jlemon

Boeing 737. As in series -100, -200, -300, -400, -500, -600, -700, -800 and -900 which when taken all together have carried over one billion passengers, I believe.

Seat 2A

7. (in 1966) Three airlines operated Convair 990s into Rio de Janeiro. Varig and Swissair were two of them. What was the third?

Per WHBM: Can I take a pop at Aero Peru please.
Per Icecat: I don't think Aero Peru was in business yet. So I'm going with Peru flag carrier prior to Aero Peru which I believe was
Aérolíneas Peruanas. They came up to LAX a couple of times a week from Rio with at least 2 stops, one being Lima.

Well you've both got the right country but icecat is correct that as of 1966 the airline was APSA or Aerolineas Peruanas. They ceased operations in 1971. AeroPeru got its start in 1973.

Seat 2A

9. This African airline offered nonstop Bristol Brittania flights between this west African city and London, Gatwick.

WHBM was onto this one with Sierra Leone Airways. There's a bit of an equipment discrepancy however as he has a timetable from 1964 that shows the flight operating with a VC10. Understandably, it would seem odd that the airline would revert to a Brittania two years later and yet that's exactly what my 1966 OAG indicates. So, when we get that one sussed out we'll get the information out here to you.

Finally, I'll post a new set of questions tomorrow. 'Nite now!

miniliq

FWIW, my 1967 OAG shows Sierra Leone Airways (LJ) with VC10 nonstop service from Freetown to Gatwick. It also shows Ghana Airways (GH) with VC10 nonstop service from Accra (ACC) to LHR.

miniliq

For your morning trivia -- here's another footnote regarding CAA -- it is also one the "obscure airline" minis in my collection;
also rare because it is the only mini I have of Gilbert's Gold Bond Whisky, produced in Salisbury, Rhodesia.

But probably because of its size and wide geographical coverage as noted by WHBM, CAA offered a wide range of drinks
-- I also have CAA-labeled bottles of Spanish sherry, South African wine, and Scotch.

WHBM

I'll just clarify some bits here; Sierra Leone Airways never ran to more than a couple of DeHavilland Heron and Twin Pioneer light aircraft operating domestic flights from Freetown, the capital, but were part owned by British United, who provided the aircraft for the once-weekly London nonstop run, initially in the early 1960s a Britannia, and then a VC10. I had "irrefutable" evidence that the changeover was 1964 - until S2A showed his 1966 OAG with a Britannia operating it, including running the old early-1960s way of outbound overnight and returning during the day, whereas the VC10 managed the out-and-back within a (long) day. So a good mystery to be solved. Fortunately there are still a couple of elderly gents here in the UK who were junior BUA Britannia First officers of the time.

Here's the UK "Flight" magazine annual 'World Airline Survey' for 1966, in their April issue, so same time as S2a's OAG, which says they use a VC10 - however, the text is exactly the same as appeared in the comparable April 1965 issue.

http://www.flightglobal.com/pdfarchi...0-%201084.html

There was never a huge amount of traffic, and later BUA mad the best of a bad job and when they got the UK to South America routes ran a VC10 London Gatwick-Freetown-Buenos Aires, using it as a halfway fuelling stop.

There was another BUA service from London Gatwick to Freetown (and beyond), not a mystery but an unusual, maybe unique, operation, with a small BAC One-Eleven 200. This left London on Tuesday morning for Lisbon and Las Palmas, Canary Islands, where it made a night stop. Continuing on Wednesday down the west African coast, it served Bathurst in Gambia, Freetown, and Accra in Ghana. It made an equally leisurely way home on Thursday and Friday, only flying about 6 hours a day. It was the very last of the stopping flights from Britain overseas, and lasted well into the 1970s with British Caledonian. One crew (two pilots, two flight attendants, and I believe they may have always taken a licensed flight engineer with them to attend to any technical issues along the way) stayed with the aircraft throughout. Now we don't wish to embarrass any of those fine and upstanding elderly gentlemen referred to above regarding their youthful years, but after three days together, when back in the hotel in Las Palmas on the homeward stretch .......... possibly why passengers and crew were booked into different hotels there.

Seat 2A

Right on, jlemon. It's hard to imagine another airliner family beating the 737's totals in our lifetimes.

That's an impressive collection there, mini! How did you come across the CAA whiskey? Hopefully on the flight!

And finally, a big thank you to WHBM for his contribution toward unraveling the LJ equipment mystery. My guess would be that the schedule and equipment presented in my OAG are in error.

Seat 2A

While jlemon enjoys a well-deserved rest from researching more questions, I’m thankful to have had enough free time over the past week so that I could come up with a few more for y’all. Additionally, I’d like to apologize for a minor gaffe in the last batch of questions, mainly listing Heathrow rather than Gatwick as the airport served by Sierra Leone Airways. To that end, I take no offense to any corrections offered. Additionally, I am always happy to provide my sources of information for any given answer should there be any questions about it.

Finally, I must beg your indulgence if I don't get around to responding to your answers until later this evening. I've got jury duty today and am not sure that I'll be home before 5:30pm AST. (8:30pm CST)

As always, please limit your answers to no more than two or three questions at a time so that others may also have a chance to participate.

1. What was the first U.S. charter airline to operate jets? What kind of jet was it?

2. What long standing practice did Boeing cease starting with the introduction of its 787 line? A N S W E R E D

3. Which airline was the launch customer for the B737-200 Combi passenger/freighter aircraft? A N S W E R E D

4. What was the first non-British airline to order the DeHavilland Comet? P E N D I N G

5. What was the first Canadian airline to order the 737?

6. BOAC commenced jet service across the Atlantic in 1958 with the deHavilland Comet. What was mainland Europe's first airline to operate a jet across the Atlantic? What route was it? What equipment was it? A N S W E R E D

7. Name the only two Scandinavian passenger airlines to operate the Boeing 727 PARTIALLY A N S W E R E D

8. This airline’s 707s had pianos installed in the First Class cabins to entertain its premium customers during their flights. What airline was it? A N S W E R E D

9. This country’s Prime Minister was arrested for violation of Foreign Exchange and Foreign Trade Control Laws following his role in a scandal involving the sale of L-1011s to this airline. What was the country and the airline involved? A N S W E R E D

10. What was the routing on South African Airways initial 707 service between Johannesburg and New York? A N S W E R E D

11. What happened to Braniff’s first 707-227? What happened to the remaining four aircraft? A N S W E R E D

12. What was the only passenger operator of the Canadair CL-44 turboprop? A N S W E R E D

13. This airline had a glass-fibre, Teflon coated shield on the underside of its two 727-100s. What airline was this and why the need for the teflon shield?

14. What was the first airline to operate the Boeing 720 on transatlantic services?

15. What was different about the six Sud Aviation Caravelles operated collectively by Air Afrique, Air Congo and TransEuropa?

The following six questions are based upon schedules published in a 1988 OAG

16. This was the only Canadian airline to operate Airbus equipment in 1988. Name the airline and the types of equipment operated.

17. Seven different airlines operated nonstop 747 flights between the United States and Canada. Three of these airlines offered service on the same route. All other airlines and their routes flown were unique. Identify the airlines and the routes flown. PARTIALLY A N S W E R E D

18. This airline offered the only DC-10 service between Los Angeles and Miami.

19. Only four airlines operated Airbus equipment in the U.S. in late 1988. Can you identify them? A N S W E R E D

20. Name the only Colorado ski resort town to enjoy nonstop service from both the east and west coast. Which airline served this town? From where?

21. Name the only airline offering nonstop service on the JAX-MIA route with five flights per day.

The following nine questions are based upon schedules published in a 1983 OAG

22. You want to fly from San Diego to Orlando with just a single connection in New Orleans. Oh yeah – you want one of the flights to be on a DC-8. What airline do you call? A N S W E R E D

23. This airline operated the only DC-8-61/63 service between New York JFK and Miami

24. Name the four Canadian airlines that offered nonstop service between Toronto and Montreal.

25. Only one airline flies nonstop from Midland/Odessa, Texas to Los Angeles. Identify the airline and the equipment used.

26. Five different airlines operated nonstop flights between Dallas and St. Louis. They each operated different types of aircraft. Identify the airlines operating the following aircraft:
727-100
727-200
747-200
DC-9-30
DC-9-80 A N S W E R E D

27. Although the BAC-111 was flown by many US airlines before and after 1983, in the summer of 1983 only four U.S. airlines were operating it. Can you identify them? PARTIALLY A N S W E R E D

28. Name the only two airlines still operating scheduled domestic flights with the 707 PARTIALLY A N S W E R E D

29. Name the three airlines that operated Convair turboprops into Cleveland A N S W E R E D

30. You want to fly a 767 between either Calgary or Edmonton and Vancouver. Which airline do you call to book your reservation? A N S W E R E D

jrl767

it was lost about 60 miles from Seattle on a customer familiarization flight the day before scheduled delivery ... don't recall the exact circumstances of the accident, but I believe the two BN pilots were killed and the Boeing pilot and BN Flight Engineer survived

I seem to recall that BWIA took up the others after Braniff withdrew them from service, but that seems surprising given that the engine configuration was unique to BN for their "high and hot" South American ops

I can get three of them ...
American, A300
Continental, A300
Pan Am, A300 and A310


one was certainly TWA, because I flew STL-DAY that summer en route from SEA to AF Reserve duty at Wright-Patterson AFB, and the reverse on the way home two weeks later

miniliq

Nice bunch of questions -- some will require a lot of digging. So here's my first attempts:

8. I do remember the piano on Continental's widebody from IAH-LAX, but the only 707 that I heard was outfitted that way in earlier years was Olympic Airways, so that's my guess.

29. I think those were Wright Airlines (FW), Air Ontario (GX), and Freedom Airlines Inc. (DN).

30. This is closer to my experience base. Although PW had 767 service YYC-YVR, I pick Air Canada for service from both YYC and YEG.

moondog

Eastern used to run A300s between BOS and LGA... and maybe to other places.

Track

12. What was the only passenger operator of the Canadair CL-44 turboprop?

Loftleidir

jrl767

I thought Eastern was gone by 1988, but they didn't shut down until 1991 ... so that makes me think that CO was probably a bad guess (I think they took up the A300s after EA folded)

how about one of the Braniff reincarnations in 1988, possibly the inaugural A320 operator in the US

Seat 2A

Seat 2A