V-Flyer

Hi All

It's a bit off topic, but I thought that V-flyers would like this one. In the 'Frost/Nixon' movie, David Frost flies to the US in a British Airways 747. It clearly says 'British' in large letters on the fuselage, but the tailplane has the BOAC logo on it

Is this right? - did BA originally use BOAC logos on their tails, before using the Union jack? - or is it a film continuity error?

Well, BOAC came before BA - I think in the early 1970s BOAC became a part of BA which was the state owned airline that soaked up BOAC, BEA and eventually British Caledonian (or did a private BA buy BC?) before being privatised in the 80s. So technically, the film may be correct - BOAC was the one of the first airlines to order the 747-100.

One of my airline friends, many moons ago gave me an alternative acronym explanation for BOAC - 'better on a camel'!

BOAC started back in 1939 when Imperial Airways (those of the beautiful flying boat fame) merged with British Airways Ltd (a private company started in 1935 as Allied British Airways that had itself soaked up Spartan Airlines, Hillman's Airways and United Airways - all independent airlines about in the 30s). Imperial was itself a merger of four early carriers - Instone Air Line, Handley Page Transport, Daimler Airways and British Marine Air Navigation.

In 1946 the government decided to break up BOAC into three parts. BOAC - British Overseas Airways Corporation - the long haul operation, BEA - British European Airways - the short haul carrier, and BSAA - British South American Airways - which, as the name implied, did all the runs down to Rio, etc. BSAA didn't last long on its own, and was absorbed back into BOAC before the end of the 1940s.

BOAC and BEA was merged in 1971 to form the modern British Airways. It was privatised in 1987, and British Caledonian was taken over in 1988. If you remember Dan Air, that was partly taken over by BA in 1992.

Since my father worked for BEA and then British Airways for most of his adult life, I had a healthy interest in them as a child [;)]

Since, as the OP says, it's a bit off topic I'm moving it to that forum