Originally Posted by
jlemon
Did Western base Electra aircraft at ANC for these Alaskan routes with the L-188 replacing the Constellation service by the fall of 1970?
The Connies were ex-Pacific Northern birds and were sold off by December 1968. As for Western's Electras, I found
this tidbit that might shed some light on Western's operations. I was unable to find any other Electra operated schedules in the 11/15/70 OAG, and aside from the SEA-ADQ flight, it would appear that all of Western's operations in Alaska were flown with 720s. Additionally, there were no flights operated by Western between ANC and ADQ, at least not as of 11/70.
And speaking of the Boeing 720, it's interesting to note that Western operated both versions of this great airplane back in 1968: the B720 and B720B (I believe the latter was equipped with turbofan engines rather than the turbojet engines found on the initial version of the 720).
Western inherited three turbojet equipped 720s from PNA
N7081 720-048 07/67 Acquired 04/73 ex PN ex-EI-ALB
N720V 720-062 07/67 Acquired 05/73 ex PN
N720W 720-062 07/67 Acquired 05/73 ex PN
The other 26 720s were all -047Bs.
Western also operated a couple of turbojet powered 707-139s. These airplanes were originally built for Cubana but when that order was cancelled Western took them in May 1960 to get a head start on its jet operations until the first of its 720Bs arrived in 1961. The -139s were sold to Pan Am in 1962 and were subsequently converted to -139Bs.