For me the highlight of the US presidential visit to the UK, as it may have been for you too, was spotting those high-aspect ratio wings that first bore my commercial flying career aloft... as something similar discharged the Red Devils paratroop team.
I figured it may have been the Short 330, but upon closer inspection was more than likely the Skyvan, which came with a tailgate from the get-go rather than offering it as an option.
The extended 360 offered a large cargo-door beside three dozen seats, which made it ideal for running freight at night after the last passenger had departed; although none of the variants offered an auxiliary power unit for warming things up prior to flights on a cold night.
Before the Channel Tunnel provided for fast trains to the continent, among the first tasks allotted me as a first officer (why 'first' when there were no others?) would be to fly newspapers to places such as Paris, so that ex-pats could enjoy those same news-sheets over croissant instead of cornflakes. Unlike them, prior start-up we had only the faint glow of cockpit dials to warm ourselves by... but we loved it, didn't we Gromit?
This would have been out of London Gatwick, although later I would do the same at Stansted where the papers were destined for Dusseldorf and the British Forces of the Rhine (BOAR). I feel now some satisfaction that our own boys ~ as they mostly were back then ~ were sent forth off the back of maiden (yeah, right) breasts that featured among our glorious tabloids at the time.
The demise of the aircraft was principally brought about by more fuel-efficient types like the ATR-42 and -72, and these like all airliners today made up with cost-savings for what they lacked in character.
But the -360 was the last gasp for that illustrious company founded by the Short brothers at the outset of aviation. Although they would surely have found school difficult with a name like that... much as the Ugly sisters did at my own school.
The book cover is one that will be imprinted on memory until my dying day in that weird way that certain images are formative for us as kids: and features a Skyvan. Ian Allan's publishing venture migrated from trains to aircraft, and using one such volume I 'spotted' the Boeing 707 G-ARWE which later caught fire in dramatic circs. My brother did not believe me, incidentally, like brothers rarely do.
