bus or a large aeroplane, you had no trouble at all". While the Brabazon's flight tests were being performed, BOAC became increasingly uninterested with the prospects for operating the type. On a test flight, BOAC chairman Sir Miles Thomas briefly took the controls and found the aircraft to be underpowered and very slow to respond to the controls. BOAC quickly decided it was not for them. Bristol had been subject to financial hardship, while development of the Proteus engine intended to power the envisioned and improved Brabazon Mark II was proving troublesome. Flight tests of the aircraft itself had revealed some fatigue issues in the inner wingbox area, while the projected operating costs for the Brabazon had been revised upwards as the programme had proceeded. BOAC, being unconvinced of the aircraft's merits, ultimately chose to decline to place any order for the type. Gibb stated of the situation: "the spec wasn't correct for post-war flying. The people who wrote the specs... conceived of an aeroplane with all this comfort, bunks, and a great dining room to eat in. And, of course, come the day, that wasn't what the airlines wanted. They wanted to ram as many passengers as possible into the tube and give 'em lunch on their laps. At one point, although some interest was shown by British European Airways (BEA) for conducting operational flights using the prototype Brabazon itself, various problems that would typically be expected to be present on a prototype meant the aircraft would never receive an airworthiness certificate. Cancellation By 1952, about £3.4 million had been spent on development and there were no signs of purchase by any airline. In March, the British government announced that work on the second prototype had been postponed. The cancellation of the project was announced by the Minister of Supply (Duncan Sandys) on 17 July 1953 in the Commons, saying the programme had given all the useful technical knowledge it could but without any firm interest from either civil or military users, there was no justification for continuing to spend money on the Brabazon. By this point, roughly £6 million had been spent on the programme and a further £2 million would have been required in order to complete the Mark II. In October 1953, after 164 flights totalling 382 hours' flying time, the first prototype was broken up, sold for £10,000 in scrap value, along with the uncompleted