Reading about the aircraft featured in our special 'British Airliners: Project Cancelled' section of this 1 V month's issue brought mixed feelings. This is not so much the case with the Saunders-Roe jet flying boats: the manufacturer's continued development of these behemoths, as impressive as the concepts were, can only be seen as a blind alley. Even at the time, the signs were clear that the era of the commercial flying boat was over. But with Vickers/BAC's VC11 and double-deck VC10, things are less clear-cut. These are designs that were expected to compete on the global market, to assist in bringing the British aircraft industry back to its former position of pre-eminence in the civil sector. But, as with many other projects that fell into that category during the 25-30 years following World War Two, not a single example was built. And, as we know all too well, many of the designs that did reach production — the VC10, for one — failed to win the hoped-for orders.
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