British United Air Ferries Officer Lesley Hardy became Britain's first airliner flown by an all-female crew. On 1 January 1979, BAF transferred its entire scheduled operation including associated aircraft and staff to British Island Airways (BIA). Following British Airways's decision to withdraw from its loss-making regional routes and to retire its Vickers Viscount turboprop fleet, BAF acquired the entire 18-strong fleet along with the spares inventory during the early 1980s. This acquisition made it the world's largest Viscount operator at the time. As a result of the changes the airline underwent in the late 1970s and early 1980s, BAF mainly concentrated on leasing, charter
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