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 Vanguard September 1996 and donated the aircraft, registered "G-APEP", to Brooklands Museum on 17 October 1996. These airlines operated the Vickers Vanguard: ♠ original operators Vickers Vanguard The Vickers Vanguard was a British short/medium-range turboprop airliner introduced in 1959 by Vickers-Armstrongs, a follow-up to its successful Viscount design with considerably more internal room. The Vanguard was introduced just before the first of the large jet-powered airliners, and was largely ignored by the market. Only 44 were built, ordered by Trans-Canada Air Lines (TCA) and British European Airways (BEA). After only about 10 years' service TCA experimentally converted one of its Vanguards