A Classic Brit

[spraycan]

To one and all

I have recently made a repaint for a classic Brit: the Vickers Viking, Rick Piper's beautiful FS model.
This particular Viking is in the livery of Belgian operator AVIAMEER and was the sole airplane of the company.
They were founded in October 1957 but had to cease operations already in the summer of 1960.
AVIAMEER flew general charter flights and inclusive tours within Europe and the Middle East and had it's home base at the airport of Antwerp, Deurne.

The repaint will be uploaded to the usual locations shortly.

Regards,
Jaap.

[johnl]

Look forward to adding it to my hangar - one can never have too many Vikings!

[Tom/CalClassic]

Hi,

Maybe Nikko will someday generate flight plans for it and it can be used in the AI traffic too.

Thanks,

[okami]

Hi Jaap,

You really made my day there, you know?


Here's what I've got on her, by the way:
Viking 1B c/n 223 was alocated her registration of G-AIVJ on November 18th 1946, and first flown on the 21st of June 1947. Meanwhile, she had been sold to British European Airways on the 16th of May, with her CoA being signed the 18th of July. In BEA service, she was initially given the name "Victory", though this was changed to "Lord Jellicoe" in 1951. She served with the airline until 1956, when she was sold to Overseas Aviation on the 17th of January. She never flew with Overseas, though, as barely 6 days later the airline sold her to LTU as D-ABIR, with the aircraft being handed over on March 5th. She was scrapped from the English register on February 13th. On the 16th of July 1957 her registration was officially changed to D-BABY, however she was erroniously repainted as D-BONA. This went unnoticed until March 1958, and was probably never changed as less than one month later she was sold to Aviameer as OO-EEN. This company had been founded in 1957 by Alfred Meerbergen, and with its new Viking the company started its services in May. They mainly flew charter services to the UK, Germany, Switzerland and Spain.
Unfortunately Aviameer was shortlived and went bust in July 1960. It appears the main reason for this was because Aviameer had trouble to obtain the necessary permits to fly certain routes, although it was probably also less than helpful that during 1959 it got a competitor in the form of BIAS, which was also based at Antwerp and flew DC-4s. OO-EEN was sold to Aviation Traders Ltd. and was flown to Southend. There she was broken up in April 1962, with her fuselage being scrapped and her wings being sold as spares to Tradair.

As to her movements, I have found a number of details. I've so far only found 5 pictures of her during her Aviameer career, two of which put her at her Antwerp base (both dated June 18th, 1959); one placing her at Heathrow in November 1959; one placing her at Glasgow/Renfrew on the 15th of May, 1960; and one undated one placing her at Basel airport.

Further, spotters' reports place her at the following locations:
- September 20 1958: Schiphol, Amsterdam, where she was involved in an incident of an unknown nature
- April 15 1959: Blackbushe
- September 16 1959: Woolsington, Newcastle
- September 23 1959: Woolsington, Newcastle (again)
- October 9 1959: Elmdon, Birmingham on a flight from Antwerp
- October 22 1959: Heathrow, London on a KLM charter (probably corresponding with the November 1959 photograph)
- February 4 1960: Cambridge
- April 14 1960: Blackbushe
- May 15 1960: Renfrew, Glasgow

Regards,

Nikko