolonged and frustrating development process finally saw the Britannia Model 102 entering service with BOAC in 1955. Larger versions, the ‘200’ and ‘300’ series aimed at the trans-Atlantic market, were in the works.
The speed and external quietness of the Britannia were a marked change from the Douglas DC-7, the pre-eminent long-range airliner of its time, resulting in the new Bristol turboprop from Filton being dubbed ‘Whispering Giant’. Many airlines expressed interest in the type, including Eastern Airlines and TWA, which would have given the British aircraft a firm foothold in the world’s largest market, following the path pioneered by the Vickers Viscount. However, Bristol’s limited production facilities and commitment to BOAC meant that US deliveries could not be guaranteed for two more years at the earliest. With the redesigned Comet 4 flying by then, and Boeing working frantically on the 707, the delay meant the Britannia stood little chance of commercial success.
Worldwide service
The first of the Model 302s entered service with Aeronaves de México (later Aeroméxico) in 1957. BOAC also took delivery of 18 Model 312s, Canadian Pacific Air Lines accepted six Model 314s, and El Al of Israel received four 313s. Cathay Pacific and Ghana Airways also operated Brits’. Another customer, Cuban national airline Cubana de Aviación (a.k.a. Cubana), flew Britannia 318s across the Atlantic. The operation continued after Cuba’s Communist revolution of the late 1950s and the resultant US-imposed sanctions, thanks to a special maintenance agreement with the British manufacturer.
A BOAC Britannia 312 flew the first nonstop service between the UK and Canada in December 1957. Within a year, BOAC’s ‘Whispering Giant’ network stretched around the world, with services to New York, San Francisco, Honolulu, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Colombo, Johannesburg and Sydney.
Even after BOAC replaced the Britannia on its services to Colombo with the Comet 4 in 1958, the big turboprop was a familiar sight at Colombo-Katunayake Airport for at least another decade, with Britannias of Britain’s Royal Air Force Transport Command (with military designations C.2 and C.1) and British Eagle International Airlines dominating movements. The latter airline was a particularly prolific visitor to Colombo especially during 1966–67, transiting Katunayake on charter to the British defence forces conveying military personnel and their families to and from postings in the Far East.
Interestingly, El Al deployed its Brits’ on the Tel Aviv–London–New York route, establishing several speed records for the Atlantic crossings. This continued even after the introduction of BOAC’s Comet 4s and Pan Am’s 707s, as the jets frequently made refuelling stops at Gander or Goose Bay (both in Canada) on the westbound crossing due to ‘opposition’ from the strong jet stream winds. El Al’s Britannias would fly non-stop across ‘the pond’, often beating the jets to New York. This prompted the cheeky “No Goose … No Gander” advertising campaign that became a publicity coup for the upstart Israeli airline.
In 1960 an El Al Brittania famously played a leading role in the sensational abduction and extradition of Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann from Argentina, where he had been in hiding for ten years, to Israel.
A total of 85 Brits’ were built, mainly in Filton, Bristol, with 30 constructed in Belfast, Northern Ireland. BOAC retired its Britannia fleet in 1965, El Al following suit in 1967. The Britannia served longest with Cubana, where it became famous for transporting hundreds of Cuban troops to Angola in 1975; Brits’ continued operating in Cuba until 1990. Some of these aircraft were later used in the Congo by various little-known Zairian outfits.
Canadian offshoot
Canadair produced a hybrid version of the Britannia under licence as the CL-28 Argus maritime patrol aircraft. This ‘Americanized’ design had an unpressurized fuselage and Wright R-3350 piston engines optimized for low-altitude operations. A total of 33 Argus aircraft served until 1982.
Another version was produced by Canadair, designated the Yukon, with Rolls-Royce Tyne turboprop engines; 12 were delivered to the Royal Canadian Air Force, and 27 sold as passenger and freighter aircraft for civil use. The latter type, named CL-44D4, had a swing-tail to facilitate straight-in cargo loading from the rear.
Accident record
The Britannia had a reasonably good safety record for its time, with 12 accidents recorded in commercial service and two prototypes crashing during flight tests. The accident with the most fatalities occurred in Nicosia, Cyprus on 20 April 1967, involving a Swiss-owned Globe Air Britannia 313 on a charter flight from Bangkok to Basel with a group of European tourists. The aircraft had already stopped in Colombo-Katunayake and Bombay, but was diverted from its next scheduled stop, Cairo, due to bad weather. It crashed during its second approach to Nicosia Airport, killing 126 of the 130 persons on-board.
Among the dead was the Britannia’s commander, Captain St. Elmo ‘Mike’ Muller, formerly a test pilot with the Bristol Aeroplane Company. Earlier still, Elmo Muller was a Flying Officer in the Royal Air Force, having been in the first batch of young Ceylonese men recruited to fly with the RAF during World War Two. He also happened to be the uncle of this writer’s closest childhood friend.
This is part of a series on the propliners of the 1950s and the slow transition to the jet age. It all began with the DC-3 of course, and my columns move through the other Douglas propliners, the Boeing 377, Lockheed’s Electras and the elegant Constellation. The Brabazon Committee which sparked such a wave of innovation in the UK with the Vickers Viscount, the Bristol Britannia and the ill-fated de Havilland Comet. Many other significant aircraft, such as Avro Canada’s innovative but aborted C-102 passenger jet and the Sud-Aviation Caravelle, which led us into the start of the Jet Age have columns too.
A few quirky segues I couldn’t resist: the ‘Double Sunrise’ flights between my two homelands Ceylon and Australia; the wonderful Carvairs and that very British habit of taking your car on holiday. I also had to write a paean to my beloved A380 and all my pilot friends in the Gulf as COVID ended that little dream.
Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed the series as much as I have relished writing them. My special thanks to my old friend, mentor, editor and repository of knowledge Roger Thiedeman, for all the encouragement and support throughout this project.
