BOAC

The callsign “Speedbird” that you hear on British Airways radio calls today is older than the airline itself. It comes from BOAC, the British Overseas Airways Corporation – the state airline that flew Britain’s overseas routes for 35 years. BOAC brought the first jet airliner into scheduled service, flew the VC10 and brought the jumbo to Heathrow. Here you will learn how BOAC came about, which aircraft shaped the airline’s image, where you can still see BOAC aircraft today and how to classify old shots properly.

BOAC at a glance

BOAC was the British state-owned airline for long-haul routes and existed from 1939 to 1974. Its basis was the British Overseas Airways Act of 1939. On November 24, 1939, it merged the two predecessors Imperial Airways and British Airways Ltd. – not to be confused with today’s British Airways. BOAC operated as a single company from April 1, 1940.

The division of labor in British state air transport was clear: BOAC flew overseas, meaning to the Commonwealth, Africa, Asia, Australia and North America. Short- and medium-haul routes within Europe were taken over from 1946 by the sister company BEA British European Airways. After the war, London Heathrow Airport became BOAC’s home, and its headquarters, Speedbird House, was there as well.

On April 1, 1974, its story as an airline in its own right ended: from that day BOAC and BEA continued to fly together as British Airways, which today belongs to the International Airlines Group.

Codes and callsign

• IATA code BA: appeared in BOAC’s flight numbers and passed to British Airways in 1974.
• ICAO code BOA: the airline’s three-letter code.
• Callsign SPEEDBIRD: BOAC adopted the name of the logo as its radio callsign. British Airways still uses “Speedbird” for its main flights today.
• Registration G-: All aircraft were registered in the United Kingdom. How the system works is explained in the guide to British G- registrations.

Because BA lived on as a code beyond 1974, the date is the only thing that helps you with old tickets, baggage tags or timetables: a document from before April 1974 with a BA flight number belongs to BOAC – or, for flights within Europe, rather to BEA, which had its own code. After that it is British Airways.

The history: from the war to the jumbo

1939 to 1945: an airline at war

BOAC was created in the middle of the Second World War. As early as the outbreak of war in September 1939, Imperial Airways and British Airways Ltd. worked together and moved their operations from London to Bristol. During the war, BOAC kept up Britain’s connections to the colonies and allies – often under dangerous conditions. Well known are the so-called Horseshoe Route via Cairo and the flights from Leuchars in Scotland to Stockholm. By September 1944, BOAC had completed 1,000 Atlantic crossings.

The postwar years: flying boats, propellers, Heathrow

After the war, the fleet was scattered across half the world, and it took around a decade to forge it into an effective operation at Heathrow. Unlike many competitors, BOAC held on to flying boats for a long time and flew them until 1950, last of all with the Short Solent to South Africa, among other routes. In 1949, BOAC took over the state airline British South American Airways and with it the South American routes.

On the North Atlantic, BOAC used the double-deck Boeing 377 Stratocruiser from 1949. Eastbound it flew nonstop from New York to London, while westbound it needed stops at Shannon and Gander. Added to these were the Lockheed Constellation, the Canadair Argonaut and the Handley Page Hermes. Because the entry into service of the Bristol Britannia was delayed, BOAC additionally bought ten Douglas DC-7Cs in 1956.

1952: the first jet in scheduled service

On May 2, 1952, BOAC wrote aviation history: the de Havilland DH.106 Comet with the registration G-ALYP flew from London to Johannesburg with paying passengers. It was the first scheduled flight with a jet airliner. The Comet was faster and flew higher and more smoothly than anything the competition had to offer – a lead that lasted only a short time, however.

Between 1953 and 1954, several Comet 1s crashed. At BOAC, G-ALYV crashed after takeoff in Calcutta in May 1953, and in January 1954 it was G-ALYP, of all aircraft, that broke apart over the Mediterranean near Elba. In April 1954, all Comet 1s were withdrawn from service. The investigation found that repeated pressure cycles had led to metal fatigue in the fuselage skin. The whole story is told in the article De Havilland Comet: the first jet airliner.

1958: the first jet across the Atlantic

The significantly larger and longer-range Comet 4 brought BOAC back into the jet age. On October 4, 1958, the first scheduled jet service across the North Atlantic began between London and New York – just ahead of the American competition, which soon followed with the Boeing 707. The Comet 4 bid farewell to BOAC scheduled service in November 1965.

The 1960s: Boeing 707, VC10 and BOAC-Cunard

As early as October 1956, BOAC had ordered 15 Boeing 707s – with British Rolls-Royce Conway engines. The type flew for the airline from 1960. You can read about the role the 707 played in aviation as a whole in the history of the Boeing 707; the type entry Boeing 707-320 Intercontinental fits the long-haul family.

In parallel, the Vickers VC10 was developed at Brooklands, a four-engine long-haul jet with engines at the rear and a T-tail. The first flight was on June 29, 1962, and on April 29, 1964, BOAC put the type into service on the London–Lagos route. In total, BOAC flew twelve standard VC10s and 17 of the longer Super VC10s. Passengers praised the comfort and the quiet cabin, and BOAC achieved higher load factors with the VC10 than with the 707. Economically, however, the standard VC10 in particular was more expensive to operate – the Super VC10, on the other hand, did well on the North Atlantic.

In 1962, BOAC founded the joint venture BOAC-Cunard together with the shipping line Cunard for routes to North America, the Caribbean and South America. BOAC provided most of the capital and several Boeing 707s. The company was dissolved again in 1966.

In 1964, Sir Giles Guthrie took over as head. For cost reasons he leaned toward Boeing and trimmed the VC10 orders. At the end of the 1960s, BOAC was back in the black.

1970/71: the jumbo arrives

On April 22, 1970, BOAC received its first Boeing 747-100. It did not enter scheduled service until April 14, 1971, however – BOAC and the pilots’ union BALPA were unable to agree on crew and pay for a long time. That meant almost a year lay between delivery and the first scheduled flight. How the 747 developed afterward is shown in the history of the Boeing 747.

The fleet at a glance

Type	Period at BOAC	Use	Spotter note
Lockheed L-049/L-749 Constellation	1946–1959	Postwar long-haul	Three vertical stabilizers, curved fuselage
Boeing 377 Stratocruiser	1949–1960	North Atlantic	Double-deck fuselage, four radial engines
Canadair C-4 Argonaut	1949–1960	Medium- and long-haul	Canadian DC-4 derivative with Merlin engines
Handley Page Hermes	1949–1957	Africa	British four-engine piston airliner
Bristol Britannia	1955–1966	Long-haul	Four turboprops, very quiet
Douglas DC-7C	1956–1965	Stopgap until the Britannia	Last big piston-engine Douglas
de Havilland Comet 1 and 4	1952–1954, 1958–1965	First jets in scheduled service	Engines in the wing roots
Boeing 707 (-300 and -400 series)	1960–1974	Worldwide long-haul	-436 with Rolls-Royce Conway engines
Vickers VC10 and Super VC10	1964–1974	Africa, Asia, North Atlantic	Four engines in pairs at the rear, T-tail
Boeing 747-100	1970–1974	Long-haul, scheduled service from 1971	Hump above the cockpit, short upper deck

The periods refer to BOAC’s fleet as a whole. Many jets from the last years – above all 707s, Super VC10s and 747s – continued to fly for British Airways after 1974, at first still in mixed liveries.

How to recognize BOAC

The most important identifying feature is the Speedbird, a stylized bird in flight. It was designed by Theyre Lee-Elliott as early as 1932 for Imperial Airways, and BOAC adopted it. From 1950 it appeared large on the vertical stabilizer, mostly dark blue on white or the other way around. In the mid-1960s it was redrawn more slender and given larger wings: in this form it shone golden on a dark blue tail – the image most people associate with BOAC today. Added to this were the “BOAC” titles on the fuselage and a color scheme of dark blue, gray and white.

Accidents and incidents

Like all major airlines of this era, BOAC experienced serious accidents. Some of them changed aviation lastingly:

• Comet crashes 1953/54: The investigations after the loss of G-ALYP near Elba exposed the problem of metal fatigue in pressurized cabins – a finding from which every later design benefited.
• Flight 911, March 5, 1966: A Boeing 707-436 (G-APFE) ran into severe turbulence near Mount Fuji shortly after takeoff from Tokyo Haneda and broke apart in the air. All 124 people on board died. The destination was Hong Kong’s old Kai Tak Airport.
• Flight 712, April 8, 1968: After takeoff from Heathrow, an engine on 707 G-ARWE caught fire and broke away. The crew landed the burning aircraft, and five people died. Flight attendant Barbara Jane Harrison stayed in the cabin to help passengers and lost her life doing so. She was posthumously awarded the George Cross.
• Dawson’s Field, September 1970: Super VC10 G-ASGN was hijacked and blown up at a desert airstrip in Jordan.

The end: merger with BEA

As early as 1953 there were plans to merge BOAC and BEA, but they failed. Only the Edwards Report of 1969 brought the breakthrough: it recommended bringing both state airlines under a common roof. The Civil Aviation Act 1971 created the British Airways Board for this purpose, which began work on April 1, 1972. For two years, BOAC and BEA still continued to fly under their own names. On March 31, 1974, BOAC had its last day of operation, and on April 1, 1974, it became part of British Airways.

BOAC and the Concorde

Without the merger, BOAC would very likely have become one of the first operators of the Concorde. Instead, the supersonic jet flew for British Airways from 1976. A bow to its predecessor remained, though: the first Concorde delivered to BA carried the registration G-BOAC. You can read the story of the supersonic jet in the history of the Concorde.

BOAC today: museums, retro livery and archive

BOAC has been gone from scheduled service since 1974. Even so, you can still encounter the airline today:

• IWM Duxford: Super VC10 G-ASGC stands at the Imperial War Museum Duxford in BOAC-Cunard colors. How to combine a visit to the airfield with spotting is shown in the spot guide IWM Duxford.
• Brooklands Museum: At the birthplace of the VC10, the Brooklands Museum shows an exhibit around the fuselage of standard VC10 G-ARVM.
• Retro 747: For the 100th anniversary in 2019, British Airways painted Boeing 747-400 G-BYGC in the BOAC scheme of 1964 to 1974. The aircraft is now kept at Bro Tathan in Wales.
• Comet G-ALYP: The Science Museum in London shows a fuselage section of the first jet airliner in scheduled service – the area around an antenna opening in the roof where the fatigue cracks occurred.

If you spot at Heathrow today, you won’t see any BOAC jets anymore, but you will hear the old callsign on every BA long-haul flight. You will find the best locations in the Heathrow spotting guide and in the spot profile Hatton Cross. On site, follow the rules summarized in the article Spotting in the UK.

Common mix-ups

• Treating BOAC as the same as BEA – BEA flew Europe and domestic routes, BOAC flew long-haul.
• Taking “British Airways” before 1974 for BA – British Airways Ltd. was one of BOAC’s predecessors from the 1930s.
• Taking every golden Speedbird for BOAC – early BA jets still carried it on the tail, too.
• Looking for the Concorde at BOAC – it flew only for British Airways.
• Taking BOAC-Cunard for a separate airline with its own network – it was a joint venture from 1962 to 1966, operated with BOAC aircraft.
• Confusing the 1952 Comet with the Comet 4 – the Comet 1 was significantly smaller and had rectangular windows with rounded corners, while the Comet 4 had oval ones.

Conclusion

For 35 years, BOAC was Britain’s gateway to the world. The airline flew from the war through the flying boat and propeller years into the jet age, brought the first jet airliner into scheduled service with the Comet in 1952 and the first jet across the Atlantic in 1958. The VC10 and Boeing 707 shaped the 1960s, the 747 the last years. In 1974, BOAC merged with BEA to form British Airways, which took over the code, callsign and home airport. For you as a spotter, BOAC lives on in museums, retro liveries and old slides.