Invicta International
Elan Delivery Service
Air Bridge
Aircraft model designer : Rick Piper
Invicta colours : Tony Madge
Airbridge Colours : Rick Piper/Tony Madge
Elan Colours : Tony Madge
Please download the Vickers Vanguard package from Ricks Web site prior to installing this texture set.
www.btinternet.com/~rick.piper
Please take time to read these few words prior to flying this superb Vanguard by Rick Piper
Any questions/comments please contatc ME Tony Madge
tonymadge@yahoo.com
Air Bridge
By the late 1970s The Argosies and Viscount aircraft were being replaced with ex-British Airways Vanguard 'Merchantment' freighters which were coming on the market. The Merchantman was a pure-freigher conversion of the Vickers Vanguard passenger turboprop used primarily by the British state airline, BEA, and had a side cargo door to facilitate palette loading.
The ABC Vanguard fleet was introduced in 1975 red livery as seen first on the Viscount. Cargo charters were flown to Europe for Rolls-Royce of Filton with ad-hoc livestock and freight charters across Europe.
By 1980 the fleet was standardised on the Merchantman which was flying in a new red, white and blue livery with 'air bridge' titles.
INVICTA INTERNATIONAL
In 1971 the airline purchased a further two Vanguards from the Air Canada fleet via Air Holdings. These were to be used to re-start passenger charter flights rather than for freight work. Further Vanguards would follow in the early 1970s.
With the re-start of its inclusive-tour and ad-hoc passenger operations the airline renamed itself Invicta International. The two passenger Vanguards were based at London-Luton airport, then home to other holiday airlines like Monarch and Britannia.
The Vanguards came from the Air Canada fleet and wore a modified livery based on the previous owners. This livery became well known as the main Invicta livery due to the growing fleet of Vanguards the airline operated.
Passenger charters were wide and varied. French students were flown from Le Bourget to the UK during the summer holidays to learn English. Catholic pilgrims were flown to Lourdes and Tarbes in France.
Invicta International won a ministry of Defence trooping contract in 1972 and carried troops and military cargo to British bases overseas. These were in addition to summer holiday charters, mainly to Spanish resorts from Luton, Manchester, Liverpool, Blackpool Tees-side and Gatwick.
To support this summer work another two Vanguards enter fleet service during 1972. During the winter months the aircraft were utilised on cheap day-trips from Bristol to Munich and Basle.
1973 saw the airline suffer serious financial problems. The Vanguard fleet was re-possessed by Air Holdings. After re-financing the airline re-started operations with five Vanguards, one of which was destroyed with loss of all on board when approaching Basle airport in poor weather.
Cargo flights also resumed with freight charters from Manston to Europe, the Middle East and Africa. A leased Bristol Britannia was used briefly in 1975.
Jet passenger operations were started using Boeing 720 jets by 1975 although the fleet was once again grounded on 26 October 1975 due again to financial problems. The Vanguards were sold to French operator Europe Aero Service (EAS) and flew in basic Invicta livery for that carrier.
ELAN
I have not been able to find much information on the use of the Vanguard by ELAN however I can recall seeing thse at East Midlands but sadly no more info :O(
Please remember this is Rick Pipers work that he has kindly let all to enjoy for free. It is NOT to be sold or used, uploaded for any kind of fee without the designers prior permission. Please do not ruin FS Free files. If we disrespect the authors then we will all lose out!
If you wish to make any repaints etc please contact me and I will reply asap to you.
Many thanks for taking the time to read this and feel free to contact me if you wish to do so regarding this file. It has been virus checked and cleared by AVG today. It will not harm your PC in any way but I cannot take any responsibility if anything untoward happens. By downloading and installing you take the risk.Sorry to sound all official its the way of life!!
Install fly and enjoy :O)
Best wishes to all Tony Madge
INSTALLATION INSTRUCTIONS
Once you have installed the Vanguard then unzip this file to the Vanguard folder
(created in FS2002 Aircraft folder by Ricks Vickers Vanguard)
Then COPY AND PASTE THE BELOW TEXT INTO THE Vanguard Aircrfat.cfg file
changing [fltsim.#] to what ever the next available number is.IE: Your last aircraft in that cfg file maywell be 22 so cahnge this one to 23....etc
Sorry if its a bit different to normal but as we are only installing textures it makes file size smaller and removes the need to have Vanguard folders littering up you hard-drive :O)
Copy the text between the lines below, renaming [fltsim.#] to the next available Vanguard number in your aircraft.cfg file
