Seat 2A

Thank goodness for those K class fares. Back in the early 1970s they allowed a poor high school student like me to afford a roundtrip ticket from LA down to to San Diego for $13.72 or about $79.23 at today's prices. As such, I logged my first flight on National Airlines aboard a DC-10 named "Phyllis" and my first flight on Delta as well as my first flight aboard DC-8-61 on the return leg.

jrl767

my father had a business trip to Livermore National Laboratories when we were living in LA in the early 1960s

an uncle (my mom’s brother-in-law) was finishing up his Ph.D. at Berkeley, so my mom and sister and I spent the week there ... I insisted on paying the $8 child’s fare for my own ticket on the Electra going up (WA408)

jrl767

speaking of 1962, I found an interesting transcontinental flight with a piston-powered aircraft ... it made a dozen stops between NYC and California —

1- identify the departure airport, airline, equipment, and all stops in sequence
2- identify which three stops were NOT served on the eastbound return

jlemon

I do not think anyone ever responded to this. I meant to but never got around to it. So here we go.....

British Eagle operating Vickers Viscount service from the airport located near Chester (which most likely has a name but I'm not sure what it is).

Meantime, Happy Memorial Day to everyone! We were hoping to have a flyover here by a pair of LANG F-15C aircraft from JRB Belle Chasse; however, we have tropical thundershowers moving over us from the Gulf this morning so our WX will probably preclude any military air activity in honor of not only our servicemen and women but our doctors, nurses, other medical personnel and first responders as well.

Herb687

So Phyllis was your first?


I've heard stories that UA has diverted jets to Livermore (LVK) over the years when SFO was fogged in. Even less probable, stories exist of UA SFO diversions to Half Moon Bay (HAF). I'd love to see proof of the latter. LVK makes sense as the "Tri-Valley" area is much less foggy and the airport there has a 5,000+ ft. runway with an ILS approach. Some Asian airlines have used LVK for ab initio pilot training. HAF on the other hand makes no sense as it's usually every bit as foggy there as at SFO, if not worse, and there's nothing but a non-precision VOR approach available from what I can remember.

UA still had DC-6s until the late 1960s so a 1962 DC-6 milk run seems possible on the main line airway:
IDL-PHL-BAL-CLE-MDW-DSM-OMA-LNK-DEN-CYS-SLC-RNO-SAC-SFO
And let's guess that Cheyenne, Lincoln, and Baltimore were skipped eastbound.

(I'm thinking that in 1962 Sacramento's airport was still what is now Sacramento Executive and not the later Metropolitan (now International) airport that replaced it for airline service. Also UA had a split operation in Chicago for many years with flights at both MDW and ORD)

That must be the airport where early Hawker Siddeley 125s were built. Interestingly, even after Raytheon bought the HS125 bizjet line from BAe and continued to improve/upgrade it (Hawker 800XP, Hawker 900, etc.), fuselages were still built at Chester and shipped to Wichita for the rest of the aircraft to be assembled.

A very happy Memorial Day to you and all the OTAQD folks here, as well!

jrl767

right aircraft, wrong origin, wrong airline — which means those should be pretty easy to guess

PHL as the first stop is correct

Herb687

Ok, maybe an AA southern transcon then:
LGA-PHL-DCA-CRW-CVG-MEM-LIT-DAL-FTW-ELP-TUS-PHX-LAX-SAN
(LIT, CRW, PHL skipped eastbound?)

jrl767

AA is correct

LGA is correct as the origin; DCA is correct as the second stop; MEM, DAL, FTW, ELP, LAX, and SAN are correct but in the wrong places in the sequence; TUS and PHX are correct and in the proper sequence

Herb687

I had to look at a map to figure out where a flight between ELP and TUS could possibly stop on a non-circuitous routing. Douglas, Arizona seems to be the answer.
LGA-PHL-DCA-TYS-MEM-DAL-FTW-MAF-ELP-Douglas-TUS-PHX-SAN-LAX is the revised guess.

WHBM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jlemon

I do not think anyone ever responded to this. I meant to but never got around to it. So here we go.....

Both correct. The airport was known indeed by a couple of names, Chester (code CEG) being one of them, but that city is in a different country ... the border between England and Wales runs up the east side of the airfield. Often also known as Hawarden, or Broughton, two nearby towns.

It has an interesting and long history, built by the De Havilland company in early WW2, there was surplus labour there from a local coal mining industry in terminal decline. Many De Havilland types were built there, often shared with their traditional plant at Hatfield near north London. Many Dove and Heron feederliners came from there, also about half the Comets, as stated the HS125, and they did a lot of subcontract and component work as well. Eventually they got a significant part of Airbus work, and today every Airbus wing, plus all their advanced wing design work, is done there. The adapted Airbus A300 outsize transporters are a daily sight there, coming in over Liverpool airport by when they probably have the runway in sight, even though it's across two major estuaries. There's also a daily "scheduled" corporate flight to the Airbus plants in Hamburg and Toulouse, and probably elsewhere, which has been contracted out to a variety of airlines over time - a few years ago I took an Eastern Airways Saab 2000 from London City to Isle of Man, which was standing in for the normal BA liveried one, and in the seat pocket was a boarding card from the previous day for Hamburg to Chester.

jrl767

all correct except for TYS — probably not worth another round of back-and-forth to realize that the right city was Nashville/BNA

the ICAO airport code for Douglas/Bisbee is DUG

now which three stops did the return flight skip?

teddybear99

14. If you wanted to arrive into Miami on board a Lockheed L-188 Electra nonstop from an international location in 1980, what airline would you call and where would you depart from? It wasn't Aerocondor, Ecuatoriana, Sunjet International, COPA or SAHSA. The flight originated in Honduras.

Let me try TAN (Transportes Aereos Nacional) airlines before they merged with SAHSA

jlemon

14. Transportes Aereos Nacionales (TAN) is correct.....however, we are still looking for the city in Honduras this flight departed from on its way nonstop to Miami.

jlemon

I wonder how those folks are doing over there. I've not been in contact with them since I retired from Bristow nearly two years ago. Bristow Group has a controlling interest in Eastern Airways.

jlemon

Last call for the above! And both now ANSWERED......