jlemon

I find it a bit surprising that Western did not convert the Boeing 720 aircraft formerly operated by Pacific Northern to turbofan power in order to achieve commonality with the B720B equipment flown by WA.

As many of us know, American converted all of their B720s to B720Bs.

Perhaps there were other differences between the ex-PNA 720s and the WA 720Bs?

jlemon

Hey-hey, Seat 2A, you heading up to the North Slope? I remember being in Barrow in the fall many years ago and it was downright cold!!!

And, oh by the way, Aloha Airlines is correct! The last day of Boeing 737-200 operations conducted by Aloha was March 31, 2008. This date coincided with the shutdown of all scheduled passenger operations flown by the carrier after over 60 years of service. I believe Delta had removed their 73S aircraft from service in 2006 while Alaska Air operated their last scheduled 73S flight in 2007 as you noted above.

I flew interisland on Aloha many times. During their existence they operated such aircraft as Fairchild F-27 and Vickers Viscount turboprops, and advertised their service as being Hawaii's "All Jet Power" airline in October of 1964. Jet equipment arrived at Aloha a few years later when new BAC One-Eleven aircraft were introduced, which provided what the airline called "Alohajet" service. In June of 1968, Aloha began operating the BAC One-Eleven from Kailua-Kona Airport (KOA) on the Big Island. A number of different Boeing 737 models followed including -200, -300, -400, -700 and -800 series aircraft with the latter two types being used for ETOPS operations between Hawaii and the west coast of the U.S. and Canada. A very good friend of mine flew both the 73S and 73G for many years as an FO with Aloha. And the airline even operated a DC-10-30 at one point as Aloha Pacific with service to Asia.

Aloha is gone but not forgotten!

AeroWesty

Without looking it up, you're substantially right on the DL date. I flew LGA-CVG in late Nov/06 as part of a longer journey, and it was on a 732 that was actually in quite a good state. I remember reading that DL was ending 732 operations shortly thereafter.

My only regret about that trip is that I was offered an SDC via ATL for $25 at the kiosk, which I would have taken in a heartbeat if I'd first seen the Spirit of Delta 762 sitting at the gate for one of its last flights as well.

AeroWesty

This would be DL19, a 747 which flew the route New York-Kennedy to Atlanta to Dallas-Love Field to San Francisco. Lunch, snack, and dinner was served en route, with 70 First Class seats up front.

jlemon

DL B747-100 service JFK-ATL-DAL-SFO is correct! And, of course, this was before DFW opened for business....

WHBM

By the time Western took over PNA it was June 1967. The 720 series was withdrawn from sale, the very last one was built three months later (notably, for Western). Such an expensive multi-million dollar rebuilding was not worthwhile at such a late stage. The 727-200 had plenty of orders and was obviously the aircraft of the future for this size, which will have knocked secondhand prices of the 720 well down. Not worthwhile. Good call, although I'm sure it was looked into.

WHBM

When I saw the mention of Caravelles at LAX (never scheduled there as far as I can recall) I was trying to guess whose before opening the linked photos (well worth looking at overall, by the way). Sterling would be fairly well up my list, and that is whose it was.

Sterling Airways was a long-established Danish-based holiday and charter flight operator, owned by Tjaereborg Travel, the largest Scandinavian holiday flight operator. They built up a big DC-6B fleet in the 1960s, then moved on to Caravelles. The remarkable thing was, although they did plenty of classic European holiday flight operations from Scandinavia down to the Mediterranean, they built up an extraordinary long-distance operation with Caravelles. As far as I can tell they were the only operator to regularly use Caravelles on Transatlantic operations, they ran for years from Copenhagen over to the Dominican Republic, and also to Toronto, with typically two fuel stops along the way. They also ran flights to Bangkok, Thailand, and to Natal in Brazil, across the South Atlantic, and many others. One of their Caravelles was lost in high ground approaching Dubai, returning from Sri Lanka If you think this is the early 1970s, long before ETOPS, it is - ETOPS is a US/FAA concept. The Danish authorities were OK with it, and on they went. They also did a lot of odd charters, which I'm sure is how this aircraft came to be at LAX. Pictures of them turn up from all over the world. It was a long way from home for a Caravelle.

SAS, the scheduled airline of Scandinavia, has long had a rather thin long-haul set of routes, which gives an opening to such operators.

Aircraft OY-STM here is the rarer and newer Super Caravelle variant, a small stretch and with P&W JT8D engines instead of the majority Rolls-Royce Avon turbojets. This gave longer range which suited such flights. Sterling bought it new the year before the photograph, but they also had a large secondhand fleet, including being the largest buyer of the old United Caravelle fleet when they were retired. They also took some of the Caravelle 12s, a final flowering of the type and a major stretch, of which only a handful were built.

Wally Bird

According to an article in the very first issue of Airliners magazine the Sterling route was CPH-KEF-YQX-OMA-SFO/LAX. Ouch! Guess passengers were a hardier breed back then.

jlemon

Either that or they had one heck a big load of booze on board!

And as for scheduled Caravelle ops into LAX, I've yet to discover any conducted by the prime suspect, being United, although I believe UA did undertake scheduled maintenance on the type at SFO, as WHBM pointed out awhile back.....

AeroWesty

The uniqueness is that it's an interchange flight from Western changing to Braniff at Denver-Stapleton.

Again, an interchange, this time with Continental flying New Orleans-Houston-Denver, flown as Western onward from Denver. Trivia: MSY is only served one-way with this interchange. Returning, the service terminates at Houston.

jlemon

Correct on both 9) and 10)!

Western was operating interchange flights between YYC and DEN with both Braniff International and Continental at the same time with all services being flown with B727-200 aircraft......

WA 485 YYC-DEN BN 485 DEN-DFW

CO 773 MSY-IAH-DEN WA 773 DEN-YYC

And the return WA/CO flight from YYC did indeed terminate at IAH and thus did not continue on to MSY.....

While we are on the topic of interchange flights, here's a question for the group that is not a quiz item.....

I have discovered an intriguing statement in a Hughes Airwest timetable cover dated January 15, 1978 that promotes an interchange service operated by Hughes Airwest and Frontier between DEN and BUR/SNA. It appears the interchange points were either SLC or LAS. I was not aware of this interchange agreement between FL and RW. Does anyone have any intel concerning this service? For example, what type of aircraft was used? Was a RW D9S used or was the aircraft a FL 73S? Note that Hughes Airwest never operated the 73S and Frontier never operated the D9S (although FL did operate the MD-80 at one point but not in 1978).

It would be interesting to learn more about this!

jlemon

4) Back in 1973, what airline flew nonstop DC-9-30 service between Miami (MIA) and Houston (IAH)?

7) It's July of 1972 and you are back in Los Angeles. An old buddy rings you up to let you know he has just purchased a new powerboat at a marina on Lake Havasu on the Colorado River. "Come on over", he says, "We'll go waterskiing!" You discover there is a nonstop flight to Lake Havasu from LAX. Identify the airline and the aircraft operated on the route.

8) It's February of 1976 and you are in Minneapolis/St. Paul on business. However, it's just darn cold in Minnesota and you need to warm up! You know you will be in a meeting until late afternoon so you book the last flight of the day in first class to Miami for some fun in the sun with good friends. However, you note this flight makes four (4) intermediate stops en route from MSP to MIA. What airline and what type of equipment will you be traveling on? And for bonus points, identify all four stops.

11) It's now July of 1983 and you are back in New Orleans enjoying Oysters Rockefeller at a legendary restaurant in the French Quarter. However, you receive word that your presence is required once again in Dallas for yet another urgent meeting. There are three (3) airlines operating nonstop jet service from MSY to DFW. One of these airlines operates wide body aircraft on the route. Identify all three air carriers and the respective equipment operated. (Two of the three airlines, AA & DL, identified).


Time to answer the remaining questions.....

4) Delta with nonstop DC-9-30 service between IAH and MIA. The D9S aircraft were configured with 24 first class seats and 65 coach seats.

7) Hughes Airwest with nonstop Fairchild F-27 turboprop service operated five days a week between LAX and Lake Havasu. RW was also flying the F-27 nonstop between LAS and Lake Havasu at this time.

8) Eastern with DC-9-10 service. Routing was MSP-IND-SDF-ATL-PBI-MIA.

11) The third airline flying nonstop between MSY and DFW at this time was......Western with two daily B727-200 flights. Actual routings for both of these WA flights were MSY-DFW-SLC.

AeroWesty

Perhaps you should issue a time limit for answering. I had some of the closing answers, but I've been admonished about hogging the answers.

jlemon

Sounds too much like work to me! Actually, we are rather relaxed about this....and I had submitted my latest quiz items over a week ago and so felt it was time to close them out. This also allows someone else to pose a new set of questions as well.....

And we do appreciate it when one does not hog all of the answers!

AeroWesty

Well then perhaps it's time to close this thread down. If the random public have to figure out what the unwritten rules are from people who seem to believe they own this thread, which is quickly becoming my impression, then it really isn't in the FT spirit, is it? No clear rules, and the ones held by those enforcing them are applied haphazardly at best.