Vickers Vanguard Vickers Type 952

Trans-Canada Air Lines had been interested in the project from the start, but the basic model did not meet its needs, particularly for air mail capacity. Vickers answered with the Type 952: a high-density cabin for up to 139 passengers, more powerful engines and a fuselage and wing strengthened for higher weights. In early January 1957, after a vigorous evaluation, TCA ordered twenty aircraft; a follow-on order for three took it to twenty-three and made it, by dollar value, the largest British export deal of the post-war era at the time.

The 952 sets the type's reference figures: 37.45 m long, 63,957 kg maximum weight, 679 km/h cruise, 2,950 km range at maximum payload and a 9,144 m ceiling, with four Rolls-Royce Tyne RTy.11 Mk 512 turboprops.

TCA began Vanguard schedules on 1 February 1961 with two flights from Toronto and Montreal to Vancouver, and also used them to New York and Nassau. Tyne reliability worried the airline early on: it kept a Constellation on standby at Dorval and at Toronto in case an engine failed to start. In 1966 Air Canada stripped the seats from one aircraft for pure cargo work — the 'Cargoliner' — the only such conversion and the last Canadian Vanguard to retire, in December 1972.