jlemon

I can just see this same type of scenario occurring on board an AA 747-100 many years ago back when there was an electric piano located in the coach lounge, Perhaps the perpetrator wasn't quite so disreputable but was a nuisance nonetheless. Of course, it would have been difficult to eject him over Kansas.....

Gardyloo

I'll reveal the answer. The contractor was the US Atomic Energy Commission and the flight route was SEA-xANC-AHT - Amchitka Island. The US conducted several underground nuclear tests below Amchitka; the last one was the Cannikin test in November, 1971. This 5 megaton test was the largest underground test ever conducted by the US, and opposition to the test resulted in the protest boat being renamed Greenpeace, from which emerged... Greenpeace.


The AEC allowed any federal employees to ride on the twice-a-week charter between Seattle and Anchorage, and as I was a federal employee at the time I partook of this perk on a number of occasions. The only thing unusual about the flight was the northbound security, which was, shall we say, intense? Like you were weighed getting on and getting off, and if you weighed less on disembarkation you were actually asked if you'd used the loo during the flight. I presume they weighed the tanks? TMI in my opinion.

No. It wasn't until AS ran its services into eastern Russia (5 or 6 different destinations) that there was commercial service from the US into that part of the world.

Bob Reeve, and his son Dick after him, made their living out of hauling the mail and service personnel out the chain, along with fishermen and cannery workers. I doubt if either of them would have been caught dead carrying commies. Every year at Christmas passengers got a little bragging sheet from RAA celebrating another year without federal subsidies being received by the airline. This was when a round trip from Anchorage to Dutch or to the Pribilofs cost over $1000. Hooray for you, we all thought. As if.

Gardyloo

I just noticed that Wikipedia says Reeve flew into Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky and Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk in the USSR but I have no memory whatsoever of that. Of course I could be wrong, but the idea of the Soviets allowing a US-flagged plane to land on Sakhalin Island boggles the mind.

jlemon

And if you're wondering what happened to the L-188 aircraft formerly operated by Reeve Aleutian, here's a link to a photo taken in Canada back in 2001 of one particular "Super Aleutian Electra" getting ready to be prepared for a new role.....

https://www.airliners.net/photo/Reev...ectra/272246/L

jrl767

just realized this one is still out there 32-a quick look at gcmap.com makes it pretty clear that there are maybe a dozen possible connecting points, and the "one stop on each flight" criterion rules out most of them pretty quickly when considering the route systems of the associated national carriers

I think there are only three realistic candidates, viz.: Air India, Kenya Airways, and Saudia; since KQ seems the least likely on the basis of geography, I'll start with AI: BKK-Calcutta/CCU-Bombay/BOM with an A310, followed by a 707 to Dar es Salaam/DAR and LOS

jlemon

Meantime, another Electra formerly operated by Reeve Aleutian eventually wound up in the UK. Here's a link to a photo of it at the Coventry Airport. I'll assume this airplane arrived there more or less airworthy and I would not be surprised to learn that it never flew again....

https://www.airliners.net/photo/Reev...ectra/938868/L

WHBM

Stand by to be surprised ! Having arrived around 2001, it was sat at Coventry (near Birmingham), home of Air Atlantique's DC-6 and Electra fleet, for about 10 years contributing parts, THEN was got back airworthy again, goodness knows where they got the replacement parts, and flown transatlantic (!) around 2011 to purchaser Buffalo Airways, in Red Deer, Alberta. They don't seem to have used it either, last report of it was derelict there a couple of years ago, still in Reeve colours.

Somewhat complicated because there was another Electra, once with NWT Air, reg C-FIJV, which ended up operating with Air Atlantique at the same time, re-reg G-FIJV (saves on paint I suppose), finally retired shortly after the Reeve departed . Meanwhile when the Reeve aircraft was flown back over, Buffalo got it the registration ... C-FIJV. I think there are broken up hulks of both aircraft still lying around at their respective final points.

Incidentally, back 20-30 years ago, the other UK-based Electra operator was Channel Express, a freight forwarder based at Bournemouth who originally started (with Heralds) flying freight to/from Jersey in the Channel Islands, and who developed a substantial Electra fleet running air mail and night cargo runs, some contracts indeed going back and forth between the two. They progressed through QC 737s, which they did for some time run on night cargo and day passenger work, slowly the latter prevailed, and have transitioned the name to the nowadays substantial Jet2 holiday flight operation, still with the callsign Channex and flight code EXS. I guess chairman Philip Meeson, in charge throughout, can't let go of its origins !

Gardyloo

I logged a lot of BIS time in the RV Electras over the years, and thought you might enjoy this video covering some Electra flights in the late 1990s, including ops at SDP and DUT. Both airports needed their runways lengthened in the '80s in order to accommodate bigger planes than the RV YS-11s that had been used previously. This was very expensive because water depths at both ends of both runways were very deep, but political lobbying by many, including yours truly, eventually got the State to cough up the required funding. (I had stopped working in the region before the projects were complete.) Ironically, RV went tango uniform shortly after this video was shot.

In the part of the video shot from the cockpit at DUT you can see a Grumman Goose parked on the ramp. I was on that plane's predecessor when we ground looped on a wheels-down landing right at that same spot in the early 1980s. (The plane I was on later crashed, claiming two lives.) Yahoo, ride 'em, cowboy!

Seat 2A

JoeDTW

There seems to be a lull here right now, so here's a four question "mini quiz" based on Ozark's December 15, 1976 timetable.

1. Ozark had six flights a day from DEN, with nonstops to two cities. Name the city that had 4x day nonstops from DEN, and the city with 2x day nonstops.

Answered: 4x day to SUX and 2x day to ALO.

2. At 9:35 AM, a flight departs DEN for LGA, and makes four intermediate stops. The first stop is the city served 4x day. Name the stops.

3. At 10:05 AM, a flight departs DEN for ORD, and makes three intermediate stops. The first stop is the city served 2x day. Name the stops.

4. By 1976, Ozark was phasing out their FH 227s as quickly as possible. Most of their flights from MSP had been upgraded to DC-9s. However, OZ still had two FH-227 flights from MSP. Both flights made the same three enroute stops, to the same final destination. Name the three stops and the final destination. Hint: STL was neither the final destination nor an enroute stop.

Seat 2A

Thanks for the questions, Joe!

1. Ozark had six flights a day from DEN, with nonstops to two cities. Name the city that had 4x day nonstops from DEN, and the city with 2x day nonstops.

I remember Ozark's Denver DC-9s well whilst perusing the OAG back in the day. I'll go with Waterloo, Iowa for the four daily nonstops and... Sioux City for the two.

BTW, yesterday marked the 50th anniversary of my first flight aboard a DC-10

JoeDTW

You have the two cities correct, but you guessed wrong about the frequencies. SUX was served 4x day, and ALO was served 2x day.

The inspiration for these questions came when I was reading an article in a back issue of Classic Trains by the late David Ingles about a trip in the mid 1970s to Minnesota, the Dakotas, and Iowa. He said at the end of the trip, he flew home from SUX on an Ozark DC-9, and he thought a friend flew from SUX to DEN on a WA 737.

Of course, all of us know that WA served FSD but not SUX, so I looked in an old OAG to see how his friend might have gotten from SUX to DEN...and I was surprised to see OZ flew the route 4x day.

WHBM

Must be round about now the 50th anniversary of my first flight aboard Dan-Air

(it was one of their onetime-American BAC One-Elevens, alas not a Comet).

jrl767

well, as long as we’re citing memorable flight anniversaries, I’ll ring in with a pair from 48 years back:

• 5 June was my fourth and final flight on a Convair 880 (N816TW, TWA 387, EWR-ORD)
• 6 June was my first and only flight on a Hawker Siddeley HS.748 (N748LL, Air Illinois 704, CGX-CAP-ENL-MDH)

jrl767

32- must have been a 747-200 on the first flight, and the A310 most likely put down at Nairobi/NBO en route to LOS