• Silver City Airways

This famous British independent airline, established on 25 November 1946, was initially conceived as a transport arm of its founding companies, the Imperial Smelting Corporation, the Zinc Corporation and LEP Transport. With a capital of £500,000 subscribed by its UK and Australian parent organisations, the title Silver City was adopted to reflect the area near Broken Hill in Australia where the Zinc Corporation conducted its mining operations. Management and operational responsibility for Silver City was in the hands of British Air Services, headed by Capt. G J ‘Taffy’ Powell as managing director. With a fleet of three Avro Lancastrians, operations were begun immediately from Langley aerodrome, near Slough, latterly the site of a Ford/Iveco truck body plant. The first flight was a trip to Johannesburg by G-AHBW in November 1948 and, thereafter, the Lancastrians were mainly engaged in long-range sorties to Australia and South Africa in pursuit of the parent company’s business interests.

The first of many Douglas Dakotas joined the fleet late in 1946, marking the beginning of an expansion into the ad hoc charter market. A year later a Bristol Freighter was leased from the manufacturers and together with a Dakota, both were pressed into service on the ‘Hindu Airlift’, ferrying refugees from Pakistan to India following partition of the sub-continent. Thereafter the Bristol was mainly based at Cairo, operating a passenger ‘shuttle’ to Johannesburg. Two DH Doves were acquired for the purpose of undertaking luxury executive charter work and as this business increased, a Dakota and a Lancastrian were also specially fitted out. A Lockheed Lodestar was also acquired for fast long-distance European passenger charter work. Silver City’s first regular service was opened in the summer of 1948, carrying holidaymakers between Blackbushe airport and Jersey by Dove and Dakota aircraft.

On 13 July 1948 Silver City inaugurated the cross-channel vehicle ferry service that would be forever linked with its name. Flown under a BEA associate agreement in conjunction with the AA and RAC motoring organisations, Bristol Freighter G-AGVC made the first crossing from Lympne airport in Kent to Le Touquet. This unique service, though considerably more expensive than the traditional surface transport, had the advantage of time saving, taking a mere 25 minutes for the crossing. Proving instantly popular, by the time it closed for the winter in early October 174 vehicles with their passengers had been safely transported. By this time the Bristol fleet had increased to five aircraft and earlier in September one machine was placed on the Berlin Airlift. In total, four Freighters saw service on the airlift, undertaking 213 sorties and uplifting 913 tonnes during the course of 619 flying hours.

By July 1952 Silver City had successfully completed 10,000 channel crossings without incident and during that year alone, transported over 11,000 vehicles and 27,000 passengers in what amounted to a summer shuttle service. Nor were its Freighters idle during the winter months, when the aircraft were turned over to the movement of livestock, fruit and agricultural produce to and from the near continent. Another expanding feature of the airline’s operations was bloodstock movements around Europe on behalf of the horse racing fraternity. Elsewhere Silver City’s Bristol fleet ranged far and wide undertaking the transportation of ships crews, livestock, heavy machinery, gold bullion and pesticides to Sudan. Freighter services were also flown on behalf of Aer Lingus and new cars were exported to France for the Rootes Group. Five of the airline’s Bristols were again in evidence at Berlin during the winter of 1952, shuttling cargoes from Hamburg after the Soviet authorities had again created supply difficulties for the city.

Early in 1953 two Freighters were sent to North Africa to form the basis of Libyan Airways, for whom Silver City undertook management and technical services. Daily passenger/cargo services were operated between Tripoli and Benghazi, augmented by weekly runs to outlying towns and, when not thus engaged, the aircraft carried vacationing British service personnel between Malta and Tripoli.

During the course of these intervening years the vehicle ferry was expanded to take in new routes linking Southampton with Cherbourg and Southend with Ostend in Belgium. For the 1953 season Silver City was able to introduce the larger capacity Bristol Superfreighter, capable of uplifting three cars, 20 passengers plus several two-wheeled vehicles. With this enhanced capability yet another route was opened between London-Gatwick with Le Touquet, flown twice daily from 15 April; the new equipment certainly proved its worth, for by the year’s end vehicle uplift had been more than tripled.

Looking to further increase capacity, Silver City trialled Breguet’s giant ‘Deux Ponts’ aircraft for three months in 1953 flying between Hamburg and Berlin on the second Berlin Airlift and even considered use of the Blackburn Beverley, but nothing came of these proposals. Twice during 1953, the grass runway at Lympne had been rendered unusable by heavy rains, necessitating a temporary transfer to Southend and later RAF West Malling. Faced with this problem Silver City decided to commission a purpose-built facility on the south coast near Dungeness, known as Ferryfield (Lydd). The new airport was opened on 13 July 1954 and by the beginning of October all flying from Lympne had been curtailed.

During 1955 ferry operations were extended with a new service linking Castle Kennedy, Stranraer and Newtownards near Belfast from April, taking just 20 minutes as opposed to several hours for the 40-mile crossing. A second route across the Irish Sea from Woodvale near Manchester was opened in mid-June and in November a daily ‘Roadair’ all-cargo service was launched between Ferryfield and Calais. This major expansion continued into 1956 with the addition of summer vehicle ferries to Guernsey and Jersey and an extension of the Northern Ireland route to take in the Isle of Man. Another innovation was the introduction of ‘Silver Arrow’ coach-air services to Paris and Brussels, utilising the cross-Channel air links via Calais and Ostend.

Having already taken over the Lympne-based Air Kruise in 1953, Silver City’s parent company, British Aviation Services, further increased its portfolio in 1956 with the acquisition of Lancashire Aircraft Corporation, Manx Airlines and later Dragon Airways. These companies were gradually amalgamated to become the northern division of Silver City headquartered at Blackpool, which became the springboard from which to develop a network of scheduled passenger services from the north of England. Starting in May 1958 with a fleet of newly-acquired Dakota aircraft, a seasonal service was opened between Blackpool and Ostend, rapidly followed by other international routes from Newcastle to Amsterdam, Brussels via Leeds, Düsseldorf and Hamburg. Additionally, a domestic network was also created connecting the Isle of Man with Blackpool, Edinburgh and Newcastle flown with Dakotas, Bristol Wayfarers and DH Herons. Another regular service was that flown on behalf of the Nuclear Power Group, linking their major centres in the northeast of England with Dounreay through Manchester and Wick in Scotland.

Upon the closure of sister company Britavia, Silver City inherited their fleet of HP Hermes airliners and, with the impending closure of the former base at Blackbushe, these aircraft were transferred to Manston airport in June 1959. From here the new fleet was soon put to work operating the cross-channel portion of the Paris Silver Arrow service and later in the summer, fulfilling Mediterranean inclusive tour contracts. The Hermes’ former trooping role was revived in October 1960 with the award of a government contract to transport military personnel to bases in West Germany; a similar activity having been undertaken by the Bristol Freighter some seven years earlier. A year after opening its Blackpool-Belfast service, Silver City added a second Irish destination on 15 May 1959, with the commencement of flights to Dublin. This service was largely maintained with Herons, although with the disposal of these aircraft at the end of the year, it was taken over by Dakotas. These same aircraft also undertook regular summer charter flights from Manchester to Glasgow, Rotterdam, Luxembourg and Stavanger, as well as another new route linking the Isle of Man with Jersey. A more unusual role for the Dakota came with the commissioning of a specially equipped navaid calibration aircraft (G-AOBN) at the end of 1960, with which Silver City gained long-term contracts to carry out work in Austria, the Eastern Mediterranean and Africa. The Bristol Wayfarers also continued to find new destinations to serve, linking Southampton and Bournemouth with Cherbourg and Deauville in 1959.

After 13 years and well over uneventful 250,000 flights, Silver City suffered its first major accident on vehicle ferry operations. Landing at Guernsey in poor visibility, Superfreighter G-ANWM overshot the runway to crash three miles north west of the airport, killing its two pilots, though fortunately the eight others on board escaped with relatively minor injuries. For the 1961 season Silver City entered into a pooling agreement with Cie Air Transport on services from both Ferryfield and Bournemouth, continuing a relationship that dated back to 1949. This arrangement was something of a quid pro quo since a major shareholder in the French airline was SNCF, which had agreed to construct a two-mile spur road to its Le Touquet railhead, which would prove an attractive proposition to cross-channel travellers, significantly cutting journey times to Paris and beyond. It was forecast that this would be ready by the summer of 1962; in anticipation of which three Superfreighters took on French livery, registrations and crews for services from both Ferryfield and Bournemouth.

At the beginning of 1962 Silver City was anticipating a major expansion of the ‘Silver Arrow’ network to take in major cities in Northern England. Plans called for several weekly services from Birmingham, Blackpool, Glasgow, Leeds, Manchester and Newcastle to Le Touquet, from where French Railways would provide the onward surface connection to Paris. To accomplish this bold plan three Vickers Viscounts were leased from Maitland Drewery, but although crew training got underway in January

1962 they never saw service with Silver City as on 23 January it was revealed that British Air Services had sold out to Air Holdings, the parent body of British United Airways. Through this deal the P&O Shipping Group, which had bought out British Air Services (and thus Silver City) back in 1954, now became a major shareholder in British United Airways. Over the next few months Silver City’s operations were gradually integrated into British United Airways; by April the Hermes fleet had moved to London-Gatwick to continue inclusive tour operations before ultimate withdrawal at the end of the season, while the expanded Silver Arrow network was now flown exclusively by British United Airways Viscounts. As for the vehicle ferry operations these came under the banner of British United Air Ferries from 1 January 1963 and, similarly, the Dakota fleet disappeared into British United CI Airways with responsibility for offshore island services.

However, the Silver City name was not quite dead, for early in 1973 it was briefly revived after a convoluted series of deals involving the purchase of Air Canada’s Vickers Vanguard fleet in 1969. By 1971 several Vanguards still remained unsold, at which stage Air Holdings decided to commence worldwide charter operations using one of these aircraft converted to Merchantman freighter standard. In the event this aircraft (G-AYLD) ended up based at Stockholm flying with ‘Air Trader’ titles until the end of February 1973, when that company collapsed. A month earlier, Invicta International also folded and its entire fleet was repossessed, again leaving Air Holdings with spare aircraft on its hands.

As a result, it was decided to form a new airline, Silver City, to make use of this unutilised capacity. Meanwhile, the financial intervention of the European Ferries group ensured the survival of Invicta and most of the Vanguards were restored to their former lessee. However, the Air Trader aircraft was painted up in Silver City colours and delivered to the new company’s base at London-Stansted in mid-February 1973. Having secured a contract from a West German dealer, Silver City’s sole Vanguard plied between Norwich and points in northern Italy transporting cattle. Other charters also took the aircraft to Hamburg, San Sebastian, Stockholm and various destinations around the UK. A second aircraft was delivered in March 1973, but almost immediately was sold on to Invicta. A buyer was also found for Silver City’s original aircraft and, left without a means of fulfilling its freight contracts, agreement was reached to lease a Vanguard (G-APEI) from BEA. Although this machine did attract Silver City titling, it remained at Heathrow for several weeks before being restored to full BEA colours. Thereafter, with the departure of the airline’s sole aircraft to its new owner, Silver City ceased operations in November 1973.