Early on, civil operator British European Airways (BEA) had shown open interest in the Argosy, the company viewed the aircraft as a potential replacement for its existing piston engined freighters; however, evaluations of the Series 100 soon found that its payload capacity would not allow for the type to operated profitably. Early on, as a measure taken to reduce design costs, the wing of the Argosy had been based on that of the Avro Shackleton, a maritime patrol aircraft that was developed and built by another entity within the Hawker Siddeley Group; in order to satisfy BEA's requirements, a new wing was designed which shared the same aerodynamic design, but benefitted from a more modern "Fail safe" structure rather than the Safe-life design used on the earlier wing. This change resulted in a wing that was both stronger and lighter, but was also no longer limited in terms of its fatigue life. The revised version, designated as the "Series 200", also featured several other improvements, including the adoption of enlarged cargo doors, integral wing fuel tanks and a modified landing gear arrangement. The Series 200 reportedly had better handling than the older Series 100, although some aerodynamic refinements were required during testing.