jlemon

If one substitutes a Porter or Stout microbrew made here in the U.S., I've been known to resemble this remark on occasion back in the day....

And the situation almost got out of hand after I boarded a Handley Page Jetstream operated by Pacific Coast Airlines at Santa Barbara for a one hour flight up to Monterey. Rushing to the gate at SBA to make the flight, I neglected to visit the men's room. No restroom on the HPJ, of course, but I did make it to the men's room at MRY in the very nick of time.

jrl767

last August I had reached the end of my metaphorical rope in terms of not flying since late February, and very nearly didn’t succeed in getting on an outbound flight at SEA

Alaska mainly operates from the N satellite, the C concourse, and the low D gates ... my 0810 flight was leaving from S2, and in my pre-caffeinated state at 0750 I totally spaced on the “S” ... C2 has about 10 positions dedicated to Q400s and E175s; the jet on D2 wasn’t going to IAD, and as I was about to get on the escalator down to the train for N (which is opposite D4) I realized that the low gates were still blocked off for remodeling ... looked at the departures board in the train waiting area, mumbled a few choice expletives, and got on the connector train to the other end of the main terminal ... scurried across the hall to the train out to S, and rushed up to S2 at 0802 to find the door closed

the gate agent said she would rebook me on the 0830 to BWI but I needed to get there in less than 17 minutes — of course it was on N16, so I had to retrace my recent 12-minute trek hoping that I didn’t have to wait too long for either of the trains

at the time AS was only filling F to 50%, but since they would make adjustments to account for passengers traveling together there was one F seat remaining for a gate upgrade

WHBM

WDL from Germany are also a vey regular sub for British Airways at London City, as their 146/RJ aircraft have all the steep approach capability. A real blunder happened only a year or two ago when they were substituting for the day, they did a return to Edinburgh and back, loaded up again, and back to Edinburgh. Whereupon it was found on arrival that all the passengers were for Dusseldorf. This sort of thing has happened occasionally before, when aircraft ops get distanced in the organisation from airport ops, and has also been when the flight is subchartered to an airline from a different country, with their own dispatchers actually handling the flight plan detail; in these cases also the flight deck do not make announcements, apart from any emergency, and all is done by the cabin crew, which the flight deck may not hear. So cabin crew announce they are going to A while the pilots have it all prepared to go to B. It always helps if the trip is cloudy all the way so the routing is not noticed. BA were actually pretty quick in realising and overcoming it, and the flight then did a sector from Edinburgh to Dusseldorf.

This BBC account has inevitably got things a bit mixed up but the basics are there :

BA flight lands in Edinburgh instead of Düsseldorf by mistake - BBC News

jlemon

"Good Lord, BA, we demand considerable compensation for this inconceivable blunder! Say guaranteed upgrades to BA First from the back of the bus for the next year or so......"

WHBM

On the other hand, I'd have been pleased - two sectors in a 146, instead of just one ...

jrl767

yes, this

Quote:

Originally Posted by jlemon

4. In 1969, this air carrier ran a print ad entitled "America's greatest ski run" which featured a caricature of a snow skier getting ready to launch off the tail of one its aircraft. Name the airline and the aircraft type. It wasn't Western and the equipment wasn't a B737-100 or -200. Hint: the equipment we are looking for is a Boeing aircraft

4- let’s try another carrier that was bringing 727/72S service to a number of ski country destinations: Frontier

jlemon

4. Correct! Here's the print ad....

FLgreatestskirun69

Now, of course, the ski destinations mentioned in the ad were not receiving Frontier 727 service in 1969. Some were served instead with the Convair 580 and others, such as Aspen and Taos, were not directly served by Frontier at all at this time. However, for example, one could fly into Denver, Albuquerque or Salt Lake City with the airline on the 727 and then figure out how to actually get to the ski resort one wanted to go to (thus the reference to rental cars and bus transportation).....so it appears Frontier did not let any of this get in the way of their winter season ad campaign.

And I hope that skier did not get sucked into the center engine when he did launch.....

Seat 2A

I remember those ads. I also recall that Aspen Airways later marketed itself as offering "The World's Fastest Ski Lift"

I have also been quite busy of late, having relocated 120 miles down to Denali Park recently to put in some work - once again - on the new park bus schedules, which are considerably different from our normal season offerings but a nice improvement over last year's extremely limited schedule. Additionally, a few days last week were spent downloading almost $150 worth of great live music from a new jamband I recently discovered. I love their sound! And then there are the books I've been working on. Two of them are complete.

Of course these books are for personal enjoyment only. Aside from the fact that there is limited interest in airline cabins and cuisine, when combined with my writing "skills" which are commensurate with those of a fourth grader high on glue fumes, these books have zero market value. Irregardless of that, I put a lot of time into downloading all of the pictures and then writing commentary on each one. I'm really pleased with the way they turned out, especially given the quality of the book binding, the pages and the bright colors. I've no doubt I will enjoy flipping through them years from now. In addition, I am now putting together an even larger book highlighting my train travels all over the world. It is a considerable task given close to 300,000 miles of rail travel on six continents. When complete, that book will include about 350 pictures. At present I've downloaded about 250 pictures but I've yet to insert commentary - so - I am nothing if not busy over the next couple of weeks.

Amidst these considerable distractions, I am also hard at work whipping up a batch of questions for you all - hopefully to be presentable within the week. In the meantime, kudos to jlemon on another fine batch of questions. He is truly a quizmeister extraordinaire

jrl767

the cover photos are **terrific**!!

jlemon

Wow, Seat 2A!

A very impressive and definitely professional effort to say the least!

I hope I get to see these hard copies one of these fine days!

Seat 2A

Thanks. I can only take credit for one of them... I wish that digital cameras had been around back in the 1970s and 80s. I logged my 1000th flight in 1981 - in First Class aboard a Western DC-10 between San Francisco and Honolulu - and in the ten years before and after that milestone I had the good fortune to enjoy many a flight in domestic First Class, back when America's domestic inflight product was unquestionably the very finest in the world. With a digital camera I could have much more affordably created an impressive photographic documentation of that era, from lounges to Chateaubriand carved from the trolley on flights as short as Seattle to Anchorage. Ah well... I count my lucky stars that I was blessed to have been able to find my way into First Class for so little money, be it great fare deals or ID75s.

jrl767

throughout this thread and numerous others you’ve shared a TON of fabulous photos and stories (well, pixels and electrons don’t actually weigh anything, so that’s not exactly an accurate description ) ... I suspect the resolution and quality wouldn’t be up to the same standards, but have you taken a digital photo of any of your old printed photos?

I actually disposed of a lot of old pix over the past year or two without preserving digital replicas, and I’m now thinking that a dedicated SD card or two would have been a good idea (part of the problem at the time was that the good digital camera had gone missing, and I didn’t want to overload my phone with all the pix!)

Seat 2A

Once I purchased my first SLR - a Nikon FG - I did everything in Ektachrome slide. Back when my only camera was a dinky little Kodak 110 instamatic, I got some great pictures from my first trip to Tahiti - a trip that included First Class (75% industry discount) down on an Air New Zealand DC-10 and back on a UTA 747 - and yet, as much as I appreciated the benefits of traveling in First Class back then, it never occurred to me to take pictures of the inflight service. I do recall getting some great photos though, such as looking back on the wing and the muscular looking nacelles of those JT3D-3B turbofans on an American 707-323B while banking out of a sunset sky on a flight between Phoenix and Tucson. I also remember a cool ramp shot looking up the mobile stairway into the forward section of my UTA 747 while boarding at Papeete. Sadly, I somehow misplaced the photo album containing those and other great pictures. If I'd had them still, I could easily have run them down to Fred Meyers or Walgreens and had them digitalized, which is what I had done with most of my slides from post 1983 travels.

When I had a year of unlimited First Class air travel on United, I enjoyed a multitude of meals that on longer flights rivaled International First Class these days. How I wish I'd photographed some of these now. I think a big reason why I didn't had to do with the cost of Ektachrome 36 shot film (about $5) combined with the cost of developing it (about $10) which given inflation would total out to about about $36 today - for 36 photos of which maybe one third to one half if I were lucky might have been keepers. Most of my best slide shots were from a multitude of backpacking trips taken all over the west.

jlemon

Last call for the above! And should there be no takers, I shall provide the answers in a couple of days.

Seat 2A

5. If you wanted to fly on board a McDonnell Douglas DC9-30 nonstop from Miami to Houston in 1973, what airline would you call and what airport in the Houston area would you arrive into? Hint: the airline in question had ceased flying this route by the fall of 1974

In 1978 I flew aboard an Eastern DC-9-30 between Dallas and Miami. And of course we all know that Houston was a bit of a mini-hub for Eastern back in the day. And finally, in thinking of DC-9-30 operators in the pre-deregulation days of 1974 that flew out of Houston, I just don't see Texas International on this route. So, let's go with Eastern - my first and final answer.

2. In 1966, this airline ran a print ad with the following headline:

WOULD THE AIRLINE YOU FLY TO AMERICA SCRAP 17,592 COMFORTABLE SEATS TO PUT IN MORE COMFORTABLE ONES?

Hmm... fly TO America, so it's foreign. 1966, so it's before jumbo jets including the DC-8-61/63. I'm going to divide 17592 by say, an average of 110 seats per airplane figuring long distance (707, DC-8 or VC10 at around 145 seats) and regional (i.e. 727s, Tridents, Caravelles, etc at 80-110 seats) and I get about 160 aircraft. That's a large fleet per 1966 standards, even if we cut down to 140 aircraft. So, it's got to be a large European airline, probably BA, AF or LH. I don't see AF or LH doing something as revolutionary as paying out good money to refurbish their planes with more comfortable seats. It just doesn't sound like a very European thing to do. So, let's go with BA and hope for the best.