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Old May 9, 2012, 12:12 am
  #999  
tonywestsider
 
Join Date: Dec 2007
Programs: Enough to travel better
Posts: 2,020
Originally Posted by Seat 2A
So late last night I'm sipping Russell's Reserve and perusing the schedules in a 1966 International edition OAG. One of the interesting things I came across was some long trans-oceanic flights still being operated with propellor equipment. Granted, there were still lots of regional flights being operated with DC-4s, -6s and -7s, but I managed to even find a trans-oceanic Constellation.

One of these flights was one that any budget traveler old enough to travel between the U.S. and Europe in the 1960s and early 1970s would remember - the very affordable service between New York and Luxembourg via Iceland offered by Loftleidir Icelandic Airlines. While all the major airlines of the day were criss crossing the Atlantic with 707s and DC-8s, Loftleidir utilized a stretched version of the Canadair CL-44 known as the CL-44J. Equally interesting was the fact that until the introduction of the stretched DC-8-61/3s in 1967, the CL-44J offered the most capacity per airplane across the Atlantic with seating for 189 passengers. The CL-44 was also pretty fast by propellor driven standards, cruising along at close to 400mph. It was often marketed under the name "Rolls Royce 400 Jet Prop" since from a marketing standpoint Rolls Royce was a more highly regarded and recognizeable name than Canadair.

Anyway, this was but one of the trans-oceanic flights operated by props in 1966. Anyone care to have a stab at any others that I found (of have yet to find) along with the equipment used?

Remember, we're looking only for inter-continental, trans-oceanic flights here.

One last thing: tonywestsider, you are spot on regarding the original name of Continental's 747 First Class lounge. It was the Diamond Head Lounge, and a great place for a Mai Tai it was, too!



This is actually a picture of Continental's Oceania Lounge, but still..., what a nice lounge!



Cheers!
Mahalo for the photo of CO's Oceania Lounge!

Also, thanks for the memories of Icelandair's Canadairs. As a kid, I remembered the airline always had the coolest ads, always with the most modern graphics of their planes as silhouettes in the background.

I do not have access to this type of research at the moment but to respond to your question about transoceanic flights using propellor equipment, I seem to remember when the Emperor of Japan (then, a Prince, along with the Princess) arrrived in HNL circa 1964 on a chartered JL DC-8, there was a DC-6B starting up next to them, with all of the smoke coming out of its piston engines. I was a kid at HNL, watching all of this activity. I seem to recall the DC-6B belonged to an airline called United States Overseas Airlines (USOA). In fact, here is a cover from one of their timetables in 1960:

http://timetableimages.com/ttimages/usoa.htm

Apparently, USOA had propliner service with DC equipment between Asia, HNL and the west coast mainland in the 1960s. Can you confirm?
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