Originally Posted by
Seat 2A
It's a nice chilly morning here in Denali Park but we've got
sunshine and 29°F at present, a big improvement over the snow and single digit wind chills experienced yesterday and the day before. I'm looking forward to my recertification run into the park in two hours. It looks to be a beautiful late winter day even though summer is only a month away on the calendar.
As for these questions, I'm going to keep plugging away at numbers 3 and 4 until I or someone else gets them right. Now then...
3) It's the summer of 1963 and you are in Pueblo, CO (PUB). And yes, you are in a local pub as well! You need to travel to Dallas Love Field (DAL). You ascertain there is no nonstop flight but there is direct, no change of plane service. What airline will you be flying on? Also identify the aircraft type flown on route.
Okay, so it's not Central but it is a turbo-prop. Hmm... I'm thinking Frontier inherited its Texas routes with the acquisition of Central and - if that's true - then the only other conceivable (to me, at least) turboprop operator would be Continental with the Vickers Viscount. I'm pretty sure Continental served PUB from Denver, Colorado Springs and Santa Fe so let's go with Continental, flying aboard a Viscount from Pueblo to Santa Fe to Albuquerque to Dallas. There may have been a stop in Lubbock as well...
4) Trans-Texas Airways (TTa) introduced its first jet service in 1966 with the DC-9-10. The aircraft were initially configured with first class and coach sections. How many first class seats were there up front?
Having flown aboard a few DC-9-10s, I find it hard to imagine a First Class cabin being much larger than 16 - especially back in the day when the seat pitch back in coach was typically about 34" and First Class was 38-40". I'd love to see a seatmap of that early TTa DC-9. In any event, let's move up in increments of four making my current answer 20 First Class seats.
3) Correct! It was good old Continental flying the Vickers Viscount II with two class service: F/T
Here's the sched.....
CO 274: DEN-COS-PUB-ABQ-DAL Op: Daily
Interestingly, the July 1963 CO timetable has a note concerning flight 274 stating that passengers could not be transported from DEN to DAL thus reflecting a lack of route authority for through flights from Denver to Dallas.....although enplaning pax at COS, PUB and ABQ on CO 274 could be transported to Dallas Love Field. Continental subsequently pulled out of the Pueblo market......
4) Correct again! The October 30, 1966 TTa system timetable notes the introduction of the DC-9 "Pamper-jet" with "20 seats in first class and 45 seats in coach" with on board cabin service being provided by "Pamper Belles"!
However, it appears the availability of first class seating on the Trans-Texas Nines was not a huge success as the August 1968 TTa system timetable notes that all DC-9 service was operated with Y class only.......and so it was when I took my very first flight on TTa in the late summer of 1968 on a DC-9-10 with a routing of HOU-DAL-MFE-ROW-ABQ-SAF.