jlemon

2) British Island Airways (BIA) with the BAC One-Eleven is correct! I believe two of the routes flown by the carrier on behalf of Air Florida were AMS-LGW and ZRH-MAD (perhaps WHBM can confirm this).....

7) Great Northern (UO) is correct! The four destinations served by the carrier were Deadhorse, Kotzebue, Nome and Unalakleet. Interestingly, at this same time, Wien Air Alaska (WC) was operating B737-200 Combi service into Prudhoe Bay while Great Northern was serving Deadhorse. So there were apparently two commercially served airfields in fairly close proximity up on the North Slope at this time.....

15) Well, I just knew our man by the Salish Sea could be counted on for this one! Pacific Western (PW) with the B737-200 is correct! Regina was not served but you were darn close! Here's the scheds, which were basically transcontinental milk runs....

PW 100: Vancouver (YVR) - Kelowna (YLW) - Calgary (YYC) - Brandon (YBR) - Thunder Bay (YQT) - Toronto (YYZ). Op: X6

PW 101: Toronto (YYZ) - Thunder Bay (YQT) - Brandon (YBR) - Calgary (YYC) - Kelowna (YLW) - Vancouver (YVR) Op: X6

And here's a bonus quiz item: In September of 1994, only one airline was operating jet service into Kelowna (YLW). Identify the air carrier and the equipment.

WHBM

BIA One-Elevens certainly operated various AF feeder flights from London Gatwick, I am aware of Amsterdam, Brussels, Dusseldorf and Zurich. I don't have any record of them doing operations away from their Gatwick base like Zurich to Madrid.

The US carrier who operated for Air Florida across the Atlantic was Rich International, one of the many Miami-based supplemental carriers, with DC8-62s. These ran for a while routes which did not justify a DC-10. They retained their Rich colours but with Air Florida titles.

Regarding the charter DC-10s, I can, alas, recall one operating from Manchester on, I see, 25 April 1980. I had gone to a business meeting about 10 miles SW of Manchester airport, and getting out of my car around 9 am I heard an aircraft climbing out, looked up, and saw a Dan-Air 727 emerge briefly from the clouds and then disappear again. Went inside, and when we stopped for lunch went outside and, in a now cloudless sky, saw the Air Florida DC-10 also climbing out with a charter for Orlando, an operation novel to Manchester that year. It would have been at just this moment that the Dan-Air 727 struck a mountainside at Tenerife, in the Canary Islands, at the end of its 4 hour flight as it descended in cloud to its holiday destination, with the loss of all on board. I was probably one of the last people to see it.

Seat 2A

jlemon, I think the answer above would apply to question number 5 rather (service to Kansas City) rather than question 3 (service to Dallas). Also, I seem to recall (but don't hold me to this...) that Central didn't convert its 240s into 600s until 1965. If that is true, the aircraft used in 1963 would likely be a CVR-240.

Okay - how about 16?

By the way, I now have a renewed confidence towards correctly answering question 5:

5) It's now the summer of 1967 and you are back in Pueblo (PUB). You need to travel to Kansas City (MKC). You are informed there is no nonstop service but there is a direct, no change of plane flight. What airline will you be flying on? Also identify the equipment flown on the route.

It was Central Airlines using a Convair 600 which had been converted from a Convair 240 with the installation of the illustrious Rolls-Royce Dart turboprop engines. The routing was Denver (DEN) - Pueblo (PUB) - Garden City (GCK) - Great Bend (GBD) - Hutchinson (HUT) - Kansas City (MKC).

jlemon

Whoops! My apologies! I misread your answer and thought you were responding to 5) and not 3)!

BTW, Central was operating the Convair 600 in 1967 which was the same year they were acquired by the original Frontier which in turn continued to operate the CV-600s for a time until they were retired while FL's Convair 580s continued to soldier on for quite some time.....

So let's back up here......

3) No, it was not Central flying direct service from PUB to DAL in 1963. It was another airline. And here's a hint: the aircraft was a turboprop.

4) There were more than 16 first class seats on board TTa's DC-9s at this time. Please guess again!

WHBM

That's correct, Central got the first two 600 conversions in 1965, the bulk coming in 1966-67 (indeed, the last was delivered after the Frontier takeover).

miniliq

As a former Albertan, I have to go for this one -- the "international" destination, in 1941, was Lethbridge (YQL), Alberta, with a DC-3 (the Douglas Mainliner) from Great Falls (GTF) with a stop in Cutbank (CTB), extending Western's route from SAN to YQL. Although I've driven through Lethbridge and Cutbank many times, my first Western flights were not until 1958, YYC nonstop to GTF on a DC-6B (if my sketchy notes are accurate).

As for the weather, we have guests arriving from YYC this week so in addition to the usual yard work I've been power washing a very long driveway for a few hours each of the last three days in the 85° sun. Some contrast to Seat 2A!

jlemon

Correct! Although the July 1, 1941 Western schedule I took a look at lists a Boeing 247D between operated between Los Angeles and Lethbridge with stops in Las Vegas, Salt Lake City, Pocatello, Idaho Falls, Butte, Helena, Great Falls and Cut Bank. Some of these were flag stops. In this schedule, connecting service is listed for San Diego via a stop in Long Beach. WA would later serve most of these smaller U.S. destinations in the intermountain west with L-188 Electras followed by B737-200s.....

cs57

Guessing again!

19) LGW/HNL/LGW (1993)
Caledonian Airways via YVR (Vancouver) using DC10 aircraft.

Seat 2A

It's a nice chilly morning here in Denali Park but we've got sunshine and 29°F at present, a big improvement over the snow and single digit wind chills experienced yesterday and the day before. I'm looking forward to my recertification run into the park in two hours. It looks to be a beautiful late winter day even though summer is only a month away on the calendar.

As for these questions, I'm going to keep plugging away at numbers 3 and 4 until I or someone else gets them right. Now then...


3) It's the summer of 1963 and you are in Pueblo, CO (PUB). And yes, you are in a local pub as well! You need to travel to Dallas Love Field (DAL). You ascertain there is no nonstop flight but there is direct, no change of plane service. What airline will you be flying on? Also identify the aircraft type flown on route.

Okay, so it's not Central but it is a turbo-prop. Hmm... I'm thinking Frontier inherited its Texas routes with the acquisition of Central and - if that's true - then the only other conceivable (to me, at least) turboprop operator would be Continental with the Vickers Viscount. I'm pretty sure Continental served PUB from Denver, Colorado Springs and Santa Fe so let's go with Continental, flying aboard a Viscount from Pueblo to Santa Fe to Albuquerque to Dallas. There may have been a stop in Lubbock as well...

4) Trans-Texas Airways (TTa) introduced its first jet service in 1966 with the DC-9-10. The aircraft were initially configured with first class and coach sections. How many first class seats were there up front?

Having flown aboard a few DC-9-10s, I find it hard to imagine a First Class cabin being much larger than 16 - especially back in the day when the seat pitch back in coach was typically about 34" and First Class was 38-40". I'd love to see a seatmap of that early TTa DC-9. In any event, let's move up in increments of four making my current answer 20 First Class seats.

jlemon

19) Ah, but it was another airline! However, you have correctly chosen the aircraft type twice now: the DC-10!

jlemon

3) Correct! It was good old Continental flying the Vickers Viscount II with two class service: F/T

Here's the sched.....

CO 274: DEN-COS-PUB-ABQ-DAL Op: Daily

Interestingly, the July 1963 CO timetable has a note concerning flight 274 stating that passengers could not be transported from DEN to DAL thus reflecting a lack of route authority for through flights from Denver to Dallas.....although enplaning pax at COS, PUB and ABQ on CO 274 could be transported to Dallas Love Field. Continental subsequently pulled out of the Pueblo market......

4) Correct again! The October 30, 1966 TTa system timetable notes the introduction of the DC-9 "Pamper-jet" with "20 seats in first class and 45 seats in coach" with on board cabin service being provided by "Pamper Belles"!

However, it appears the availability of first class seating on the Trans-Texas Nines was not a huge success as the August 1968 TTa system timetable notes that all DC-9 service was operated with Y class only.......and so it was when I took my very first flight on TTa in the late summer of 1968 on a DC-9-10 with a routing of HOU-DAL-MFE-ROW-ABQ-SAF.

jlemon

So the primary connecting airport (and most likely the only connecting point) between British Island Airways and Air Florida was LGW......

miniliq

You're right -- I missed the footnote in that schedule that referred to the 247D. The fascinating part of that schedule to me was the offer of a seven-night, 8-day train/motorcoach tour of Glacier, Waterton and Banff Parks (7 nights at the magnificent old railroad hotels, all of which I've stayed at) for the princely sum of $104.45! I shared a rented house in Waterton Lakes with two other engineers during the summers of 1959 and 1960, and we made many trips "across the border" to Many Glaciers to hang out with the college kids who staffed the hotels in the summer. I guess it's not really surprising that the questions on this forum trigger so many memories (fond and otherwise!).

jlemon

Although I also took another look at that old (and somewhat confusing) Western Air Lines schedule and it appears there was a "change of gauge" (old railroad term, I think) with regard to the equipment at Salt Lake City. If I'm reading the sched correctly, the aircraft was actually a DC-3 between Los Angeles and Salt Lake City and then a Boeing 247D between Salt Lake and Lethbridge.......

Wally Bird

Wild guess:

Cubana operated by AOM DC-10 via Havana