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,
Kuznetsov NK-12 the NK-12MA. The NK-12 remains the most powerful turboprop engine to enter service although the Progress D-27 and Europrop TP400 have come close to this (in 1982 and 2005 respectively). Another engine of similar size, the Pratt & Whitney T57 with 15,000 shp and 5,000 lb jet thrust, ran 3,100 hours before being cancelled in 1957. The NK-12 powers the Tupolev Tu-95 bomber and its derivatives such as the Tu-142 maritime patrol aircraft and the Tupolev Tu-114 airliner (with NK-12MV), which still holds the title of the world's fastest propeller-driven aircraft despite being retired from service in 1991. It also