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,
Commuter Aircraft Corporation CAC-100 be supplied by four Pratt & Whitney Canada PT6A-65R turboprop engines driving five-bladed Hartzell Propeller constant speed reversible propellers. Production facilities were constructed at Youngstown, Ohio but the project was shelved in 1983 before its first flight. Commuter Aircraft Corporation CAC-100 The Commuter Aircraft Corporation CAC-100 was a 50–60 seat, four-engined, turboprop commuter airliner developed in the United States in the late 1970s and early 1980s.<ref name="JAWA81/82"></ref> The design of the CAC-100 originated from the General Aircraft Corporation GAC-100,<ref name="JAWA70/71"></ref> designed in the late 1960s. The GAC-100 design was enlarged and new technologies incorporated to produce the CAC-100. The proposed