WE LOST AN ENGINE…

Stephen Weatherley’s letter about his brother and the Britannia (PC, February 2021), stirred some memories. I flew to Singapore in a Britannia in October 1966 as a 19 year-old soldier. The flight took nearly 27 hours with refuelling stops in Bahrain and Ceylon, as it then was. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if that aircraft had been XM496 and the pilot had been Stephen’s brother!

Aviation had thankfully moved on by my return in May 1969. That flight was in a Boeing 707, but even that flight took six days from beginning to end, which started with it ‘losing’ an engine over the Indian Ocean…

Ron Gittings, Ludlow