BOAC DC-7C...1957 Royal Flight

[ejoiner]

Gents, I need a little help in the historical context.

I am working on completing all the various liveries of BOAC (and BEA...) DC-7C's for the time they were in service. See below for G-AOIF, in both historically correct white tail 1957 colors and circa 1962 in blue tail colors for the same airplane. Im not quite ready to release these as the 1962 bird needs a bit of weathering to show the age difference. (engine oil stains, aluminum aging, etc.) I am however, most interested in the DC-7C royal flight that carried a young Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, to Ottawa from London on October 12, 1957. Interestingly this is a blue tailed DC-7C, but I cant find the registration. Source pictures show the crew, piloted by Captain Gordon Store, but no tail reg. If I am to depict the DC-7C in BOAC colors, I would like to at least show a bird that has royal lineage.

For those interested in recreating that flight, it took off from London Heathrow at 7AM on Oct 12th, 1957 and landed 13.5 hours later in Ottawa. Seems pretty fast to me!





Can you help with the registration?

Kind regards
Eric

[ejoiner]

So after a while with no responses, I am assuming nobody has the info on the tail number/registration for the DC-7C that carried the Royal Flight to Ottawa in 1957?

[emfrat]

Hi Eric -
In the last few days I have found out, from the Flightglobal archive, that the flight was commanded by Capt Gordon Store and was scheduled to depart London at 0700, arriving Ottawa some 13.5 hours later. That at least explained why I found nothing useful in the Pathe News archive - it would have been dark, at both ends, at that time of year. Nothing mentioned about the particular aircraft used. Maybe the whole thing was overshadowed by the Sputnik. I was surprised to see no-one had replied at all; this forum is full of people who specialise in all sorts of arcane subjects and I was sure you would get an answer in minutes.

ATB
MikeW

[Garry Russell]

Hi Eric

I've been looking but not found it out

[ejoiner]

Ok then, I shall fly this flight with a suitable representative aircraft! Im slightly surprised that the registration isnt recorded somewhere because the Royal flight would have made this foreign bird have a certain pedigree worth noting. Thanks to all.

Eric