Continental Airlines Vickers 812 Viscount

In early 1959, Continental Airlines brought the first turboprop airline service to Albuquerque. British Aviation Corporation’s Viscount 812 Turboprop four-engine airliners were replacing older piston type aircraft. The turboprop aircraft were coming on line to fill the need for faster than a piston engine but more economical than a pure jet. Continental’s first Viscount to land at Albuquerque was numbered N246V and the aircraft were used on nonstop flights to Denver, Colorado Springs, El Paso, Lubbock and Midland/Odessa as well as to Alamogordo, Santa Fe, and Clovis, New Mexico. The Viscounts also enabled Continental to begin the first nonstop flights from Albuquerque to Dallas, Texas. The photo below is of N245V on the loading apron of the old Albuquerque Terminal.

From 1966 through 1967 Continental replaced the Viscount turboprops with Douglas DC-9 and Boeing 727 jet aircraft.