Seat 2A

Many thanks to you both for your recent and/or upcoming contributions.

We remain without Wi-Fi down in the park. HR's response is "We're working on it". They have a lot of other stuff to work on, too. Like many businesses in America, we're understaffed. Me thinks HR is a bit overwhelmed, so I should imagine restoring our Wi-Fi rates pretty low.

I could go out on the highway for Wi-Fi, but a driver shortage means we're driving double runs which equates to 12 hour days. Pretty much sleep and work and back to sleep. Grab food when you can.

I've got two days off and so have relocated to Ester. Ack! Lots of smoke! https://www.wunderground.com/severe/us/ak/ester/99725

Anyway, I'm taking a couple of OAGs back down to the park with me and will be working on some new questions in my down time from this forum.

Happy contrails, gang!

https://blm-egis.maps.arcgis.com/app...3cffeefcbe7f5e

JoeDTW

Correct. Here's the schedule for NC 586:

Lv BOS 0755, Ar DTW 0947 (Breakfast)
Lv DTW 1015, Ar AZO 1045
Lv AZO 1102, Ar SBN 1022
Lv SBN 1038, Ar ORD 1110

JoeDTW

Here are the remaining questions. I'll close them out at 1600 MSP time on Thursday, 30 June if there are no takers.

8. While you're spending the night in Omaha, you decide that since you've been to the easternmost, southernmost, and westernmost cities served by NC, you may as well fly to the northernmost city. From Omaha, you take a two stop to Sioux Falls, a three stop to Minneapolis, and a one stop to the northernmost city. What's the northernmost city, and how will you be getting there?

Partly answered: still waiting on correct intermediate stops between FSD and MSP. Routing is OMA-OFK-YKN-FSD-xxx-xxx-MKT-MSP-DLH-YWG.

9. After spending the night in the northernmost city, you retrace your route to MSP, then take a nonstop to MSP to ORD. By now, you're ready to go home. You think briefly about taking the traditional NC route from ORD to DTW via JXN, but then you see you can take a more northerly route, on one of NC's new DC-9-50s. Your flight makes three stops; what are they?

Not answered yet.

jrl767

okay, I know there's a VORTAC at Redwood Falls, but I don't think NC ever served RWF even in DC-3 days

the Omaha sectional shows the only two airfields with navaids between FSD and MKT are Worthington/OTG (VOR-DME) and Fairmont/FRM (DME), both pretty much directly east of FSD ... so that's what I'll guess


9- let’s try Milwaukee/MKE, Green Bay/GRB, and Grand Rapids/GRR

Track

Track

International questions! Yes, wonderful. I'm looking forward to them.

JoeDTW

8. Worthington and Fairmont are correct.

Here's the full "scenic route" between OMA and YWG: You're on NC 863 OMA-FSD, NC 865 FSD-MSP, and NC 329 MSP-DLH. The first two flights are on Convair 580s, and the last flight is on a DC-9-30

Lv OMA 0715, arrive OFK 0744 (Snack)
Lv OFK 0750, arrive YKN 0812 (Snack)
Lv YKN 0818, arrive FSD 0838
Lv FSD 1215, arrive OTG 0838
Lv OTG 1242, arrive FRM 1301
Lv FRM 1307, arrive MKT 1324
Lv MKT 1333, arrive MSP 1355
Lv MSP 1650, arrive DLH 1725
Lv DLH 1745, arrive YWG 1841 (Snack)

You've gotta like NC serving snacks on the first two flights of the trip, even though the flights are just half an hour long.

Not surprisingly, none of the cities between FSD and MSP have air service today. All of NC's cities north of MSP still have air service, mainly because they have become resorts that draw out of town visitors, and because many wealthy people in the MSP area have second homes and / or summer retirement homes nearby. However, because OTG, FRM, and MKT are agricultural, and all have decent road links, people who need to fly will land at FSD or MSP, then drive the rest of the way.

As you said, Redwood Falls has never had air service. However, the Redwood Falls VOR is one of Minnesota's most important navigational aids. Redwood Falls is where aircraft approaching MSP from southwestern cities like PHX, LAS, LAX, and DEN, get sequenced into a single line of aircraft for their approaches to MSP, and these flights also typically begin their descents near Redwood Falls.

9. MKE is correct, but neither GRB nor GRR are served by this flight.

jrl767

9- how about Muskegon/MKG and Lansing/LAN

JoeDTW

Correct! The schedule of NC 592, DC-9-50 Northliner service is:

Lv ORD 1540, Ar MKE 1610
Lv MKE 1635, Ar MKG 1801 (time change from CDT to EDT)
Lv MKG 1819, Ar LAN 1845
Lv LAN 1905, Ar DTW 1933

With this correct answer, we close out the quiz. Thanks to everyone who participated, or commented on it.

jrl767

here are three questions based on a 1983 international OAG

1983(a)- It’s been twelve very long and less-than-fully-productive days on the project in Guam. At your urging, the client has announced a three-week hiatus during which they will revisit the requirements, develop a new timeline, and reset their expectations. Not one to sit idly on a tropical island, you spend the weekend doing lots of OAG research and making a handful of long-distance phone calls.

You’ll depart on Monday afternoon for two weeks of cycling west to east along the Côte d’Azur. Your itinerary involves a trio of one-stop flights, all on different airlines, on jets with two, three, and four engines; you’ll have 2+10 for your first connection and 3+30 for the second.

Please identify the airline, equipment, and intermediate stop for each flight, both connecting airports, and the major airport at which you’ll arrive.

1983(b)- The first of your three flights back to Guam departs on Thursday afternoon. Since you nearly missed the interline connection to the long-haul flight on the outbound trip, you’ve decided to backtrack a bit to facilitate an online connection to the long flight on your return journey.

This trip also involves three different aircraft types; you have 1+20 for the online connection and 5+15 for the interline connection. One of the flights is a nonstop, one makes one stop, and one makes two stops. One airport and one aircraft type are repeats from your outbound itinerary.

We’re looking for the major airport from which you’ll depart, both connecting airports, and of course the airline, equipment, and intermediate stop/s for each flight.

1983(c)- A few days before you’re due to finally wrap up the Guam project, you receive a call from another client’s representative in Macao asking you to lead a team-building workshop for five of their staff. The client will host a reception at the conclusion of the workshop on Saturday, after which the six of you will proceed to Rio de Janeiro to meet their project manager at a Monday luncheon that will kick off a week of planning meetings.

It will obviously be a long trek to Brazil after the workshop, but you’ll only have to change planes once. It’s even possible that you’ll be on the same jet for both one-stop flights. Airline, equipment, and routing please.

ANSWERED

WHBM

Macao in 1983 didn't have an airport, but the usual way was to take the high-speed ferry across to Hong Kong (within sight), where the old Kai Tak airport provides a departure point.

If it's possibly the same aircraft then what about Japan Air Lines, on a 747, initially say Hong Kong-Osaka-Tokyo, then onward Tokyo-Los Angeles-Rio.

jrl767

1983(c)-
I must confess that this routing never crossed my mind … however, at this time in 1983, neither JL nor any other airline offered nonstop service LAX-GIG

the aircraft was indeed a 747, but in the interest of completeness we need the specific variant

YVR Cockroach

1983C, Let's try Lufthansa xHKG-DXB-FRA / FRA-GRU-GIG on a 747-200.

jrl767

1983(c)- unfortunately for this guess, all of LH’s one-stop HKG-FRA service was on DC-10s, and all their FRA-GIG service was nonstop

WHBM

The obvious carrier would be TAP (if this sounds strange, see the end), but they never served Asia.

Apart from Hong Kong, Macao could also be served by nearby Shenzhen or Canton in China, also connected by fast ferry boat, though I'm pretty sure in 1983 those was Chinese domestic only.

But it seems a European one. Now KLM, whose principal connecting traffic has long (back to the 1930s) been that from all round the UK, like anyone else were not allowed to run from Britain to Hong Kong, this being seen at the time as a "cabotage" variant of domestic traffic. Not only any direct flights, but even connecting through tickets were not allowed. So it wasn't as much of a point for them as might otherwise be. Further, I suspect they only had DC-10s at this time to South America, and maybe the Far East as well.

Air France, they were probably just number 2 to TAP on Europe to Brazil. Their first Concorde route had been Paris-Santa Maria, Azores-Rio, likely still running in 1983, which used to be THE way to go to Carnival at Rio, at least until all the wealthy Europeans had been robbed at gunpoint on the beach at Copacabana, and tourism fell off a cliff. Their mainstream service was likely a 747 as well, so lets go for that.

Intermediate stops ? Well there was only the 747-100/200 to play with then, which didn't have the range for Europe to Far East; a popular stop from Hong Kong was Bangkok, but they couldn't then get to Paris, it has to be somewhere more midpoint. The Gulf was not much of a place then, biggest commercial centre along the way would be Bombay, so lets go for Hong Kong-Bombay-Paris. On the South Atlantic run Lisbon was a popular stop, but I suspect Air France went nonstop to Brazil. Salvador, Recife, Manaus can all be early landfall points, Recife is the biggest, so what about Paris-Recife-Rio for the second leg.

Type of 747 issue ? There was only the initial 747 around then, so if making a point of this from the OAG, as we are, I can only think that a 747 Combi, 747M, was involved. Air France had a few of those. Hong Kong was long a huge departure point for air freight to Europe (and the US), there were still then lots of charter freight flights as well, apparently some UK freight carriers used to just turn up on spec there and wait for a load.

** Oh, and why the TAP reference ? Macao then was actually a Portuguese colony, as Hong Kong was a UK one. I don't think TAP ever ran a service there, but it used to appear in TAP timetables as connections (the only ones shown) from Lisbon, via various European points, to Hong Kong. And occasionally there was actually a TAP charter 707, the Portuguese president, a government delegation, etc, from Lisbon turning up there. I believe very little Portuguese was actually spoken except in official documents, but the ultimate government was there. And of course Brazil is the Portuguese-speaking onetime South American colony.