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 Type 170 Vanguard Vickers Type 170 Vanguard The Vickers Vanguard was a 1920s British airliner developed by Vickers Limited from the Victoria. Developed from the earlier Victoria with the introduction of a wider fuselage, the Vanguard was a 22-passenger twin-engined biplane. Originally built for the Air Ministry as the Type 62 the aircraft powered by two 450 hp Napier Lion engines first flew on 18 July 1923. It was re-engined in 1925 with two 650 hp Rolls-Royce Condor IIIs and re-designated the Type 103. When it was handed over to Imperial Airways in 1925 it was described as the "World's largest passenger aeroplane".