jlemon

Perhaps some DC-3 aircraft were assembled outside of the U.S.? Kinda like the F-16s that were assembled in various western European countries that are NATO members? I'm looking forward to the answer!

WHBM

Very perceptive, jlemon ! Not only were DC-3s assembled "kinda like the F-16s", they were actually assembled at the same plant that those F-16s were later built in, namely Fokker in the Netherlands. It wasn't practical before WW2 to fly a DC3 across the Atlantic so the machined parts were shipped over in crates and Fokker put them together. As well as having Douglas construction numbers, the European DC-3s also had Fokker numbers as well, starting from 1. Fokker were also the sales agent for Europe, and it's maybe not realised what a hit the DC-3 was across the Atlantic up to 1939, with a significant number of national airlines using them. Douglas aircraft were the bulk of Swissair's fleet at the time, and miniliq is correct. The largest user was KLM, who bought a big DC-2 fleet, and then a bigger DC-3 one, and used them above all on their Amsterdam to Jakarta (called Batavia in those days) and Australia route, being the principal competitor to the Imperial Airways flying boats.

There was nearly a second DC-3 production line in Europe, as Airspeed, of Portsmouth in the UK (remember the Airspeed Ambassador, above ?) actually took out a licencing agreement with Douglas as well, but never progressed it.

Incidentally, by no means all the US DC-3s were built in Santa Monica or Long Beach; Douglas had a large production plant for them in Oklahoma City as well.

Hmmmm, wonder who .......

Seat 2A

I'll have a try at these unanswered questions:

10) It's the still the fall of 1979 and you need to make the short hop from Miami (MIA) to West Palm Beach (PBI). You want to fly on a wide body aircraft and you have a choice of two (2) airlines. Identify both air carriers and the type of wide body jetliners they flew on the route.

I'm thinking Pan Am didn't take control of National until 1980, so ah'mo'n go with a National DC-10 and a Delta L-1011.

12) In the spring of 1984, this airline created a hub operation in New Orleans (MSY). Nonstop flights were offered to FLL, LAS, LAX, LIT, MIA, MCI, MCO, OKC and PIE. Four (4) different jet aircraft types were flown. Identify the airline and the equipment this carrier operated.

My first thought was Pride Air, but I think they were a year later and only flew two aircraft types. Was it a cargo airline?

20) It's the first weekend in April in 1981 and you've been working on a project on-site in Chicago. You would really like to get away for the weekend and play golf with an old friend in Palm Springs. But you need to travel to Dallas/Ft. Worth as well for a very quick meeting concerning another upcoming project. You figure this meeting in Dallas will take no more than an hour and can be conducted at an airline lounge at DFW. So you decide to do both with the following travel conditions:

1. All of your travel will be on the same airline.
2. You would also like to travel in first class on each flight but if possible travel on different aircraft types on each leg.
3. Each leg must also be nonstop.
4. Your route of flight must be ORD to PSP to DFW to ORD.
5. You need to leave on Saturday morning and be back in Chicago by late Sunday night after staying in Palm Springs on Saturday night.

What airline would you travel on? Also identify the three (3) different aircraft types by leg.

American Airlines
ORD-PSP: DC-10
PSP-DFW: 727-200
DFW-ORD: 727-100

Mwenenzi

OT: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_DC-3
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lisunov_Li-2
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Showa/Nakajima_L2D

jlemon

Well, I just hit the wrong button so let's try this again!

jlemon

Hello Seat 2A! And to think I was just sitting down at my laptop with a cold microbrew from Oregon in order to polish off these remaining questions!

Here we go.....

10) Well, I'll admit I screwed this question up: what I should have stated was "the short hop from West Palm Beach to Miami". Please forgive me! And BTW, National is correct with a DC-10 as they flew in both directions with this wide body aircraft type at the time. The NA routing was LGA-PBI-MIA roundtrip. The other carrier was Eastern with an L-1011 but only from PBI to MIA. Actual routing of this EA flight was ATL-PBI-MIA.


12) Pride Air is an excellent guess! But it was not them! And it was not a cargo air carrier as well (my questions always concern scheduled passenger airlines). So who was it? Northeastern International (QS)! And the four equipment types operated were the B727-100, B727-200, DC-8-62 and the A300B (with the latter being operated to LAX and MIA). BTW, Northeastern also operated onestop direct service from MSY at this time to BDL, JFK, PBI, SAN and TUL in addition to the nonstops to the other cities listed above.


20) Excellent guess! And it was American! Here's the actual schedule:

AA 83: Depart ORD 9:00am, arrive PSP 10:51am. Equipment: DC-10. Remarks: this flight operated with a DC-10 on Saturdays and Sundays only.

So our intrepid traveler would have had plenty of time for a nice afternoon round of golf!

AA 602: Depart PSP 12:35pm, arrive DFW 4:59pm. Equipment: B707. Remarks: this flight operated with a B707 on Saturdays and Sundays only.

And there was more than enough time for a quick meeting and cocktails at the airline club at DFW!

AA 130: Depart DFW 7:45pm, arrive ORD 9:48pm. Equipment: B727-200. Remarks: daily service.

jlemon

1) It has been established on this thread that both American Airlines and TWA operated nonstop flights between STL and HNL at different times over the years. Transamerica Airlines also offered service between STL and HNL with B747 equipment; however, these flights were not nonstop but direct in nature as stops were made at either DFW or at both DFW and LAX.

There was also a third airline that operated nonstop service between STL and HNL. Identify the carrier and the aircraft type used. And here's a hint: the westbound service from St. Louis to Hawaii actually originated in a city located in the eastern U.S. Identify this city for extra bonus points.

I'll answer this remaining question now.....

The airline was actually Braniff International operating B707-320 (B3F) equipment. Here are the actual westbound schedules:

BN 503: Depart ATL 11:30am, arrive STL 11:55am. Depart STL 12:30pm, arrive HNL 5:05pm. Remarks: this flight operated daily except Thursdays.

BN 503: Depart ATL 11:30am, arrive STL 11:55am. Depart STL 12:30pm, arrive ITO 4:50pm. Depart ITO 5:20pm, arrive HNL 6:05pm. Remarks: this flight operated on Thursdays only.

The return flights operated HNL-STL-ATL every day except on Wednesdays when a stop was made at ITO. BN was not permitted to carry local traffic between ATL and STL or between HNL and ITO at this time; however, conditional stopover traffic was permitted.

"So now you know the rest of the story......Good day!"

miniliq

jlemon thanks for putting me out of my misery on #12 -- I thought of Muse Air, Southwest, Air New Orleans, Pride, even Eastern & Delta, but none fit the parameters -- thanks for the info!

Continuing on the topic of New Orleans, we've previously discussed many routes to Central and South America, but none to Europe, so here's a question:

In the late seventies and/or early eighties two carriers offered nonstop service between MSY and Europe -- one offered nonstops to Amsterdam, Paris and Frankfurt; the other to London (MSY was actually an intermediate stop on the way to/from another international destination). Who were the carriers, and what was the equipment?

Seat 2A

I'll second that! I did consider Northeastern but just never could get my teeth into the idea their operating a MSY hub. Good question!

WHBM

One was National, with DC10-30s, the other British Airways, operating London Gatwick-New Orleans-Mexico City with Tristar 500s.

miniliq

Correct! -- alas, we don't have any nonstops to Europe from MSY these days.

WHBM

Well you might do again soon. BA's large Boeing 787 fleet FINALLY should start coming on line by the end of next year, and with their recent acquisition of BMI there are, for once, quite a number of slots at London Heathrow for BA to play with, and all sorts of rumours about what they will come up with. New Orleans is one of the more regular suggestions - I believe it's the largest metropolitan area in the USA that BA doesn't already serve. The principal downside is that there is not much of a current OneWorld/American frequent flyer/business travel base there to start from, nor any OneWorld connections to anywhere that BA doesn't serve directly already. Miniliq, would you like the job of a BA sales agent at MSY for a couple of years to hammer round all the relevant business contacts there and drum up a whole lot of Transatlantic business ??? !!! What a shame BA don't have Concorde any longer, not to run the service but it was always sent to any significant new destination on opening day to get the attention of all the local media.

The old National flights to Europe were in around 1978; they didn't last for too long as the loads weren't there. Why all those European cities but not London ? Well, the old Bermuda Agreement between the UK and USA would have meant that the service would have to be to London Gatwick; National already had a daily service to London Heathrow from Miami, and didn't want a split operation across London.

The BA flights came along a bit later, around 1982. BA really wanted to serve Mexico City, but their (new at the time) Tristar 500s didn't have the ability for the long haul from the high elevation there, so New Orleans was a convenient new city, refuelling stop, and not quite such a high elevation . Neither Mexico nor Louisiana worked out financially, and the final annoyance was that, again because of the Bermuda Agreement, the service had to be from Gatwick, but the Tristar fleet was based at Heathrow, leading to the double wastefulness of not only having to position the aircraft to and fro empty, but worse, to have to waste Heathrow runway slots to do so. BA never really knew what to do with those Tristar 500s, and quite quickly did a deal to sell them off to the Royal Air Force. No sooner was this done than they took over the old British Caledonian route to Brazil for which the aircraft would have been ideal, their standard Tristars didn't have the range and the 747 was too big. They ended up therefore having to lease a couple back in from Sri Lankan Airlines.

miniliq

As much as I would love to see nonstop service to LHR, and as much as I love to tackle a new job, this one might be more than I could handle -- the energy/financial business travelers are mostly headquartered in Houston or Dallas, and tourist traffic is seasonal, so I'd have a hard time finding a good traffic load. And as a loyal Star Alliance member, BA might not consider me the right guy! But I would certainly give it a try.

Yes, with an elevation of 5 ft above sea level we're susceptible to major flood events. AFAIK, MSY is the second lowest major airport (that rules out the beach runways we discussed in earlier posts) in the world. I suspect y'all know the answer but I'll ask anyway: What is the airport with the lowest elevation?

WHBM

There are actually quite a few lower than this, but can I ask a supplementary then ? Hope you don't mind.

Two months ago I flew on a daily Boeing 767 service that both departed from and arrived at airports well below sea level. What are the two airports and what is the airline ? jlemon exempt from this because he knows where I went !

jlemon

Very interesting to learn of international services operated from MSY by British Airways with the L-1011-500 and National with the DC-10-30!

It's also interesting to note that New Orleans Louis Armstrong Intl. Airport did not completely flood during Hurricane Katrina even though it is quite near sea level as miniliq points out. This was very fortuitous as the airfield quickly became a staging area for disaster response operations. Besides fixed wing operations, there was a veritable helicopter air force comprised of U.S. military, U.S. Coast Guard, law enforcement and civil rotorcraft operating from MSY in the wake of Katrina. I was involved in civil helicopter operations for FEMA via a pre-existing disaster response contract with this federal agency from both BTR and MSY at this time. And at MSY, we operated right next to a pair of California Highway Patrol (CHP) Eurocopter AS-350 "AStar" helicopters that had flown all the way from my home state in order to lend a hand when the good people of New Orleans and its environs were in dire need of assistance.....