jlemon

And we have a beautiful afternoon in progress here in the LFT area with a cool, dry Canadian air mass in place with lots of sunshine. Our winter rye grass is growing like crazy, so for the first time in a quite awhile, it's time to crank up the ol' riding lawnmower (affectionately known as our "lil' tractor") and have at it!

WHBM

Now then, JL. No time for reading about old airlines.

All together now, gang :

"Oh ............
Get them dishes done, boy, get them dishes done ........"

jlemon

Not to mention getting the roses ready for the homecoming!

But, of course, looks like her inbound AA Eagle flight is delayed.....again.

Seat 2A

Although I didn't get to see it because it's -4°F and cloudy with light snow here in Fairbanks, I sure enjoyed the distinctive drone of those four Pratt & Whitney radial piston engines as a Northern Air Cargo (or was it Evert's Air Cargo?) DC-6 flew low over my cabin, most likely enroute to Galena or Tanana.

Hope things dry out soon in England! Now then, back to the trip report!

WHBM

A sound that has been notably decreasing here, even over the last few years. One of the upsides of living near London City is living near their VOR, and for those avoiding Heathrow airspace it is a handy waypoint. When there were a couple of cargo DC6As operated on odd freight flights here in Britain, up to just a few years ago, one would occasionally come over at night, invariably when cloudy, but an unmistakeable noise. Nowadays there's, believe it or not, an Antonov 24 twin turboprop freighter that comes over in the night from time to time.

But summer weekends bring quite regular appearences of warbirds and others as they make their way to or from various shows. You hear that big radial sound, and quick out into the garden to see, maybe a Catalina, maybe a B-17 or DC-3, maybe the preserved DC4 from the Netherlands.

So, a question. British Eagle was an old independent operator in the UK, with DC6s. Did they ever land at London City airport ?

jrl767

there is absolutely nothing like that sound of four big Pratt radials

jlemon

And speaking of old airplanes.....

Growing up in and then later living & working in various parts of southern and central California (notably in San Luis Obispo & Santa Barbara counties), one could not miss the old fire fighting air tankers flown by various private operators on seasonal contracts for the California Dept. of Forestry and U.S. Forest Service (USFS).

I remember one particularly large fire in the mountains of the Los Padres National Forest north of Santa Barbara. Fixed wing fire fighting aircraft were operating from the Santa Barbara Airport (SBA) where the USFS has an air tanker base (last time I checked, a retired and converted P-3 Orion, the U.S. Navy ASW version of the L-188 Electra, with a call sign of "Tanker 22" was seasonally based there during the summer and fall months). Talk about an interesting parade of aircraft converted to air tankers! The old birds fighting the fire included a B-17, a B-24, a C-119J (with an auxiliary turbojet mounted on a pylon above the wing box to assist in getting the heavily laden aircraft off the runway during takeoffs), a C-123, a DC-6, a DC-7 and several P-2V Neptunes. It was also interesting watching these old aircraft mix with arriving and departing United B727-200 and B737-200 aircraft back when SBA had UA mainline jet service to DEN and SFO.....

jlemon

I'll take a wild guess: once.

And perhaps the aircraft was then dismantled and removed from the airfield by truck (excuse me, lorry)......

WHBM

We have a US lady working in the office (married a Brit) who said one day that she was now used to saying biscuit for cookie, handbag for purse, and so on, but could never bring herself to call a truck a "luuuuuuurry".

Your number of landings is correct, JL, but as British Eagle went bankrupt 20 years before LCY even opened, there's more to it, inevitably. A few years ago the last DC6 operator in Europe painted one of their aircraft up in old British Eagle colours for a film, and it then came along into the little LCY runway for a summertime charity open day.

Oh, and it's departure was no issue at all, it used about half of the 4,500 foot runway. I can tell you this because, as you may have guessed by now, I was there ......

http://www.planepictures.net/netshow.php?id=751892

It still has those markings, although it's now in open storage at Coventry airport, near Birmingham. You can see it here, surrounded by a few other old stagers

https://maps.google.com/?ll=52.37012...01321&t=h&z=20

Seat 2A

This reminds me of the scene up here in Fairbanks where the Alaska Fire Service (based out of nearby Ft. Wainwright) used to operate a Boeing 377 (C-97) as part of its fire suppression fleet. I got to see that plane do a low altitude fly-by during a fire down in Denali Park in the late 90s. While the memory is indelibly etched, it would have been nice to have had a camera. Unfortunately we were in the process of being evacuated as the fire had gotten within 250 yards, so I hadn't thought to bring my camera along. We also had a DC-4 (C-54) flying freight out of FAI until it crashed just down the road in Nenana a few years back.

http://www.airliners.net/photo/Untit...a1bdf57126f84b

Don't know what years you were growing up in the Santa Barbara area JL, but I was just down the road in Ojai in the early 70s. On many afternoons at about 2:30pm, you could look skyward and see the distinctive orange color of N601BN, the sole Braniff 747 as it made its daily run between Dallas and Honolulu. Depending upon the winds, maybe it occasionally routed over the Santa Barbara area. Even at 30-some odd thousand feet, you couldn't miss it.

jlemon

Excellent photo! And I would have loved to witness the departure!

jlemon

And this reminds me of something else....

Most of the time out of LAX, departures for HNL, OGG, LIH and KOA tend to stay just south of the Channel Islands (that is, the California ones that are home to a national park of the same name). On clear days, Santa Barbara is visible from the right side of the aircraft.

However, there are days when aircraft departing for Hawaii from LAX travel all the way up the coast to near Morro Bay and then make a left turn for their journey to the islands. The reason? Space launch activity including spy satellites and ICBM tests from Vandenberg Air Force Base northwest of Santa Barbara. I remember seeing a Northwest DC-10 take this track....and right after that I was treated to the unmistakable sight of a rocket exhaust plume in the wake of a space vehicle on rapid ascent. An old buddy of mine who is currently a Captain for United verified this as well as he has had to take this route on occasion on departure for Hawaii from LAX as directed by ATC.....

jrl767

Jul 76 thru Jul 78 I was living in Torrance, working for Rockwell International at the southeast corner of LAX, and regularly saw N601BN (aka "Fat Albert" or "The Great Pumpkin") trundling along with a big contrail behind it ...

Seat 2A

Didn't that airplane hold some kind of record for reliability or daily utilization? The record probably has been surpassed by now but as Braniff's only 747 - at least early on - that 747 was flying 15-16 hours per day while doing those daily DFW-HNL-DFW flights. I seem to recall reading that it was a rare day indeed when it ever had to be replaced by a DC-8 or 707.

jlemon

I remember when Braniff initiated their first B747 service between DFW and HNL. It was a big deal. Although a connecting flight via a B727 was required from Houston, BN had one of their gates at IAH elaborately decked out in a Hawaiian motif - it was kinda like the entrance to the Tiki Room attraction at Disneyland.

Prior to their B747 flights to Hawaii, Braniff operated nonstop B707-320 service to both HNL and ITO from Dallas as well as direct 707 service to Hawaii from other U.S. cities as well, including Atlanta, Houston, New Orleans, etc. We had a quiz item about this BN 707 service some time ago....

I also recall other sightings of aircraft in cruise flight from the ground, to include Continental's daily B767-400ER nonstop from IAH to HNL over Pasadena, California and Western's daily DC-10 nonstop from LAX to MIA over Austin, Texas. In addition, I recall seeing an Air Tahiti Nui A340 en route nonstop from JFK to PPT from the vantage point of my front yard here in Lafayette, Louisiana.