Herb687

All correct on the two carriers operating on behalf of UA in the SFO-SMF market. I believe that every type ever operated by Fresno-based WestAir (OE) made its way on to SFO-SMF at some point in time except the BAe 146. I certainly flew every type you mentioned as being operated in 1989. As for WestAir's radio callsign it changed from "Shasta" to "Sundance" at some point in time... Apparently Shasta sounded a bit too much like Cessna.

And of course United's radio callsign was... United!

For the 1989 timeline I believe your listing of mainline equipment operating SFO-SMF is complete however I will point out that at other times UA had a 767 on the route. I'm sure given UA's long history of operating flights that routed SFO-SMF-somewhere else, it is highly likely that SFO-SMF saw scheduled service by every piece of mainline UA equipment in the '70s and '80s save for the 747.

jlemon

47. Doha is correct! It appears the BA VC-10 flight in question did not travel any further east than Dacca (spelled Dhaka these days) in Bangladesh where it then turned around and headed back to London Heathrow. Thus, Delhi had four BA VC-10 departures a week at this time with a twice a week eastbound routing of LHR - DOH - DEL - DAC and back again the same way westbound with BA operating all of its other flights into Delhi with 747 equipment with nonstop and one stop service from Heathrow. It also appears that BA was operating all of its flights to Hong Kong and Bangkok from LHR and vice versa with 747 equipment in early 1980.

BTW, the other air carriers operating flights from London Heathrow to Delhi at this time included Air India (of course) with nonstop, one stop and two stop 747 service, Japan Air Lines with two stop and three stop 747 service, Pan Am with one stop and two stop 747 service, and Thai International with nonstop DC-10 service. None of these flights to include the BA services were operated on a daily basis.

jlemon

42. Touraine Air Transport (TAT) is correct....but not with an F.28 Fellowship. Please guess again, sir!

47. The stop made by this BA VC-10 service en route from LHR to DEL was actually Doha (DOH). Please see my response above to an earlier guess made by WHBM.

jlemon

And I remember back in the mid 1970's when besides the B727-200, one also had a choice of flying on board either a B737-200 or an L-1011 with all three airplanes being operated on the SFO-SMF route by good old PSA....

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/ec/90...8f2d007a1d.jpg

WHBM

Do you have the BA schedule of the era for Hong Kong to Johannesburg ? Was it a VC-10 or a 747 (at half the frequency) ? They certainly changed from one to the other around this time. I'm guessing it was fairly early in 1980; the last BA VC-10 flight of all was 30 March 1981, Dar-es-Salaam to London.

BA services eastwards were effectively on a weekly repeating timetable, no two services within the week the same but plenty of places ended up served near-daily. I believe London to Hong Kong was twice daily on 747s at the time but no two flights in the same week did the same stops. There was a poster on another board a few years ago who had been a BA scheduler of all this, who described the various parameters used, which started with different demand between the intermediate points on different days.

jlemon

Here's what I was able to find from Johannesburg to Hong Kong in early 1980....

HKG80p1

As you can see, BA was operating a VC-10 (OAG code VCX) at this time twice a week from JNB to HKG via stops at Mahe Island in the Seychelles and Colombo. Unfortunately, I cannot find a return schedule from Hong Kong to Johannesburg for early 1980.

WHBM

The VC-10 must have worked out from London through Jo'burg, to Hong Kong. Given it ran on Sunday and Tuesday the same aircraft probably did two round trips before getting back to London. That must have taken almost a week. Pretty reliable aircraft to work that long away from base.

I understand that BOAC, and on to the long-haul side of BA for a good while, had "proper" flight engineers, career crew members rather than junior trainee pilots. They had done considerable time in the engineering shops before moving on to the flight deck, and were fully licenced for A&P work on the aircraft. BEA in comparison had three pilots on their larger aircraft. Come the merger, which coincided with the arrival of the Tristar which was to serve routes of both former operators, and it was an issue that rolled on and on. Juniors at BOAC typically started as navigators, which BEA, with no long-haul, did not need.

Meanwhile I notice the OAG has Pan Am down as also on Hong Kong to London. Maybe, but you couldn't book it. You could take the flight from Hong Kong to anywhere else along the way, or from there to London, but Hong Kong to London was regarded as a "cabotage" route, effectively domestic, and only British carriers (and thus only BA) could sell tickets on it. One result was there were charters, one of the few routes other than transatlantic where this happened, Caledonian (later B Cal) and Laker were common in Hong Kong, which usefully peaked in winter, the opposite of transatlantic.

There was an interesting fight around this time. The UK government decided a second carrier was required on the route, and all of Cathay Pacific, B Cal and Laker applied for it. The UK government gave it to B Cal. This caused a considerable diplomatic upset in Hong Kong (UK expat officials but very locally-minded about Cathay), and they unexpectedly refused to give their end of the clearance. Meanwhile there was a change of government minister in the UK, who decided differently, that they all could start it if they wished. Laker withdrew, B Cal cut their proposed frequencies, but Cathay went straight into their first European route.

jrl767

52- my only recollection as to CO's operation says it's almost certainly an intrastate tag to FLL ... I have come up with eight possibilities, but since I **really** don't want to play the one-at-a-time guessing game again I'll ask for jlemon's indulgence to narrow the field on the basis of distance if the two nearest ones are wrong ... we've talked many times about the 21-mile hop from Miami/MIA over the years, but I think West Palm Beach/PBI (at twice that) would be slightly more viable in 1987

jlemon

52. But......I thought the OTAQ&D was meant to be a guessing game! And you have guessed correctly. Here's the sched....

CO 728: Long Island MacArthur (ISP) 7:15p - 8:28p Washington Dulles (IAD) 8:55p - 11:05p West Palm Beach (PBI) 11:25p - 11:55p Fort Lauderdale (FLL)
Freq: Daily except Sat.
Service classes: F/Y
Meal services: None
Equip: B737-300

jrl767

well, yes, but just sayin’ (again) that being constrained to one-at-a-time “pitch-and-catch” gets a bit tedious, especially when trying to nail down an enroute stop from among seven or eight (or more) possibilities

there’s a point at which a transition from Quiz to Discussion would probably be a good idea; imo three guesses is about the limit, unless negative responses have included some additional insights (and not necessarily phrased as explicit “hints”) ... I’ll offer that there are logical ways to aggregate cities to either generally narrow the field (e.g., distance) or make a reasonable multi-guess (e.g., geography, size)

to be continued ...

Seat 2A

Ah...
It's good to be back home, even if it is -20 or so outside. I'm looking forward to once again participating in all the festivities here at the OTAQ&D starting tomorrow. I would tonight but I have company.
So, until tomorrow, the shortest day of the year, I'll leave you with a link to what our Arctic day looks like this time of year up here in Fairbanks.

December 19th Sunrise through Sunset in Fairbanks

jrl767

42- I’m gonna go out on a limb here and guess it was a VFW/Fokker 614, which was notable for its engines being mounted on pylons above the wing (as well as for being an “orphan” type, with less than 20 in airline service)

jlemon

Well, you obviously have a choice here.

And if a particular quiz question does not suit you because you deem it to be "tedious", then simply do not respond to it.

jlemon

42. Yep, Touraine Air Transport (TAT) was operating the VFW 614 on this service. Here's the sched...

IJ 201: Paris Orly (ORY) 8:40a - 10:00a Carcassonne (CCF)
Freq: Daily except Sat. & Sun.
Service class: Y
Equip: 614

Seat 2A

I remember using this flight as the basis for a question a couple of years back. I loved the timing as it was mostly a daytime flight departing Hong Kong at about noon with a mid-afternoon departure out of Colombo and a potential sunset departure out of the Seychelles. That is a dream flight in my book, especially if I were sitting in First Class!