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Old Timer's Airline Quiz and Discussion.

Old Timer's Airline Quiz and Discussion.

Old Oct 20, 2020, 10:00 pm
  #20491  
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... Two stops ...

1- After two months in Amarillo, you’re looking forward to the upcoming long weekend with friends at the historic Columbia Gorge Hotel before starting a seven-week project outside Vancouver. You’ve booked a pair of two-stop flights, each on a different airline and aircraft type, with a 7am departure on Saturday and a 4pm arrival at the nearest major airport. Please identify both airlines, both aircraft, both stops on each flight in order, and the connecting point. Also indicate anything unique about either flight.
ANSWERED — Central Airlines DC-3, AMA-PUB-COS-DEN; Continental/United interchange DC-6B, DEN-SLC-BOI-PDX

2A- As the project is winding down, you receive invitations to three consecutive breakfast meetings to discuss follow-on efforts. The first is on Wednesday at the field office in Billings; the second is with a consultant in Chicago on Thursday; and the third is at the Boston home office on Friday. Naturally, you’re delighted to see that you can keep your two-stop routine in place for the entire cross-country trip. On the first day, each flight involves a different airline and a different aircraft type, and you’ll even have time for a beer or two and dinner with a college buddy in the airport where you change airlines. Further perusing the first airline’s timetable, you realize you can start with an earlier flight (on yet a different type) to one of the intermediate stops and have lunch at that airport (presuming, of course, that you’ll actually find a restaurant or bar in what’s sure to be a fairly small building) before picking up the original flight. Please identify both airlines, all three equipment types, and all stops in sequence.

2B, 2C- Both the second and third days are straightforward: a direct two-stop flight, each on a distinct airline and jet. As usual, please list the airline, the aircraft, and the stops in order for each flight.


3A- A month later, as you’re enjoying your second Bloody Mary and struggling with the Sunday crossword, a frantic-sounding project manager from the Newark office calls. The courier service just delivered the wrong drawing package for her client’s Monday morning visit. Can you somehow get the right files to Newark in time? Well, your Monday tickets are in your attache case, and your calendar has been blocked for months -- an early flight for a breakfast meeting with a Dartmouth professor to talk about a potential consulting arrangement, with further talks and tours of the research labs in the afternoon. Then you're supposed to proceed on the same airline to an airport near Long Island University, site of a 730pm welcome reception for a two-and-a-half-day symposium. Please identify the airline, both equipment types, the airport serving the Dartmouth campus, your arrival airport in the New York metropolitan area, and of course the intermediate stop on the southbound flight.

3B- Your first thought is to switch your morning flight to a NYC departure, so you could simply check into the conference hotel tonight. Bummer, no two-stop trip today; it's a 1045am arrival, meaning it'll be a down-and-back by train and/or the Eastern shuttle. Or not! Here’s a nonstop to EWR, and a late evening one-stop on another carrier and aircraft type, back to BOS. The airlines, the aircraft, and the stop on the return flight, please.

3C- A few minutes later the phone rings again. Wait, what? She needs the Denison University folio, but has the Rutgers University one? Dang it, where’s a map? Where’s the OAG? Okay, here’s a workable single-carrier itinerary – but it's 13 brutal hours. The project manager agrees to meet you at a major airport, about an hour’s drive from Newark, where you’ll be disembarking from a direct First Class dinner flight (making, of course, two stops). Your return trip leaves just over four hours later -- plenty of time to review the files and have what will certainly be a much-needed drink -- and gets you back to Logan before sunrise; it involves two different jets, with the first flight making an intermediate stop before the connecting point. Please identify the airline, all aircraft types, the meetup airport, and all stops in order.


4- Following the symposium closing session, you’re headed to Mexico City. You certainly could have picked the simple same-plane two-stop itinerary, but you found a much more interesting option that involves two airlines, two aircraft types, and an unusual connecting point. It also arrives at the far-less-inconvenient hour of 955pm rather than shortly before midnight. You know the drill: we’re looking for the departure airport, the airlines, the equipment, and both enroute airports. Bonus points, of course, for the info for the direct flight.
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Old Oct 21, 2020, 5:51 am
  #20492  
 
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Originally Posted by jrl767
1- indeed, DC3 is CORRECT

I believe so

of course, Republic was the amalgamation of North Central (Series 10/30/50), Southern (Series 10), and AirWest / Hughes Air West (Series 10, originally from Bonanza and West Coast, and Series 30); I think RC acquired MD-80s on their own

NW also had a handful of Series 40 jets whose pedigree escapes me
In posing the question I had somehow thought that the merger was a bit earlier than the first NW 757s came along, but in fact it was after. I went with Republic in 1980, which I think was my one and only ever flight with one of the old-style "local service carriers" (although it was a merger of several of them) in a DC9 from Toronto to Detroit. The merger was actually 1986.

Northwest's first DC9s were indeed from Republic, but afterwards they topped up with a range of other secondhand aircraft as well, many from European carriers changing over to early A320s. The series 40s came from SAS, who were the originator of the variant, its principal and for a long time only customer. Republic also brought along a handful of MD-80s, which probably seemed an additional type too many, within a year one of them was destroyed in a serious takeoff accident at Detroit when the slats had not been deployed, not the only such MD-80 accident, and they were disposed before any of the DC9 types.

Here's Northwest DC9-40 N751NW which I'm about to board at Albany NY on a notably wet afternoon in 2008, me heading back to the UK via Detroit. Albany is a particularly difficult place to get to from the UK due to long connection times at the various points, my favoured way is to go to JFK, get a cab to Penn Station, and whatever is the next train from there. It's the same trip where, outward, I did St Petersburg Russia to London Gatwick on my last Tu154, goodbye to Mrs WHBM who was now going home, wrote my presentation for the next day in the Gatwick departures cafe (no status on NW), thence Gatwick to Detroit on a Northwest A330 and then drove a rental car to Cleveland. Quite a day.

N751NW was new to SAS in early 1968, when I was quite well down still in school. Sold to Northwest in 1991 after a good 23 years service, it lasted right through to the Delta merger, whose colours it took, until the start of 2011, when it was scrapped at Sanford. 43 years was a pretty good innings. Can you imagine a 1945-built DC4 still being in front line service in 1988 ?


Last edited by WHBM; Oct 21, 2020 at 7:28 am
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Old Oct 21, 2020, 8:05 am
  #20493  
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Originally Posted by WHBM
I think that's correct too. 34 years was a long time to have been put off twin engined aircraft, especially for a carrier that had a lot of small-scale places along their traditional network.
I think Northwest was operating the DC-3 following the removal of all of the Martin 2-0-2 aircraft from its fleet but it would not surprise me to learn the DC-3s were obtained secondhand and thus were not new.
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Old Oct 21, 2020, 10:04 am
  #20494  
 
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Yes, Northwest had to go out and get a few old DC3s, for a couple of years, and also rather more DC4s, definitely not part of the plan, all at a time when most other carriers couldn't really find anyone to sell these off to. This was in addition to them stocking up on both Constellations and DC6Bs at the same time. With the Strat as well, it was a notably diverse fleet for a while.
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Old Oct 21, 2020, 10:24 am
  #20495  
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Originally Posted by WHBM
In posing the question I had somehow thought that the merger was a bit earlier than the first NW 757s came along, but in fact it was after. I went with Republic in 1980, which I think was my one and only ever flight with one of the old-style "local service carriers" (although it was a merger of several of them) in a DC9 from Toronto to Detroit. The merger was actually 1986.
I can point to a pair of RC flights, both in June 1982: 727-200 N721RC BOS-DTW, connecting to Convair 580 N27287R DTW-SBN-ORD
Originally Posted by WHBM
Northwest's first DC9s were indeed from Republic, but afterwards they topped up with a range of other secondhand aircraft as well ...
my last DC-9-10 flight (August 2004) was on N8915E, which was originally delivered to Eastern
Originally Posted by WHBM
N751NW was new to SAS in early 1968, when I was quite well down still in school. Sold to Northwest in 1991 after a good 23 years service, it lasted right through to the Delta merger, whose colours it took, until the start of 2011, when it was scrapped at Sanford.
two Series 40 flights: N753NW DTW-ATL in Aug 1992, and N775NW DTW-BNA in Dec 2010 (I believe it was still in NW bare-metal finish, but with DL logos)
Originally Posted by WHBM
43 years was a pretty good innings. Can you imagine a 1945-built DC4 still being in front line service in 1988 ?
not quite the same scenario, as unpressurized aircraft aren't subject to anywhere near the same life cycle stresses, but N1018F -- a vintage-1954 De Haviland Beaver, still in regular service with Kenmore Air -- was a fine ride two summers back
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Old Oct 21, 2020, 3:10 pm
  #20496  
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Originally Posted by WHBM
N751NW was new to SAS in early 1968, when I was quite well down still in school. Sold to Northwest in 1991 after a good 23 years service, it lasted right through to the Delta merger, whose colours it took, until the start of 2011, when it was scrapped at Sanford. 43 years was a pretty good innings. Can you imagine a 1945-built DC4 still being in front line service in 1988 ?
Thanks for the detail on ship 751, Mr. M. Back in the early 2000s when Northwest and Alaska enjoyed a strong partnership, I logged a lot of flights with NW, including aboard a good number of vintage DC-9s. I only managed two flights aboard the -40s (Ships 751 and 753) but the highlight for me was in March of 2003 aboard a then 37 year old DC-9-14 (N8912E) which was delivered new to Eastern in 1966. Sadly, she was retired to Marana, AZ just two years later.

At present I am typing from thirty-some-odd thousand feet over southeastern Oregon, enroute to Las Vegas aboard a 17 year old 737-900. Like most of you, I've been diligent about logging my flights dating back to my earliest memories of flight at age 4. The family's pretty sure I've been on a couple more flights prior to that but as their level of interest in this regard has never been as keen as mine, they're at a complete loss as to what those flights may have been. After much therapy, I'm only now just getting around to forgiving them. But I digress...

More to the point, after you've flown as many times as I have (and no doubt some of you have, if not more so) some interesting numbers begin to emerge. Yesterday, I crossed the three quarter million mile mark on flights flown aboard 737-800s - far and away the most mileage I've ever accrued on any single aircraft type. It's taken me 555 fights aboard 173 different aircraft to get this far. The next highest mileage total on aircraft by variant is aboard 737-900s with 371 flights totaling 488830 miles. Also of mild interest (to me at least) is that as of this flight I've logged 1735 flights aboard Alaska Airlines while at the same time having flown into/out of Seattle 1735 times. Thanks to flightmemory.com for compiling that stat. Who knew?

On a secondary note, hats off to jlemon for correctly figuring out the first part of jrl767's quiz. I would never have come up with Central , much less the interchange flight to Portland. Well done, Sir!
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Last edited by Seat 2A; Oct 21, 2020 at 9:32 pm
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Old Oct 22, 2020, 7:49 am
  #20497  
 
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Originally Posted by YVR Cockroach
1. flag carrier for 2 different countries (was a question earlier this year) (name of the countries will be obvious)

Malaysia Singapore Airlines
Malaysia Singapore Airlines wasn't around for very long. Originally just Malayan Airlines, with Singapore as its base and hub, as part of a complex pollitical restructuring when the country was rearranged as Malaysia and Singapore (it wasn't a simple split) the airline was renamed, although it extensively branded itself as MSA, as each country didn't really care to be associated with the other. Batches of aircraft were very precisely registered with alternate aircraft in each country, though like SAS in Europe run as a common pool. The international jet services continued to focus almost wholly on Singapore, but the regional propeller flights were mainly across Malaysia. Quite soon they fell out, but MSA (inevitably with UK expat management and pilots) had developed a notable reputation for themselves as such, they were one of the first to ignore IATA and start offering free drinks and substantial catering in Y. Both carriers wanted to keep the initials, so when it split in two (most management stayed in Singapore) one wanted to be Malaysia State Airlines, or MSA, and the other to be Mercury Singapore Airlines, or MSA. In the end it was agreed on Malaysian Airline System, MAS, and Singapore International Airlines, SIA, and the use of these three-letter abbreviations was common for some years, although it then dropped away.
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Old Oct 22, 2020, 10:48 am
  #20498  
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Originally Posted by Seat 2A
... More to the point, after you've flown as many times as I have (and no doubt some of you have, if not more so) some interesting numbers begin to emerge. Yesterday, I crossed the three quarter million mile mark on flights flown aboard 737-800s - far and away the most mileage I've ever accrued on any single aircraft type. It's taken me 555 fights aboard 173 different aircraft to get this far. The next highest mileage total on aircraft by variant is aboard 737-900s with 371 flights totaling 488830 miles. ... Who knew? ...
so of course I had to go back to the logbook too

I'm just short of 600 flights and just over half a million total miles on ALL variants of the 737
  • 180 -800
  • 128 -200 including three on the Combi variant in all-passenger configuration (68 of those, including one Combi, were part of my Boeing Flight Test tenure)
  • 113 -900
  • 57 -300
  • 55 -700
  • 36 -400 including one Combi
  • 24 -500
  • one -100 (PeoplExpress, 1983)
  • one -600 (WestJet, 2016; part of my "Tour de 737")
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Old Oct 22, 2020, 11:50 am
  #20499  
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Originally Posted by WHBM
Yes, Northwest had to go out and get a few old DC3s, for a couple of years, and also rather more DC4s, definitely not part of the plan, all at a time when most other carriers couldn't really find anyone to sell these off to. This was in addition to them stocking up on both Constellations and DC6Bs at the same time. With the Strat as well, it was a notably diverse fleet for a while.
Here's an interesting photo of a DC3 (or is it actually a C-47?) in Northwest livery which was taken at Coventry in the UK in the late 1980s. Note the registration: G-AMPY. I have a feeling this airplane may not have actually been operated by NW.

https://www.airliners.net/photo/Nort...-DC-3/379103/L
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Old Oct 22, 2020, 1:07 pm
  #20500  
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it also has a US registration on the vertical -- NW21711
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Old Oct 22, 2020, 1:44 pm
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G-AMPY was a longstanding member of the Air Atlantique fleet operated out of Coventry. It's still around and airworthy, currently in RAF colours with it's WW2 RAF number here:
(it seems links to Facebok are suppressed, but if you click Quote on this post I think you will see the link)

Like most such aircraft, it seems to be airworthy about 50% of the time, it was certainly around last year. It's been in Britain all its life, from WW2 with the RAF and then with a range of other operators. Air Atlantique was run by enthusiasts and have got several mentions from me here in the past - the DC6B painted up in British Eagle colours they brought into London City some years ago and then did a flying display at an airshow there was them !

The Northwest colours were in 1986, painted up at Northwest expense for their 60th anniversary. At that time Northwest seemed to have plenty of advertising and PR funds available right here in London, they were certainly trying to position themselves up against Pan Am and TWA. The DC3 was left in their colours for a couple of years afterwards, it got used for various commercial and airshow tasks in the meantime.

I wonder if the various photographs and film were used in the USA. The US tail number is obviously bogus. You could imagine them doing this with a Minneapolis operator, less so one in London.

This I think is the classic shot of it during its time, taken at London Gatwick in 1986 !

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Last edited by WHBM; Oct 22, 2020 at 2:33 pm
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Old Oct 22, 2020, 2:58 pm
  #20502  
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[QUOTE=WHBM;32765221]Malaysia Singapore Airlines wasn't around for very long. [quote]

Just 5 years but those were pretty much most of my conscious years at the time of corporate dissolution.

one of the first to ignore IATA and start offering free drinks and substantial catering in Y.
Complimentary alcoholic drinks and 5-pack cigarettes I remember (carried over to SQ, not that I had any) but what was the other substantial catering, and what were the IATA limits on that?
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Old Oct 22, 2020, 7:38 pm
  #20503  
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Ah... the 5 cigarette pack. I remember them well - not as a smoker but as a young passenger seeing the stewardesses present trays of various cigarettes. Back then, I don't think there was even a smoking section on US airlines. People just smoked wherever they were sat.

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Old Oct 23, 2020, 9:31 am
  #20504  
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Originally Posted by WHBM

Northwest's first DC9s were indeed from Republic, but afterwards they topped up with a range of other secondhand aircraft as well, many from European carriers changing over to early A320s. The series 40s came from SAS, who were the originator of the variant, its principal and for a long time only customer. Republic also brought along a handful of MD-80s, which probably seemed an additional type too many, within a year one of them was destroyed in a serious takeoff accident at Detroit when the slats had not been deployed, not the only such MD-80 accident, and they were disposed before any of the DC9 types....
I recall that Ozark operated DC9-40 aircraft as well. Here's a photo of a DC9-41 previously operated by Finnair in Ozark livery with the registration yet to be changed over to an "N" number.....

https://www.airliners.net/photo/Ozar...bwWaj%2B0vPZbc

To the best of my knowledge, the OAG never assigned a specific aircraft code to the DC9-40 series and they were always listed as D9S equipment in the OAG scheds.....

And Ozark also operated the MD-82, of course. Here's a photo of one landing at San Diego. OZ also served SAN with the DC9-41.

https://www.airliners.net/photo/Ozar...-9-82/614177/L
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Old Oct 23, 2020, 10:21 am
  #20505  
 
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Yes, the only other purchaser of new 40 series was Japan Domestic, who bought 20 of them quite some years after SAS. They later sold some on to Finnair, and these were the ones that came to Ozark, third-hand, and ultimately on to TWA. It was just two seat rows longer than the standard series 30, and as happens when a stretched version does not sell well compared to the standard, leasing companies start to shy away from it or require higher charges and guarantees, concerned they may be left with an orphan type on their hands, which then becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
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