The BAC One-Eleven was a short haul aircraft seating around 89 passengers, produced by the British Aircraft Corporation, first taking flight on 20 August 1963. Revenue services began with British United Airways between London Gatwick and Genoa on 9 April 1965.
Technologically advanced, the BAC One-Eleven (sometimes styled as 1-11) was the first passenger aircraft with a T-tail. This led to the discovery of the phenomenon called a deep stall, which was unique to aircraft with this kind of tail configuration.
BAC One-Eleven Video
Following on from the previous video about the Soviet Ilyushin IL-62, this time we head over to England for a look at this much smaller jet. Produced by British Movietone in 1965 and called “One-Eleven Ready To Go”, it runs for about a minute and a half.
Taken on a route proving flight to Seville, a lot is packed into such a short film. You get to see the air to air shots, footage taken in the cabin and cockpit including meal service, as well as things such as the rear airstairs. It is well worth a look!
Some More Videos
It’s quite difficult to find a decent video giving an overview of the 1-11, so here are some other interesting ones. First is a video of an evacuation test of the American Airlines aircraft. From 13:25 you can see how the slides are deployed, while before that are various inside views. It has no sound, but it’s definitely unusual!
Staying with American Airlines, there is a very short video of one landing. One thing to note is how loud the jet engines are back in this era, which comes across quite well in this 20 second piece.
Finally, there is a some standard 8 film you could purchase called “AIRBORNE with BUA’s One-Eleven”. This one runs for a little over a minute.
Naturally it has a contemporary soundtrack, which always enhances a piece of film production. I’m not sure why you would want to buy something like this, but then again, there was no YouTube in the 1960s!
Overall Thoughts
There were 244 BAC One-Eleven airliners produced between 1963 and 1982, including 9 produced under licence in Romania as the Rombac 1-11 between 1982 and 1989. Apart from BUA and American Airlines, operators included Mohawk Airlines (the US launch customer), Braniff International, Aer Lingus, Aloha Airlines, Dan-Air, British Caledonian, and Ryanair among others.
Service with major airlines generally ended in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The very last one was used as a testbed for Northrop Grumman and was finally retired in May 2019. Now you can only see the aircraft in museums.
Have you flown on a BAC One-Eleven? What did you think of the eclectic video selection? Thank you for reading and if you have any comments or questions, please leave them below.
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Featured image by George W. Hamlin on Jetphotos.
Do I remember the one eleven ??? I flew one. BAC 1-11 401ak. Sn 076. I flew it in a corporate configuration. I’ve flown all sorts of corporate aircraft, but for some unknown reason the BAC 1-11 has to be one of my favorite.
Certainly not a powerful aircraft, we used to leave to APU running on take off as it would give us another 100lbs of thrust.
The one I flew got the new Tay engines at Dee Howard in Texas, but due to issues above and beyond my pay scale it was never turned over to us and eventually broken up at SAT.
Awesome that you’ve flown one! Never knew that about the APU, so that’s an interesting fact to know. Shame it ended up being broken up in the end. Be curious to know what happened. Thanks for the comment, great to hear your experiences and that you really enjoyed the aircraft!
My uncle, Mike Lithgow, died in the crash of the One-Eleven prototype. After being put into a deliberate “super stall” the crew found the plane to be non responsive. The recovered data recorder showed that they had discovered a fatal flaw, and that nothing could have been down to save the aircraft. The plane came down like a leaf and crashed into a farm field in southern England and burned. All aboard perished. Design modifications were worked out and subsequent testing included a tail parachute which would probably would have saved them. The modifications were successful and the design went on to become extremely successful.
The local villagers dedicated a memorial at the site on the 50 year anniversary of the accident. Uncle Mike held the world air speed record flying the Supermarine Swift, flew in the film “Breaking the Sound Barrier”, and flew Swordfish torpedo bombers in WWII. He served on the carrier “Ark Royal” which was later sunk and was one of the attacking pilots in the attack against the Bismarck.
I remember reading about the crash of the One-Eleven prototype. Though it resulted in the loss of people like your Uncle, it greatly contributed to air safety for everyone. We owe quite a debt to the pioneers of flight, which include people like your Uncle, for air travel being so safe today. Wonderful to hear there is a memorial in the local village too. It sounds like he had a particularly colourful life prior to being a test pilot. He certainly sounds like an interesting guy. Thanks so much for mentioning him and his story! I really enjoyed hearing all of that.
At one time in my youth, I thought that the 1-11 was a DC-9 to which someone had attached a pointy nose cone. Silly stuff you imagine when you’re a child! It seems like I came across the 1-11 a number of times while they were in service here. Three airlines serving my parent’s hometown flew them: Allegheny/USAir, a small regional called Britt Airways and an even smaller regional called Air Illinois. Sometimes when they’d push back the 1-11s from the gate and turn them around so you could see up the back of the engines, a flicker of flames from the burner cans lighting off would be visible on start-up. It could be rather dramatic depending on the time of day. This was prior to the installation of those “stove pipe” sound suppressors. On a couple of regional I-11s, the seat cushions were completely worn out – giving the impression upon sitting that you’d fall straight through to the floor! However, there was one time a 1-11 came to my rescue. I’d been home visiting a relative who had taken ill and just arrived at LGA on USAir only to answer a page that I needed to go straight back to my parents (no mobile phones in those days). The agent where I took the page put me on a USAir flight that was departing at that very moment – she phoned the gate and asked if they could hold the plane long enough for me to run the length of the concourse. When we landed back where I’d started a few hours earlier, I noticed the pointy nose cone – I’d been on a 1-11!
Gosh, your Air Illinois memory is pretty specific… they apparently received their One-Eleven’s in 1982 and went bankrupt in 1983! Ditto with Britt Airways, didn’t know of them either. I think those hush-kits were really needed, apparently the 1-11 was pretty noisy all round. Amazing how you randomly got on board one thanks to an emergency. Obviously a stressful time and nice that you were able to go straight back. It’s nice when airlines help in that way. Thanks for all of that, fascinating stuff and I learned a few things, which I always enjoy!
Åh, what a cool trip down memory lane! I flew on one in 1989 on Braniff, CMH-MCO-CMH with my parents on vacation. Thanks for the post!
Glad you enjoyed the post! You flew on the reincarnation of Braniff which was a combination of Braniff and Florida Express. It wasn’t around all that long, so that’s fairly unique. Great memory you have there! Thanks for the comment.
My first flight on a jet was on Mohawk in 1967, just like the one shown here.
Oh fantastic!! I bet that was pretty good. My first flight was a Fokker F28 and I remember it like it was yesterday. Some things you don’t forget!
David R
david@gtii-us.com
I believe I flew this plane, operated by MOHAWK, in June 1970 or 71, enroute from Washington DC to Philadelphia and was caught in the eye of a hurricane. Besides very noisy engines, the plane/pilots performed well, although I certainly did not appreciate the 65 degree angle up and feel of continuously falling down.
Now that sounds like a scary flight! It’s not something anyone would have liked really. Certainly one that must be burned into your memory. The BAC One-Eleven certainly was loud as well! Thanks for the comment!
Thanks for bringing back these photos. I flew on one with Cayman Airways although the flight was so long ago I can’t contribute any memories of the trip short MIA – GCM flight.
Great that you got to go and fly on one though and you remember that, so that’s something! Thanks for the comment, glad you enjoyed the post!
My one and only (return) flight on Ryanair was on one of these – DUB/STN/DUB in 1991 or thereabouts. Included a trip to the cockpit during the flight. Fond memories of it solely for that reason
It was the 1-11 which introduced me to modern jet flying in the late 1960s. Before then my only jet experience had been with an SU Tu-104. It was the 1-11 which prompted BEA to remove its Vanguard turbo-props from UK domestic routes. BEA wouldn’t have changed had it not been for BUA ex-LGW and British Eagle (another 1-11 operator) at LHR.
Well, considering you got to go on an Aeroflot Tu-104, you’re in a pretty unique group for starters!! Nice to see that BUA and British Eagle got BEA to improve their service. That’s what competition does for you… well, did. Still waiting on the next major development that gets everyone following suit or being left behind! Thanks for the comment!
Thanks, Trent. That Tu-104 was my first flight back in the late 1960s. It was an Intourist charter to Leningrad. In those days there was little independent travel to USSR so tourists tended to book these packages as made obtaining a visa much easier. (And the Russian visa situation is still difficult today !).
Yes, when I went to Russia I remember getting the visa took some time. Also, our BA A320 was tech, but they took five hours to get the right part and landed at LHR after the curfew around 1am, as it would have been more hassle for all of us to have been accommodated as most people’s visa’s would have ran through to leaving day. An interesting situation!
Wow, you got on a rare one, as I think the Ryanair BAC 1-11s were actually made by Rombac in Romania. Pretty cool that you got to visit the cockpit during flight as well. What a memory, I’m not jealous at alllll 🙂 Thanks for the comment!