jlemon

Yep, given our decidedly tropical-like weather this time of year coupled with abundant rainfall followed by brilliant and blazing sunshine, "dat ol' lawn do grow-grow quite quickly down heah" as a local Cajun might say.....

It's mostly St. Augustine, by the way....and yesterday before I mowed our little pup was romping around in the back yard chasing one of our resident squirrels. It looked like she was on maneuvers on a miniature, shaggy savanna in Africa.....

WHBM

Seems that the scriptwriter from Deputy Dawg has somehow hacked into the thread ........

jlemon

There were a number of scheduled helicopter airlines over the years here in the U.S. None survive but there is one long standing operation up in British Columbia that is still flying scheduled services. More on that in a bit....

Besides Chicago, Los Angeles, New York City and San Francisco, other cities such as Boston, Dallas and Houston had scheduled helicopter service. There may have been scheduled rotorcraft services in other major cities as well. One operator was Armadillo Airways flying in the Houston area primarily with single turbine engine, six-passenger Bell 206L "Long Ranger" helicopters although I seem to recall they also operated a twin turbine engine Bell 222 at one point. I believe I also remember seeing a Bell 222 painted in the livery of Pan Am flying scheduled services in the New York City area.

However, there were only a handful of operators flying large twin turbine engine helicopters such as the Sikorsky S-61. These included Chicago Helicopter Airways, Los Angeles Airways, New York Airways and SFO Helicopter. My first helicopter ride ever was on board a SFO Helicopter S-61 across S.F. Bay. New York Airways also flew Boeing Vertol BV-107 tandem rotor, twin turbine engine helicopters at one point as well and may have been the only U.S. operator to do so in scheduled passenger airline service (it is reported that Pan Am operated a BV-107 in the NYC area at one point but I have been unable to verify this). The BV-107 is the civil version of the CH-46 "Sea Knight" operated by the military.

Safety was a concern with the traveling public, especially following several highly publicized accidents involving helicopter airlines. In 1960, a piston engine powered Sikorsky S-58 operated by Chicago Helicopter Airways crashed killing 13 people. In 1968, Los Angeles Airways lost two S-61s with 21 and 23 people being killed respectively. In 1977, a New York Airways S-61 rolled over upon landing on the roof of the Pan Am building killing four passengers who were waiting to board the helicopter. The flying debris caused by the disintegration of the rotor blades also fell into the street below killing another person. After that, I believe there were no more scheduled helicopter operations conducted from the Pan Am building rooftop. And I am reminded of lyrics from an old Joni Mitchell song:

A helicopter lands on the Pan Am roof....

Like a dragonfly on a tomb....

And businessmen in button downs....

Crowd into conference rooms.

Following the demise of New York Airways, New York City saw several other scheduled helicopter airline operations attempted over the years, notably by Trump which operated Sikorsky S-61 and Boeing Vertol BV-234 rotorcraft. The BV-234 operation linked New York City with Atlantic City where Mr. Trump operated a casino at the time. The BV-234, which is the civil version of the CH-47 "Chinook" used by the military, can seat up to 44 passengers in airline configuration and is the largest helicopter type ever to be used in scheduled operations in the U.S. The last attempt at helicopter airline operations in NYC was by U.S. Helicopter flying twin turbine engine Sikorsky S-76B rotorcraft. They had marketing agreements with several major airlines (notably Continental and Delta) but shut down due to financial challenges back in 2009.

Scheduled helicopter operations also returned to Los Angeles back in the mid 1980's in the form of Air Spur operating twin turbine engine, British-manufactured Westland 30 rotorcraft. I flew on an Air Spur Westland 30 from John Wayne (SNA) to LAX where we landed on the rooftop of a parking structure in the middle of the airport. Shortly afterward, I believe an Air Spur Westland 30 hit power lines while en route. This helicopter airline was subsequently acquired by another company and scheduled rotorcraft operations were shut down.

There is (or was) a plaque commemorating the Los Angeles Airways service at LAX in United's Terminal 7. I have not been in this terminal in several years but hopefully it's still there out on the wall of a passenger waiting area at the south end of the satellite close to the taxiways and runways. Attention folks flying on UA from LAX: please let me know if you see it! One of the major routes flown by Los Angeles Airways with the S-61 was service between LAX and Disneyland. There was a heliport located right next to Disneyland at the time. And back in 1958, LA Airways was serving sixteen (16) different destinations besides LAX in the greater Los Angeles-San Bernardino-Riverside-Orange County area primarily via heliports. Los Angeles Airways billed itself as being "The World's First Helicopter Airline".

At present, there is only one helicopter airline still in existence in North America: Helijet Airways which is based in the Vancouver, B.C. area. For many years now, they have been operating scheduled services between their floating heliport located in Vancouver Harbour right next to the downtown area and a close-in heliport next to Victoria Harbour. Helijet operates Sikorsky S-76 helicopters and also flew the S-61 and the twin turbine engine Bell 412 in the past. At one point, they were flying S-76 service on a Seattle Boeing Field - Victoria - downtown Vancouver routing. I flew on this service and it was a splendid way to travel from Seattle to downtown Vancouver with customs being cleared during the Victoria stop. They also had a marketing agreement at one point with Alaska Airlines for service into the Whistler ski resort north of YVR but nothing much developed from it. Helijet has a superb safety record (I do not believe they've ever had a serious accident). The company is also run by a couple of very good friends of mine.

jlemon

O.K., I'll bite: who are Chuck and P.T. ??

jlemon

And Last Call for the five remaining quiz items in posts #5287, #5288 and #5289 above!

Should there be no takers, I'll then provide answers tomorrow evening....

Track

On various Pan Am award tickets I managed to fly between JFK and the 34th St. heliport several times:
Aug., 1984, on a business-class round-the-world ticket, Pan Am-liveried Westerly 30, going to and coming from Cincinnati; Pan Am Westerly 30/Bell 222 going to and coming from Washington; and Pan Am Westerly 30 on way to Frankfurt. (Both these side-trips from New York were included in the round-the-world award ticket.)
July, 1990, on a Pan Am business-class ticket to Frankfurt, N.Y. Helicopter-liveried Sikorsky58
June, 1991, on a first-class Pan Am ticket Berlin-NY-Brussels (3-class A310 both ways), N.Y. Helicopter-liveried Sikorsky 58. (Yes, Pan Am had first-class award tickets, for just 50,000 miles each way, IIRC - or wasn't it round-trip? -, to Europe from business-class fares).
These were always great fun and were included in the fare - too bad we're reduced to AirTrain now.

MADPhil

Thanks for the great information on helicopter services! I guess that the next time I am visiting my friends in N. Vancouver and my cousin in Victoria I should consider using Helijet. It would be a nice area to see from the air though the ferry is quite spectacular too.

WHBM

Ah. JL, I would have thought you would be the most likely here to know. But let's turn it into a quiz question for everyone !

What must have been the longest-running scheduled helicopter service anywhere recently ceased operation, from the far south-west of the UK at Penzance to the Scilly Isles, a group about 30 miles out in the Atlantic, population about 2,000. BEA started the run just 50 years ago with one of the first big Sikorsky S-61s built, and it gave up last year still using the same type, albeit new ones have been bought from time to time. Following BEA, British Airways ran the operation for a while, then their whole helicopter operation was passed on through the hands of a number of independents. The bulk of the operation was always, through the different owners, charters for oil exploration companies out of Aberdeen in Scotland, and the Scilly service, at the opposite end of the country, was just a small outlier.

I go through Nice airport once or twice a year, and always see when there the helicopter service to Monaco, another longstanding scheduled operation, by Heli Air. From the east end of the NCE Terminal 1 (BA etc) departure lounge you look down on their gate, from which a shuttle van takes passengers round the field to the pad on the seaward side of the runways, and the choppers depart at very low level over the sea, beneath the curved approach of inbound aircraft when they are on westerlies. It's not hugely expensive, and a colleague who makes periodic business trips to Monaco says that the No 1 onward airline for those arriving this way is probably that major Nice operator, Easyjet !

jlemon

Indeed, the Westland 30 did make an appearance in the New York City area during the mid 1980's. I believe the type, which was painted in Pan Am's livery, was operated by Omniflight for Pan Am via contract. I also think Omniflight operated the Bell 222 for Pan Am as well.

As you mention, there was also another helicopter operator in the NYC area at this time: New York Helicopter (not to be confused with New York Airways) which flew the Sikorsky S-58ET which was a turbine conversion of the piston engine S-58. Pratt & Whitney PT6T-3 "Twin Pac" turboshaft engines were used to replace the big recip engine. I remember seeing a New York Helicopter S-58ET departing from EWR one evening. New York Helicopter also operated the Aerospatiale SA-360C "Dauphin" rotorcraft.

BTW, although New York Airways was primarily a helicopter airline operator, they also flew the de Havilland Canada DHC-6 Twin Otter STOL turboprop in sched pax service.....

JoeDTW

I'm pretty sure the 737 operator is Frontier. I think the two airlines may even have operated interchange service DEN-LAS-BUR/SNA at one point.

I have no idea of the 727 operator, but the only two all-727 airlines in RW's service area at this time were PSA and Alaska. There was a lot of bad blood between PSA and RW (PSA almost put RW predecessor Pacific out of business in the mid 1960s), so I'll guess AS.

jlemon

50. Alaska Air and Frontier are correct!

The January 15, 1977 Hughes Airwest system timetable lists Alaska Air (AS) & RW connections at Seattle (SEA) between Anchorage (ANC)/Fairbanks (FAI) and Las Vegas (LAS)/Reno (RNO).

Frontier (FL) & RW connections at Salt Lake City (SLC) between Billings (BIL)/Bozeman (BZN)/Missoula (MSO) and Los Angeles (LAX)/Orange County (SNA)/San Diego (SAN) are listed as well.

BTW, this same timetable also listed connecting service operated by four U.S. commuter air carriers including Cochise Airways (DP), Columbia Airline (QT), Golden West Airlines (GW) and SkyWest Airlines (QG).

Also of interest (well, at least to those of us who enjoy fine wine!), Hughes Airwest was offering "Wine Taster" service on some of its jet flights at this time. This "Wine Taster" service was offered on select LAS-OAK, LAS-SJC, PDX-RNO, PHX-SJC and PHX-SLC nonstop flights. Now, I have no idea what this wine tasting service actually entailed....however, it certainly sounds like an interesting experience on board the "Top Banana in the West"!

jlemon

Time to provide final answers....

14. Iran Air (IR) was cooperating with SAS (SK) at this time. SAS was operating DC8 service once a week with joint IR/SK flight numbers on a round trip routing of Copenhagen-Hamburg-Geneva-Teheran.

19. The air carrier was Trans-Australia Airlines (TAA) which used the slogan "TAA Whispering T-JET Fleet" to describe its Boeing 727-100 and McDonnell Douglas DC-9-31 aircraft.

26. National Airlines flight #1 was named "The Royal Biscayne".

jlemon

Here's the complete routing......

SO 321: St. Louis 8:00a - 8:48a Memphis 9:00a - 10:08a New Orleans 11:00a - 11:25a Gulfport 11:40a - 12:00n Mobile 12:15p - 1:55p Columbus, GA 2:10p - 3:33p Washington Dulles 3:54p - 4:45p New York LaGuardia

Op: Daily

Equip: DC9

On board service: snack STL-MEM, lunch CSG-IAD

Thanks to all for another great round of answers as well as commentary!

And with that, take it away Seat 2A!

Seat 2A

Alright now – let’s buckle our seatbelts and head out on a road trip with this collection of highway inspired questions. We'll start with just three questions that will have us driving a set route between two city pairs in the contiguous United States. Along the way we’ll stop at every airport that ever had or still has scheduled jet service. I’ll drive, you navigate. As such, your job will be twofold:

A. Identify each city along our route that ever once had or currently still has scheduled jet service.
(We are not interested in airports that have only been served by propeller aircraft)

B. Identify the largest jet (and its operator) ever to serve that airport. As to what standard constitutes the largest jet, let’s go with overall length of the airplane.

Note: The highway does not have to go past the airport for it to be counted. If the highway goes through the city, then list the airport if it's relevant.

As an example, were we to drive from San Diego, California to Tucson, Arizona along Interstate 8 & 10, we’d start with SAN, indicating the largest jet ever to fly through there (Off the top of my head a 777-200 from BA’s LHR services), and then on to Yuma (An America West or US Airways Express CRJ-900) before finally arriving in Tucson (I’m thinking an American Airlines DC-10 from ORD services back in the 70s). You’ll note that I didn't include the airport at El Centro because it was never served with scheduled jet flights.

Any knucklehead can name a few of the airports along these routes. The challenge here will be to identify ALL of the appropriate airports along our route. As such, partial answers will be ignored and the respondent may risk mild chastisement. As to the largest aircraft to serve any given airport, I’m willing to leave that open to debate - if and as the need arises. If two or more airlines operated the largest aircraft into an airport, (Example: Denver 747-400 operated by Lufthansa and Korean and possibly United) feel free to list them all though I'll be satisfied with just one correct example.

Alright then – ready to go? Let’s hit the road!

Please limit your response to just one question in the hope that others might also have a chance to participate if they so choose. Thanks!



Question 1. Our first drive is a long one! We’re going to start off from El Paso, Texas and drive up to Billings, Montana. Obviously, El Paso will be the first airport of note. Just 45 miles north of El Paso we’ll pick up Interstate 25 and drive that all the way to its end at the junction with Interstate 90 at Buffalo, Wyoming. From there we’ll continue on to Billings along Interstate 90.

For your convenience I’ve provided links to mileposts along the route. It’ll be easy to see which cities the highway passes through. If you’ve access to a large road atlas at home, you may prefer to use that.

Start at El Paso (No link to Interstate 10 because there are no relevant airports between El Paso and Las Cruces where we meet Interstate 25)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interst..._in_New_Mexico

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstate_25_in_Colorado

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstate_25#Wyoming

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstate_90_in_Wyoming (On the chart, start at Buffalo and move UP the chart towards Montana)

(No link is provided to Interstate 90 in Montana because there are no relevant airports between the Wyoming border and Billings)

Arrive at Billings


Question 2: After a couple of days in Billings, we'll continue west along Interstate 90 to Seattle.

Here are links to the I-90 mileposts:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstate_90_in_Montana
(This milepost runs from west to east. To start from Billings and head west, scroll down to MP450 and move UP ^)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstate_90_in_Idaho
(This milepost runs from west to east. To continue west, scroll down to the bottom and move UP ^)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interst..._in_Washington
(This milepost runs from west to east. To continue west, scroll down to the bottom and move UP ^)


Question 3: This drive will take us from Portland, Oregon down to Bakersfield, California. We'll start by driving Interstate 5 from Portland down to Sacramento. From there we'll pick up CA 99 from Sacramento down through the San Joaquin Valley to Bakersfield, California.

Here are links to the relevant mileposts:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstate_5_in_Oregon
(This milepost runs from south to north. To head south from Portland, scroll down to MP 302 and move UP ^)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstate_5_in_California
(This milepost runs from south to north. To head south from the Oregon/California border, scroll down to the bottom and move UP ^ to MP 518 at Sacramento)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_State_Route_99
(This milepost runs from south to north. To head south from the Sacramento, scroll down to MP 298A and move UP ^ to Bakersfield at MP 24)

jlemon

Well, Seat 2A, I gotta hand it to you! This is certainly an interesting way to start off your latest set of quiz items! So I'll kick this off as well....

Portland (PDX): Boeing 747 (operated by Pan Am and I think by Northwest and United as well)

Salem (SLE): Definitely the Boeing 737-200 and maybe the Boeing 727-200 (both operated by United)

Eugene (EUG): Currently the Boeing 757-200 (Allegiant Air). In the past, McDonnell Douglas MD-80 service (American) as well as Boeing 727-200 service (United)

Medford (MFR): Currently the McDonnell Douglas MD-80 (Allegiant Air) and in the past the Boeing 727-200 (United)

Redding (RDD): Boeing 737-200 (Frontier and United) and McDonnell Douglas DC-9-30 (Hughes Airwest)

Sacramento (SMF): Lockheed L-1011 (PSA and maybe Hawaiian Air)

Sacramento (SAC): This is the old airport that had sched pax service before SMF was opened. Boeing 720B (Western)

Stockton (SCK): Currently the Boeing 757-200 (Allegiant Air) and in the past the Boeing 727-200 (PSA and maybe United)

Modesto (MOD): Boeing 737-200 (United)

Merced (MCE): Boeing 737-200 (United)

Fresno (FAT): Douglas Super DC-8-61 (United) in the past. Currently the Boeing 757-200 (Allegiant Air).

Visalia (VIS): Boeing 737-200 (United) - I saw a UA 73S loading pax via the old fashioned, truck-mounted air stairs one day at VIS as we were driving over to Mineral King in the Sierra Nevada range for a back packing trip.

Bakersfield (BFL): This specific response may be a tad controversial but I swear I saw an old OAG back in the day that listed a Douglas Super DC-8-61 flight operated by United between BFL and LAX. Other than that, the Boeing 727-200 operated by United and the MD-80 operated by American.