Aviation Stories Archive
Explore and More
Explore a curated collection of aviation stories focusing on the history of British airliners. These in-depth features cover aircraft development, operational roles, and the legacy of designs that shaped commercial aviation.
Select a story below to begin exploring.
The British feeder liner
This story describes the history and significance of the British-built Avro/Hawker Siddeley 748 ‘feeder liner’ regional aircraft, highlighting its design as a DC-3 successor, its global operators and variants, and its long service life in both civilian and military roles.
Flying the Royals
Our story traces the history of the UK’s royal air transport from the early flights of the Prince of Wales through the establishment of the King’s and Queen’s Flights and their aircraft, to later VIP transport roles including jet-powered aircraft such as the BAe 146 Statesman used by 32 (The Royal) Squadron.
The Magic Moving Map
This story explains the Hawker Siddeley Trident’s pioneering ‘moving map’ navigation display, a self-contained system that pre-dated GPS by using Doppler radar and compass data to show the aircraft’s real-time position on a moving map, illustrating the technology and principles behind it.
Concorde Engineer’s Seat
The article is a first-hand account by a retired British Airways Concorde flight engineer, describing his experiences and the technical aspects of flying Concorde – from take-off and fuel management to cruising supersonically and landing – while also celebrating the iconic aircraft’s engineering achievements.
BOAC BA100 Celebrations
The article highlights the role of British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC) in the history of modern British Airways. Formed in 1939 from the merger of Imperial Airways and British Airways Ltd, BOAC played a key role during World War II and later expanded global air travel with new aircraft.
Britten Norman BN2
This story follows the British Success Story that is the Britten Norman BN2. To date nearly 1,300 BN2 aircraft have been built and it has been in continuous production since 1965 when the prototype Islander first took to the air from Bembridge airfield on the Isle of Wight.