Seat 2A

A big ^^ to jrl22! It's no fun to just look up the answer.

Being an aviation geek (as opposed to a true aviation historian like WHBM !) I used to pick up used OAGs from travel agencies and read through them looking for everything from where the widebodies were routed to looking for new airlines and their routes and aircraft. On a couple occasions I actually went page by page through the OAG and made a chronological record of every single flight departing DEN. I had way too much free time on my hands! Still, I had a pretty good memory and it was always fun to add to the database with a new OAG. Even now, if I were to procure a mid-sixties OAG you know I'd be pouring through it looking for where the 990s and 720s and Electras and DC-8s et al were flying to. It's still fun to give the memory banks a work out with these questions.

BTW, I got home last night. It's sunny and -5F here in Fairbanks - just perfect after perpetually muggy Jakarta last week! And now if you'll excuse me, I've got 583 new airliner postcards to sort and install in their binders.

jrl767

unfortunately if you were indeed "pouring" thru an old OAG it wouldn't be very useful for very much longer

I spent far too many hours between Sep 71 and Jun 76 poring over the OAGs in my college library ... that's how I found a lot of interesting trips that I actually took, and a lot more that only resided in the land of fantasy and wishful thinking

I've mentioned a couple of the former well upthread, but here's one of the latter that might generate some interest:

What was likely the last scheduled passenger service (at least identified in the North American OAG) operated by a Lockheed Constellation? as I recall, this was in the Dec 73 - Jan 74 timeframe

Seat 2A

I'm thinking it'd have to be something down in the Caribbean, maybe out of the Dominican Republic...

jrl767

that is the one I remember

Aerovias Quisqueyana (QQ) operated a Santo Domingo DR (SDQ) to San Juan (SJU) turn with a Lockheed L-749A ... I don't think it was a daily flight, maybe 3x/week

Seat 2A

There may have been some beer spilled. Sorry - that's what I get for typing too fast!

WHBM

No, Mrs WHBM would like it to be known that Geek is the word here as well !

And seeing as I also used to pick up ABCs (the rest-of-the-world equivalent of OAG) from travel agencies when I was still in school, I can't deny it.

jlemon

Yep, I picked up out of date OAGs from travel agencies as well when I was in high school.....and if I recall correctly, I may have even been thrown out of one for being a pest and asking too many questions! Plus, at that point, I think I knew more about pax airline scheds from Houston Hobby (IAH had yet to open) than some of the travel agents!

Speaking of Hobby Airport (HOU), it was an excellent place to view airliners back in the late 1960's as the observation decks were outside on the top of the concourses. I still remember my first sightings of an American B720 (without the horizontal spike projecting forward from the top of tail), a Braniff BAC One-Eleven, a Delta CV-440, a KLM DC-8, a Trans-Texas Airways (TTa) DC-9, etc., etc......

And speaking of the first four engine Boeing jetliner, what was the purpose of the aforementioned spike on the tail of the B707 and why did some models such as certain B720s not have this spike?

I'm looking forward to the responses to this question as I'm not quite sure of the answer!

cs57

I thought the spike was a radio antenna.

jlemon

That's what I thought as well.....however, some B720 aircraft had this spike while others did not.......and therein lies the heart of the question.

WHBM

My understanding is that it is the HF radio antenna. This is the radio used on trans-ocean flights far from any radio base. If the aircraft was not going to be used for trans-ocean flights this option was not bought.

jlemon

Ah, that makes perfect sense.....thanks, WHBM!

Looking at photos of B720 aircraft that were operated by U.S. based airlines, it appears that American (B720-023 and B720-023B equipment with the latter type being equipped with turbofan engines) and United (B720-022 aircraft) did not order their respective B720s with the HF radio antenna as none have the distinctive antenna spike......and I do not believe that AA and UA ever operated the B720 on trans-ocean routes.

However, it also appears that all of the new B720s operated by Braniff International (B720-027), Continental (B720-024B), Eastern (B720-025), Northwest (B720-051B), Pacific Northern (B720-062) and Western (B720-047B) were equipped with the HF radio antenna. Western, of course, did operate their turbofan powered B720s on nonstop trans-ocean routes between the western U.S. and Hawaii as part of their "Islander" service while I believe Braniff operated their B720s between the U.S. and Latin America.....and the few photos I've seen of Pan Am B720-030B equipment show these aircraft were equipped with the HF radio antenna as well.

WHBM

Just to clear up this sneaked-in supplementary, BOAC and BEA didn't merge into British Airways until 1974, so it was the former still the operator. Separately, while I think it's quite known that British United Airways (BUA) and Caledonian merged to form British Caledonian, at the end of 1970, for their first year they traded under a different name, of "Caledonian/BUA". All the BUA aircraft were repainted in the Caledonian blue/gold colours, which continued as the B. Cal scheme later, and the whole fleet got the new titles. A year later and the name was changed again to British Caledonian. The error in the timetable I was looking at was it still referred to BUA some months after the takeover.

Here's a VC-10 with Caledonian/BUA titles :

http://www.airliners.net/photo/Caled...81ceea340f17c1

jlemon

LAST CALL for the above quiz items! And if there are no takers, I'll provide the answers tomorrow afternoon on the eve of Thanksgiving.....

jrl767

Pan Am's customer designator was -21; -30 is Lufthansa ... were those jets original LH orders that were ultimately delivered to (or taken up by) PA?

jrl767

USAir was, I believe, still operating ex-Piedmont (ex-Empire) F-28s in the southeast ... Charlotte would be an obvious route, possibly Ft Lauderdale at the other end


the painfully obvious guess is United via Denver, perhaps with a 737-300 ... which means one, two, or all three are likely wrong <g>


in addition to their nonstop LAX-JFK service using a 727-100, I seem to recall that MGM Grand Air had a couple flights via LAS ... and for some reason I associate a DC8-62 with MGM Grand in addition to the 727