jlemon

31. Correct! The Convair 990 was a new addition to the American fleet at this time. In fact, the April 29, 1962 AA system timetable even has a separate route map entitled 990 ASTROJET Intercity Routes.

Virtually all of the Convair 990 routes flown by American at this time were point to point to and from New York Idlewild with one exception: there was a one way 990 service from DAL to ORD. And interestingly, these Convair 990 flights were primarily listed in the quick reference section of the AA timetable but a number of them did not appear in the main timetable section.

jlemon

I'll go ahead close out this quiz item...

By 1966, Braniff International and United had indeed expanded their interchange service between the Pacific Northwest and Texas. The single round trip flight operated with a DC-6B had been replaced with two round trip services with both being flown with jet equipment. Each round trip flight featured a slightly different routing and the interchange point continued to be Denver. Here are the scheds....

UA/BN 462: Dep. SEA 8:45a, arr. DEN 12:00n, dep. DEN 12:45p, arr. DAL 2:19p, dep. DAL 2:55p, arr. HOU 3:45p
Op: Daily
Equip: Boeing 720

UA/BN 464: Dep. SEA 1:40p, arr. PDX 2:15p, dep. PDX 2:50p, arr. DEN 5:59p, dep. DEN 6:40p, arr. DAL 8:14p, dep. DAL 9:00p, arr. HOU 9:50p
Op: Daily
Equip: Boeing 720

BN/UA 463: Dep. HOU 7:10a, arr. DAL 8:00a, dep. DAL 8:40a, arr. DEN 10:20a, dep. DEN 11:05a, arr. SEA 12:05p
Op: Daily
Equip: Boeing 720

BN/UA 465: Dep. HOU 5:00p, arr. DAL 5:50p, dep. DAL 6:30p, arr. DEN 8:10p, dep. DEN 9:00p, arr. PDX 10:15p, dep. PDX 10:45p, arr. SEA 11:18p
Op: Daily
Equip: Boeing 720

And, of course, both Braniff and United operated the turbojet powered version of the B720 (BN with the B720-027 and UA with the B720-022 with regard to new aircraft delivered to each airline).

BTW, I never did have the opportunity to fly on an United B720 but I did fly several times on a Braniff B720 back in the day....

Seat 2A

Since Red Devil isn't part of the Aleutians, I'm going to hazard a guess that this would have been Wien Air Alaska flying on an F27.

Seat 2A

My first thought was that this had to be a helicopter service (although Continental used to offer late night Chicago air tour flights with 720Bs) and a quick check of my helicopter postcards revealed a Sikorsky from Chicago Helicopter Airways. The routes aren't revealed, but where else would you go on a helicopter company named after the city? Meigs Field? So that's my answer - Chicago Helicopter Airways flying a Sikorsky of some type. (Sorry, I don't know my helicopters very well...)

jlemon

48. Well, you are very close! And you have correctly identified the aircraft type! The air carrier was Northern Consolidated Airlines (NCA) which would be subsequently acquired by Wien Air Alaska. In order to reflect this acquisition, Wien then changed its name to Wien Consolidated. It then kept this name for several years before another name change back to Wien Air Alaska.

Northern Consolidated flew an interesting variant of the Fairchild turboprop being the F-27B. This was a Combi aircraft that was capable of conducting mixed passenger/freight operations in a configuration that was roughly similar to the Boeing 727-100QC Combi . The only other F-27B operator I know of was Wien and their aircraft probably all came from Northern Consolidated.

The routing for this flight was Anchorage (ANC)-McGrath (MCG)-Kalakaket Air Force Station (KKK)-Red Devil (RDV). The service was flown round trip every Friday.

BTW, Red Devil as you may suspect is not a very big place. The 2010 census listed 23 folks living there (not including dogs). The reason for the Northern Consolidated service into Red Devil in 1963 appears to have been the Red Devil Mine which apparently closed in 1971.

jlemon

24. And your first thought would be correct, sir! It was indeed Chicago Helicopter Airways which in 1962 claimed to be the largest helicopter airline in the world with up to 126 scheduled flights per day. The primary rotorcraft operated at this time was the Sikorsky S-58C which was configured with 12 seats. The carrier had previously operated the smaller Sikorsky S-55.

Core routes linked O'Hare, Midway and Meigs Field airports. Additional service was flown between ORD and a Winnetka, a Chicago suburb. There were even flights to another state from MDW: Gary, Indiana was served.

And if you were connecting to or from an international flight at ORD operated by Air France, BOAC, Lufthansa, Mexicana, Northwest, Pan American or TWA, your helicopter flight to or from Midway Airport was free.

BTW, I had previously mentioned Jon Proctor as a clue with regard to this quiz item. Mr. Proctor has photos of several Chicago Helicopter Airways rotorcraft as part of his Chicago collection and also flew on this service.

jlemon

And we just had an interesting departure from Acadiana Regional Airport (ARA) here in south Louisiana about 15 minutes ago: a brand new Boeing 777-300ER in Air New Zealand livery.

The aircraft is now en route to Paine Field in Washington state and is identified on flightaware.com as "BOE 56" with a nonstop routing of KARA to KPAE. The new 777 received a paint job at the AvEx hangars just up the road from my office and is now being ferried back to Paine Field by Boeing pilots. I suspect it will be handed over to Air New Zealand in the very near future.

I took a photo of this aircraft earlier today after getting permission to journey out to the AvEx ramp (we actually drove out there on a golf cart).....and one of these days I plan on learning how to include such photos with my posts concerning such matters!

Meantime, we now have a NASA T-38 supersonic jet trainer in the pattern practicing touch and go landings and take offs.....so it's an exciting day here at sleepy ARA!

jrl767

how about Braniff International with a BAC One-Eleven

jlemon

39. Ah, it was another airline with another aircraft type....so please guess again!

Seat 2A

I seem to recall Eastern serving Ft. Worth in the 60s. Let's go with EA with a 727-100.

WHBM

Well I seem to recall that in pre-DFW days, American paid more attention than most who served Dallas to Fort Worth as well. Not a lot of flights, but a few. Probably routed on somewhere else significant afterwards, so I'll go for a 720B (which American always called a 707-020B).

jlemon

39. Eastern is correct! Here are the actual scheds from June of 1965.....

EA 202: MIA-TPA-MSY-DAL-GSW
Op: Daily
Equip: Boeing 727
Note: EA 202 departed DAL at 11:05a and arrived GSW at 11:23a

EA 205: GSW-DAL-MSY-MIA
Op: Daily
Equip: Boeing 727
Note: EA 205 departed GSW at 12:05p and arrived DAL at 12:20p

This was Eastern's one and only daily flight serving Fort Worth via Greater Southwest Airport. The airline also operated several additional flights into DAL at this time with 727 equipment with nonstops to MSY and direct service to MIA and TPA.

And here's a follow up quiz item....

It's now 1971 and you are checking out Greater Southwest Airport (GSW) on a plane spotting mission. There's not much activity on the airfield as most of the airline flights for the area now only serve nearby Dallas Love Field. And just to your north construction continues on the new Dallas/Fort Worth Airport which will ultimately doom GSW due to the close proximity of DFW. Then you notice several colorful jetliners parked on the ramp at GSW. It appears there are palm trees painted on the tails of these aircraft which also appear not to have flown in awhile. Identify these jetliners and the airline that previously operated them. ANSWERED

jlemon

39. Please see post above!

jlemon

Let's return to The Quiz and......The 1960's.......

This quiz item has a time line of the year 1962:

10. United was also operating several "Men Only" flights at this time. Two of these flights departed Chicago at 5:00pm local each weekday to different destinations. Name both destinations and the equipment used on each flight. In addition, UA had very specific and different descriptive names to identify each of these flights. What were the names used to describe these flights? ANSWERED

jlemon

Both of the following quiz items have a time line of various months during the year 1967......

40. This airline was operating daily nonstop jet service from Greater Southwest Airport (GSW) which served Fort Worth to Tulsa. Identify the air carrier and the equipment flown on the route. ANSWERED

41. This air carrier was flying daily nonstop jet service from Greater Southwest Airport (GSW) on the short hop to Dallas Love Field. However, the return service from DAL to GSW was operated with non jet equipment. Name the airline and the respective aircraft types it flew in each direction. ANSWERED