jlemon

13. Correct! National 258 (Electra) / National 458 (727) operated MSY-PNS-TPA-MCO-DAB-JAX-EWR-BOS.

jrl767

luckily our lawn didn't need attention today ... unfortunately I forgot that we were out of vodka, so our James Bond martinis just contain Bombay Sapphire and Lillet blonde ... and, of course, I replaced the red peppers in the olives with oven-roasted tomatoes

jrl767

three of the aircraft types were certainly the DC-6, DC-7, and Electra; I'm pretty sure that AA had 707s operating to/from GSW, but I'm thinking that they hadn't yet retired their Convair 340/440s and those would be a more likely sight on the GSW<-->DAL route than the big jets ... as far as total flights, random guess: 11 in each direction


43- since "several large bodies of water" probably doesn't mean Long Island Sound and Delaware Bay and Chesapeake Bay, let's try to figure out how Delta was taking some of what had been Northeast routes prior to the 1972 merger and consolidating them onto their own routes from the Midwest into ATL

out of BGR, NE service went to Portland (PWM) and Boston (BOS); they had expanded their route system out of Burlington (BTV) with flights to Chicago (ORD), some of which stopped in Detroit (DTW) and others in Cleveland (CLE) ... but since I don't recall NE flying between these two points there are a number of three-stop routings that DL might have used between ORD and ATL

so here's my guess for this loooong day of flying on what would most likely have been a DC9-30:

1. PWM
2. BOS
3. BTV
4. DTW
5. ORD
6. St Louis (STL)
7. Memphis (MEM)
8. Birmingham (BHM)

jlemon

42. Excellent guess! American was operating ten flights a day from Dallas (DAL) to Fort Worth (GSW) at this time including one DC-7 "Flagship" flight, two Convair "Flagship" flights (I believe these aircraft were CV-240 models), two Electra "Jet-Powered Flagship" flights and five DC-6 "Flagship" flights. Typical block time for all flights was 15 minutes.

43. Delta with a DC9-30 is correct! Here's how you did with regard to the routing:

Portland (PWM) - correct
Boston (BOS) - incorrect
Burlington (BTV) - correct
Detroit (DTW) correct
Chicago (ORD) - correct
St. Louis (STL) - correct
Memphis - (MEM) correct
Birmingham (BHM) - incorrect

So we are still missing two other stops here.....

WHBM

I believe this is a reference to a carrier who couldn't get insurance on their aircraft while on the ground at their home base. I believe also we discussed their aircraft long, long ago in this thread, when I witnessed a certain engineering operation taking place on them. They finally moved on in the mid-1990s to secondhand A310s.
Unfortunately this is a very modern brand, only been around for some 20 years, so well after Ian Fleming's time when he wrote the spec for a Martini. It is however made in a very historic building about 50 miles west of Heathrow, close to Stonehenge, which some years ago, before they moved the distillery in there, housed a customer of mine that made water supply treatment machinery there and shipped it out worldwide, but later went out of business. They were lovely old buildings in a classic English village then, I wonder how Bombay Sapphire have handled restoring them.

I'm pleased to say it's the brand on the BAe 146/RJs that are regularly plying me to and from Ireland at present.

jlemon

Ah, yes....I saw their aircraft as well at SBA back in the day as we discussed at the time....

Seat 2A

19. In the spring of 1976, this airline was operating nonstop service once a week between Kingston (KIN) and Belize (BZE) with a jet aircraft type. Identify the air carrier and the equipment.

It seems like Air Jamaica would operate more than once a week between KIN and BZE. I don't think Belize Airways with its 720s came along until later (I remember scoring one if its postcards!) so I'm thinking perhaps it was a Central American or Caribbean airline... Honestly, I'm just flailing about here as witnessed by my logic - great diving in the Caymans as well as Roatan off Belize - so let's go with Cayman Airways operating a BAC-111...

jrl767

41: the only airlines whose route systems went through the middle of the country from CHI to HOU were Braniff and Delta ... I'm having a tough time coming up with more than a six-stop routing for BN, and DL is maxing out at a seven-stop itinerary ... either airline would have most likely been operating a Convair 340/440, because I sure can't picture a DC-6 at some of the smaller enroute points

let's go with Delta, and I think I'll be lucky if more than five of these are right

1. Indianapolis (IND)
2. Evansville (EVV)
3. St Louis (STL)
4. Memphis (MEM)
5. Little Rock (LIT)
6. Monroe (MLU)
7. Alexandria (AEX)
8. Shreveport (SHV)

Seat 2A

As of yesterday I'm finally cleared to lift more than 20 pounds. ^^! So off I trudged to my storage locker, located on the outskirts of Fairbanks near the Tanana River, and there I retrieved a few boxes from my postcard collection, notably those containing postcards from North American carriers.

Unfortunately, my collection does not include any Britannias from Northeast. However, you've piqued my curiosity and so I checked out a couple of larger European based postcard websites but was unable to find any Northeast Britannias on their sales lists (Back in the day I used to buy everything, so I would likely have had it if it were issued or available - including many airline issue - prior to 1999) I've also contacted two fellow collectors - both with huge collections - but so far nothing. What I did find was a small picture of a Northeast advertisement (1957) from a past Ebay auction (Google Image "Northeast Airlines Bristol Britannia" and you'll find it on the top row) so it appears NE were right on the verge of operations.

jlemon

19. Ah, it was not Cayman Airways. However, the aircraft type you have mentioned is correct!

jlemon

41. Delta with a "Super Convair 440" configured with 44 pax seats is correct! And you did identify five of the eight stops correctly.

Seat 2A

It must've been a Central American airline... let's go with Aviateca

jrl767

43: since I'm going to be there this weekend, how about Manchester NH (MHT) instead of BOS ... other than BHM there are four cities that come to mind as possible stops between MEM and ATL, so I'll just start with the westernmost: Jackson MS (JAN)

jlemon

19. And you are getting closer, sir!

Please guess again!

jlemon

43. I believe Manchester is correct....however, I'm currently in Houston on biz and thus do not have my reference material handy. So I shall have to confirm this when I get home tomorrow evening.

I am sure of one thing: this flight did not stop in Jackson (JAN). And here's a hint: the Delta D9S that operated this milk run routing flew nonstop from MEM to ATL on the final leg.