miniliq

Well, if it was Africa, I know SU flew MOW-RBA (Rabat) -HAV, but not through SNN; so that leaves North America -- with Managua (MGA) being the likely candidate. So I'll substitute MGA for KIN.

miniliq

PS-84

WHBM

Well, we have to award the "tough" question to our man from New Orleans, with a prize of, oh, maybe a bottle of Russian Dagestan cognac ^ (still not available in the west, it leaves the Martell stuff way behind). Because he's got all the stopping points. Maybe not all in the same post, but never mind .....

So. SU343 left Moscow Sheremetyevo at 1510 on Wednesdays, for : Luxembourg. Rabat (Morocco). Havana. Kingston. and Lima. What a fun trip that must have been, end-to-end.

In-flight catering ? Well it was all loaded at Moscow, covering outward and return. Actually I think Aeroflot may have had a catering base at Havana as well, but the crews did a lot of preparation on board with raw materials compared to nowadays. Tomatoes and cucumbers in profusion, of course (as at every Russian meal). Salmon. Black bread. Spiced cheeses. Various meats, some with rice. Vodka. "Champanska". Dagestan cognac. Georgian wine.

Not everything headed for Havana went through Shannon, the Soviets sensibly spread their options around. On the long transatlantic sector on this route you also have the Azores and Bermuda near at hand, if needed.

jrl767

I'd have to say the BAC 1-11 flight was operated by TAROM (Romania), quite possibly with the jets built under license in that country

the obvious (and, in keeping with the nature of many of these quiz questions, probably wrong) guess for a Caravelle is Air France; would the other be Finnair?

miniliq

I was hung up on Shannon -- couldn't imagine SNN-Rabat -- thanks for straightening that out.

BTW, I thought for a minute that I was going to show you a photo of a miniature Dagestan Cognac (produced in Kizlyar) from my collection -- but my memory failed me -- when I checked I found I have a couple of Russian "Cognacs" from the Dagvino Distillery in St. Petersburg. The name similarity fooled me. Now if you happen to have a mini from Dagestan, I would very much like to acquire it! (And for that matter, any minis with Aeroflot ID on them -- I have 95 different airlines represented, but SU is noticeably absent, although I do have Rossiya (FV)).

WHBM

Two out of three, very good ! Just the Wednesday Tarom flight from Bucharest is a One-Eleven, the other two per week are on their Tu154.

Likewise for Finnair, their Super Caravelle does just two of their weekly Moscow frequencies from Helsinki, the other four being on a DC9. However, whereas Air France was then, like nowadays, well represented at Moscow, the other single weekly Caravelle was an airline's sole flight to Moscow - and was coming from a very different direction.

WHBM

I really don't like to rub my good friend miniliq's nose in it, but I have here a few different - not miniatures, but bottles of this pleasant stuff, of varying ages. This includes one that came back inside my suitcase with me from Russia just two weeks ago. Look, I've got friends and relations over there. If they saw me coming back with just a little miniature of it they would be certain I was mad. Those would be gone in a single gulped shot over there ! I'll have to hold some for after dinner at the Old Airliners Thread convention in London.

I can tell you where it came from, it's here, what is just titled as an unassuming grocery shop, but they have a stock of hundreds. If you zoom in you can just see the bottles in the window. And there are even better selections elsewhere in the city. The east side of Ligovskiy Prospekt, as you walk away from the Moskovskiy railway station, has several such specialist shops all together.

https://maps.google.co.uk/?ll=59.956...2,8.52,,0,6.97

Sorry everyone else, has as much to do with Old Airliners as lawnmowers do !

miniliq

I just got off my lawnmower -- and I must politely disagree -- it was all of the old time flights that got me started collecting miniatures -- and led to a very large collection that I keep adding to on my occasional mileage runs. IIRC way upthread I even posed some questions about the special cocktails that were made for in-flight distribution by some of the airlines back in the 1970s.

But yes, we do digress from the current questions.

So, in reply to question 24 -- I think SU used a TU154 on the Moscow to Dar es Salaam milk run.

jrl767

Middle East from Beirut certainly seems plausible

Track

WHBM

Well done Track, three out of four here.

(8) Afraid the pioneer Tu144 route was to elsewhere. The destination city has a slightly different name nowadays.

(13) Shannon was indeed where the Soviet jet fuel facility was established, in the late 1970s, and just before the end of Soviet times there could be up to 10 Aeroflot aircraft passing through in a day. At first they and their friends were the only users, but after a while it was offered to all, once some cautious sampling had established that the fuel was perfectly up to Jet A-1 specification. It was of course sold to the "others" (including Aer Lingus' transatlantic operation) in US dollars !

(18) Yes, the remaining once-weekly Caravelle was indeed Syrian Arab Airlines, operating Damascus-Kiev-Moscow. Syrian were one of the last mainstream Caravelle operators, their Super Caravelles with P&W JT8D engines instead of the traditional Rolls-Royce Avons had been some of the last built. Syrian did the same with their 727s, which were still around in passenger service to a few years ago.

(24) Indeed, these marathon, infrequent, stops-everywhere flights from Moscow across Africa and southern Asia were, by 1980, in the hands of Tu154s, although not too long beforehand they had all been on Ilyushin 18 prop aircraft. In the 1980 timetable some African points were served less than weekly, and a couple just once a month. The one quoted, that ended up in Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania, was less usual as it used an economy class only Tu154. Every Aeroflot domestic flight was one class only, but the overseas flights, including those to other socialist states, were in the majority providing first class as well, even in the small Tu134s. However, there were a few exceptions, and this was one of them. There seems no rhyme or reason to which ones were picked for no first class. Aeroflot served just about every state in Africa, with the obvious exception at the time of South Africa, even serving more points than Air France and UTA combined, although at low frequencies. Who was on board ? Diplomats, "economic advisers", while going the other way, any Russian academic from those times will tell you that Soviet universities all had a quota of "international students", who came from places scattered round the world, all paid for. Teaching was of course in Russian, and what those from equatorial countries made of winter temperatures in Leningrad below minus 30 can only be imagined !

jlemon

Ah, the old Russian monster.....

I believe this is the Mil V-12 which would have been known as the Mil MI-12 had it gone into serial production.....however, I think only two were actually manufactured back in the late 1960s. Many years ago, I saw a video of one actually flying and it was amazing to watch as I believe the Mil V-12 remains the largest helicopter ever built. NATO assigned the name "Homer" to this rotorcraft.

The V-12 has four turboshaft engines. In VTOL operations, it could transport 55,000 lbs. And in STOL operations (the V-12 is a wheeled rotorcraft), I think it could carry even more weight. One of the primary payloads it was designed to transport was strategic missile components which could be dropped (hopefully gently) directly into missile silos back in the bad old days of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact.....

Somewhere in old Mother Russia, I think there's a V-12 on static display although I'm not sure of the location.....

miniliq

Fascinating -- I had to do some more research and found that the one on display is in an aviation museum at Monino, 25 mi east of Moscow -- you can see the V-12 in the lower right of this photo from wikipedia:

jlemon

Excellent information and photo from the man in the Crescent City!

Many thanks, miniliq!

Seat 2A

I've just recently returned from an evening on Kodiak Island where I joined a phalanx of FlyerTalkers at the The Great Alaska ADQ Do. Beautiful weather and a great group of people made for a pleasant - if brief - visit. I only flew down for dinner!

Spotty internet connections of late have allowed me to, after some difficulty, access Flyertalk, but not to post. Today the situation seems much improved. I've enjoyed the Q&A surrounding WHBM's latest set of well crafted questions. Alas, the ones I felt I knew the answer to have already been answered so I'll just sit back and enjoy the repartee. Thanks for the new batch of questions, WHBM!