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 V-1000 version with much greater bypass ratio. Vickers V-1000 The Vickers-Armstrongs V-1000 was an intended jet-powered cargo aircraft that was designed to meet a requirement issued by the British Ministry of Supply which sought a strategic transport for the Royal Air Force (RAF) to support its strategic bomber fleet, particularly the V-bombers. The design bears many similarities to the Vickers Valiant, one of the V-bombers, but also featured substantial changes. In addition to its military application, both the Ministry and Vickers also intended to use the same basic design as the VC7, a six-abreast trans-Atlantic jet airliner for British Overseas Airways