miniliq

Let's try First Air (7F) and Canadian Pacific (CP) both with 737s. First Air also had a couple of 727 combis which may have been used on that route.

jlemon

Correct! This was the only Vanguard service that was listed in the Air Canada international timetable at this time, although domestic flights with the four engine turboprop were still being operated by AC in Canada. Here are the scheds.......

AC 496: Dep. Halifax (YHZ) 0925, Arr. Bermuda (BDA) 1115
Op: Sat. only - nonstop service
Equip: Vickers Vanguard - two class F/Y service

AC 497: Dep. Bermuda (BDA) 1715, Arr. Halifax (YHZ) 2100
Op: Sat. only - nonstop service
Equip: Vickers Vanguard - two class F/Y service

I do not think the Vanguard was operated much longer by Air Canada (although I seem to remember seeing one at YYZ in the fall of 1971). AC, of course, was the only operator of the type in North America as we have previously discussed.

BTW, by the late winter of 1976, Air Canada was flying nonstop Halifax-Bermuda twice a week with a DC-8. And AC was also flying twice a week nonstop YYZ-BDM as well as twice a week nonstop YUL-BDM with DC-8s at this time......

jlemon

15) Air France with B747-200 service is correct! Actual routing was CDG-IAH-MEX, of course.....

And Pan Am with the L1011-500 is correct as well! However, over the years, PA flew two other wide body types between IAH and MEX as well. What were they?

jrl767

what other wide-body jets did PA fly?
747-100
747SP
A300
A310
DC-10 (from NA)

I'll guess the 747-100 and the A310

jlemon

11) Correct! At one point, AA was flying three round trips a day with the DC-10 between AUS and DFW as well as one B767-200 round trip per day. And this was in addition to six or seven other flights a day operated by American AUS-DFW with B727-200 and/or MD-80 equipment.

BTW, the DC-10 and B767 flights were operated into the old Austin airfield, Robert Mueller Municipal Airport, before all commercial operations were moved to the former Bergstrom Air Force Base where they remain at present. I flew on an AA DC-10 from AUS to DFW from the old airport in F back in the day.......

jlemon

12) An excellent guess, sir! However, one of the air carriers was not First Air (7F). Here are the northbound scheds.....

AC* 8951: YEG-YZF-YCB
Op: Mon., Weds. and Fri. only
Equip: 737
Note: AC* 8951 operated by Northwest Territorial Airways (NV)

CP 446: YEG-YZF-YCB-YRB
Op: Weds. and Sat. only
Equip: 73M Combi

You are also correct with regard to First Air 72M Combi operations in the region back in the day. In fact, at this time, First Air was operating Hawker Siddeley 748 turboprops into Cambridge Bay in sched ops - but not jet aircraft.

In addition, CP Air also operated 72M Combi equipment in this far northern area of Canada at one point and I believe this particular aircraft type was inherited by CP from Pacific Western (PW).....

jlemon

15) Very close! The two other wide body aircraft types operated by Pan Am IAH-MEX over the years were the B747 and the DC-10.

Seat 2A

A couple of years ago I was looking at a website dedicated to the MD-11. I just happened to have bookmarked it and it has quite a spread covering this subject. You can check it out HERE

jlemon

10) A truly excellent response from Seat 2A!

One might say the most prolific air carrier on this list is Singapore Airlines (SQ)......and that's the answer I was looking for.

However, this is first rate information and very much appreciated!

BTW, here's an interesting update to quiz item 11) above concerning wide body flights into Austin (AUS) which was also correctly answered by Seat 2A:

Effective in March of 2014, British Airways (BA) will initiate B787 service nonstop between LHR and AUS. Previously, the only international service flown nonstop from Austin has been to Mexico.

Back when I was attending the University of Texas at Austin in the early 70's, the old airport had flights operated by only three airlines: Braniff International (which was the dominant carrier back then), Continental and Texas International. And shortly after that time, Southwest began flying into Austin as an intrastate air carrier.....

miniliq

I don't know if this is a "name," but wasn't it supposed to represent contrails?

jlemon

2) Well, they certainly look like contrails! However, I believe the term for this Continental logo was actually a stylized "jetstream".

miniliq

For sure the one for flights originating in Europe was Gander,(YQX); for the other stop I at first thought of SMA (Santa Maria) in the Canary Islands, where I remember stopping in 1966 on a CP DC-8 flight from Lisbon to Montreal. But I finally found some old Cubana timetables that show a stop in Sal (SID), in Cape Verde, on the flight from Luanda, Angola (LAD) to Havana. However the Cubana timetables don't indicate it as a technical stop like Gander -- perhaps they did have passenger rights there. I think SID was also used by SAA for refueling on the JNB-NYC run.

WHBM

Cubana used pretty much all the "usual suspects" across the Atlantic for refuelling. Shannon was a favourite headed for northern points like Prague, and at the times when they served Moscow (which was intermittent), as they could buy the Soviet fuel there paid for with the Rubles from the sale of Cuban agricultural goods (principally sugar and bananas) sent by sea. Gander was also regularly used. However, as the main gateway to Europe for them was always Madrid, Santa Maria in the Azores was more often a stopping point. If the westbound weather prevented a direct Santa Maria to Havana flight, Bermuda was used as an intermediate stop.

Cuba developed a considerable trade with Angola, through its capital Luanda, once a Cuban-backed regime came to power there, and there were extensive operations which worked through Sal Island, and not just scheduled flights but also military charters. The last Bristol Britannia passenger operations anywhere, into the 1990s, were on such trips, Cubana aircraft becoming rebranded as Aerocaribbean. Ilyushin 18 prop aircraft and Ilyushin 62 jets were also used extensively.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/steelhead2010/8449166308/

Cubana had a number of short-haul Antonov 24 prop aircraft, which required returning every few years to the Antonov factory in Kiev for overhaul. Their predecessors, the Ilyushin 14s, had been dismantled and sent to and fro as deck cargo by sea, in the same manner as the IL-14s which supported the Soviet bases in Antarctica were sent to/fro, but the An-24s were flown. Typical route from Havana was through Nassau, Bermuda, Yarmouth NS, Gander, Rekyavik or Shannon, Prague and on to Kiev, but the stopping points and route varied with the weather. Notably, they never lost one doing what looks like quite a fraught operation.

jrl767

I have to guess this was AA since their MIA hub was pretty active by 1994; equipment was most likely the MD-80


just to start the conversation, let's try Continental -- operating at various times their DC-10, A300, and 747

jlemon

14) Great response! The basis for this quiz item appears in the back of the October 1993 Worldwide Edition of the OAG. As some may recall, individual air carriers had the opportunity to include specific information concerning their respective services in an "Information Section of the OAG Desktop Flight Guide - Worldwide Edition". This particular section of this OAG had information provided by such airlines as Aero Peru, Air India, Air Mauritius, Aviateca, CSA, Cyprus Airways, Ecuatoriana, Egyptair, Faucett, Lloyd Aero Boliviano Airlines, Pakistan Airlines, Royal Air Maroc, Royal Jordanian, Syrian Arab Airlines, TACA International, Tarom, Varig, VASP.....and Cubana. Some of these carriers provided timetable information in this section besides basic marketing material such as route maps that were most likely targeted at travel agents who subscribed to the OAG. Such was the case with Cubana (CU). From the CU timetable in this OAG, here are the westbound scheds with the technical stops....

CU 471: Madrid (MAD) to Havana (HAV) with a technical stop in Gander (YQX)
Dep. MAD 1530, Arr. YQX 1645, Dep. YQX 1745, Arr. HAV 2145
Op: Fridays only
Equip: Ilyushin L-62 (two class C/Y service)

CU 475: Brussels (BRU) to Basel/Mulhouse (BSL) to Havana (HAV) with a technical stop in Gander (YQX)
Dep. BRU 1230, Arr. BSL 1400, Dep. BSL 1530, Arr. YQX 1815, Dep. YQX 1915, Arr. HAV 2315
Op: Sundays only
Equip: Ilyushin IL-62 (two class C/Y service)

CU 479: Berlin (Schoenefeld-SXF) to Havana (HAV) via a technical stop in Gander (YQX)
Dep. SXF 1430, Arr. YQX 1800, Dep. YQX 1900, Arr. HAV 2300
Op: Saturdays only
Equip: Ilyushin IL-62 (two class C/Y service)

CU 473: Moscow (SVO) to Brussels (BRU) to Havana (HAV) with a technical stop in Gran Canaria (LPA)
Dep. SVO 1345, Arr. BRU 1500, Dep. BRU 1615, Arr. LPA 1915, Dep. LPA 2045, Arr. HAV 2359
Op: Sundays only
Equip: Ilyushin IL-62 (two class C/Y service)

So the two technical stops I was looking for here are Gander in New Foundland and Gran Canaria in the Canary Islands......and there were no tech stops made on the eastbound routes with the IL-62.

BTW, Cubana was operating DC-10 service to and from Europe at this time as well. Westbound routes included ORY-HAV, MAD-HAV and MAD-SCU-HAV. None of these flights were operated on a daily basis.