RAF VC10:
VC10s were reported to have good short-field performance (for a 4-engined jet) and wee rather fast. As far as I know, all have been retired, with some still existing in museums.
(Contributed by Peter.)
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When I was stationed in England, met an RAF officer who just happened to be the OC of Transport Command's Evaluation Group. He invited me to go fly with his senior IP and Eval crew out of RAF Brize-Norton.
Got to shoot four approaches to touch-ad-go in this aircraft. The acceleration and TO performance was truly outstanding.
The VC-10 was expensive to maintain because so few were made, and could not be upgraded with turbofan engines once those became available because of its unusual engine configuration, meaning that compared to more modern aircraft it was loud and guzzled fuel like a hobo guzzles box wine. It got retired to Central Africa but eventually when Vickers was merged into BAE they dropped all maintenance support, making it impossible to maintain the aircraft. So alas, another cool jet went to the scrappers...
Regarding the takeoff performance, it was originally designed for high altitude use on short fields in central Africa, thus was rather overpowered for the time. That contributed to the fuel use issue though, since when you spooled up those turbojets they guzzled fuel big-time.
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