Bristol Britannia 302

The Britannia 302 grew out of a change of direction in the Bristol Aeroplane Company's first contract with BOAC. The British flag carrier had ordered 25 Series 100 aircraft (the Model 102), but the last ten of that order were cancelled and re-cast as Series 300 aircraft for transatlantic flights, so only 15 Britannia 102s were ever built. The purchase price of each Series 100 aircraft had been agreed with BOAC in 1955 at £768,000, and after the long and troubled development of the prototype G-ALBO — including the loss of the second prototype G-ALRX on the Severn mudflats in 1954 and the icing problems of the Proteus turboprops — Bristol revised the design into a larger transatlantic airliner, resulting in the Series 200 and 300.

The Series 300 was the passenger-only counterpart of the Series 200 (an all-cargo variant that was never built), with a fuselage 3.12 m longer than the Series 100, capacity for up to 139 passengers (originally 99) and medium fuel capacity. The family's single prototype, the Filton-built Model 301 with the wing and fuel capacity of the Model 100, first flew on 31 July 1956; it was lost on 6 November 1957 during a test flight that killed all 15 on board.

The Model 302 was the production version of that long fuselage, built in Belfast under the programme shared with Short Brothers. BOAC had ordered ten, but cancelled the order in favour of the Model 305 and, later, of the long-range Series 310 (the Model 312, of which it took 18 from September 1957 for the London–New York route). Seven airframes were begun to the 302 standard, but only two were completed and delivered as such. The other five were reworked as the Model 305, with longer range but a limited take-off weight because of the thinner fuselage skin and lighter landing gear: that batch, ordered in turn by Capital Airlines and Northeast Airlines and cancelled by both, ended up spread across the Models 306 (leased to El Al pending delivery of its 313s), 307 (Air Charter Limited, later British United Airways), 308 (Transcontinental SA of Argentina, in a 104-seat layout) and 309 (leased to Ghana Airways).

As for the powerplant, the 3,900 hp Proteus 705 was the first version of Bristol's turboprop used on the Britannia 100 and on some Series 300 aircraft, while the 4,120 hp (3,070 kW) Proteus 755 powered the other 300s; this entry records both designations.

Although the Model 302 was built first as part of the original BOAC order, the British airline released the series to other operators and the only two 302s went to Aeronaves de México, entering service in December 1957. For the Mexican airline they were its first turbine-powered passenger aircraft: in the late 1950s it replaced its Douglas DC-4s with some pressurised DC-6s and these two Britannias, and in 1958 it used them to inaugurate services from Mexico City to New York's Idlewild Airport (now JFK), a route that proved profitable both for "Aeronaves" and for its North American competitors. The airline was nationalised in 1959.

The second of the pair, registered XA-MED (construction number 12919), was delivered on 15 December 1957 and was used on the Idlewild service; in May 1966 it was sold to the British operator Transglobe as G-ANCC. Its sister, XA-MEC, suffered an accident at Tijuana on 9 July 1965: during the descent one main landing-gear leg would not lock down and, after holding over the airport, the crew were forced to land through fuel shortage on a scheduled flight from Mexico City with 9 crew and 73 passengers on board; there were no fatalities, but the aircraft was written off.

In the early 1960s the Aeronaves de México fleet combined DC-3s, DC-6s and Britannias, and from 1961 the airline began replacing its piston and turboprop types with jets, starting with a pair of Douglas DC-8s that took over domestic routes and the New York service. The last DC-6s and Britannias were retired in the early 1970s, shortly before the company adopted the Aeroméxico name in February 1972. Like the rest of the programme, the 302 came late: by the time the Britannia family was ready, pure jets — the Comet 4, Boeing 707 and DC-8 — had already eroded the competitive edge it would have enjoyed in the middle of the previous decade.