Hawker Siddeley Trident 1978, 117 Tridents had been produced. BEA's successor British Airways withdrew its Tridents by the mid-1980s. Trident services ended in China in the early 1990s. In 1953, as British European Airways (BEA) introduced the world's first turboprop-powered civil airliner – the Vickers Viscount – into passenger service, the operator was already considering what would be required of a potential successor. Following the entry into service of jet airliners in 1952, many airline managers and economists remained sceptical and advocated turboprop airliners as replacements of piston-engined airliners. In 1953, while several manufacturers across the world were investing in pure jet-powered aircraft,
Vickers F.B.5 trainers. The Vickers company persisted with an active experimental program during the First World War period, including a line of single-seat pusher fighters that culminated in the Vickers F.B.26 Vampire of 1917-18, but the F.B.5 remained their only significant production aircraft until the Vickers Vimy bomber, which entered service too late to affect the war. Despite its moderate effectiveness, the Vickers F.B.5 did have a lasting legacy as German pilots continued to refer to British pusher aircraft as "Vickers-types". Many victories over D.H.2 or F.E.2b pushers were reported as destruction of a "Vickers". A flying replica of the F.B.5 Gunbus