The Viscount is undoubtedly the most successful British aircraft of the postwar years and formed the backbone of BEA's fleet well into the 1960s. It wasn't until April 18, 1953 that BEA's a Viscount V701 made its first flight, being also the world's first regular scheduled turboprop that left Heathrow bound for Cyprus. Istanbul was added the next day so that both BEA's longest routes were served by the Viscount V701 from the very start. After six months in service the Vickers Viscounts had proven themselves at BEA which recorded a 76% load factor with this plane when break-even was only 51%. This aircraft type had also enabled BEA to grow its market share impressively on Viscount routes were it operated against piston engined competition. By 1958 alredy 77 Viscounts were in service but as new larger series 802s, that drived BEA's growth, were delivered in the early 60s many of the older series 700s were sold by 1964 mainly to minor independent UK airlines.
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