tonywestsider

Thank you! Now I know I'll go get a beer. First, I got the Air Nauru F-28 question wrong and now just looked up Air Nauru's fleet, overlooking their 727s. Should have answered the Braniff question instead. I think I remembered that one from my past.

Here's to CO's former Diamond Head Lounges!

WHBM

Mine was September 1974, Western 720B, San Francisco to Vancouver.

I regret to say that this is quite common with French airlines (which for long has pretty much been Air France plus a few hangers-on, like UTA) especially if you are travelling in economy.

I only had a very peripheral experience of UTA; coming from the UK they didn't really provide any relevant service. However they did have a small charter subsidiary called Aeromaritime, and readily exchanged aircraft backwards and forwards between them, not being too fussed about what the aircraft title read.

As a teenager in 1969, our school's nearest airport was Liverpool. Our French class had some association with a school in Lorient (pronounced "Lo-re-on"), an obscure small city on the southern coast of Brittany, where our French master had done his overseas training. There was an exchange visit between ourselves and themselves, and we went outward by charter coach, driving down to Dover, over on the ship to France, and then the long haul westward. Tedious. At the next school holidays we hosted them, and it was announced they were coming - and by air, and direct to Liverpool airport ! Oh how crestfallen I felt. Of course, I wanted to know which airline, which had to be the second if not the first question on their arrival. Even better was that, unlike our traditional British school, the group contained girls, and even EVEN better I was paired with one of them (I did say "teenager", remember ?).

Well, they all arrived, with a great fuss as "something" had happened on flight over, which I couldn't quite get details of, but it all got described in the daily Liverpool Echo newspaper the next day. For such an obscure charter they had got hold of one of the last UTA/Aeromatitime DC-6Bs, and being a DC-6B in it's final years it had quite typically blown an engine on the way over and landed at Liverpool on three, with all the fire engines out (smaller airport = greater excitement). There was then a photo of the whole group, including the pilots, posing for a picture on the ramp in front of the aforementioned DC-6B and it's misbehaving radial at the airport; the journalist must have rushed out there on hearing of the excitement. Were it not for that news photograph I still wouldn't know of UTA's involvement, as Mlle. Florence Pxxxxxxxxx (sparing her blushes if reading this), in response to that second question of mine, didn't have a clue what I was talking about. Girls !

jlemon

Well, of course, I have to chime in here with regard to my last flights on board B707/B720A/B720B equipment....

Last B720A flight: BN from HOU to DAL. Unfortunately, I do not recall the exact year but it was probably the late 60's.

Last B720B flight: CO from LAX nonstop to IAH. I believe the year was 1969.

Last B707 flight: AA from DFW to YUL via an intermediate stop at ORD. I think the year was 1975 (BTW, started my journey to Quebec on board a BN B727-100 AUS to DFW).

Well, to get into the spirit of things here, I'll add the following aircraft to best of my recollection...

Last Airbus A300 flight: CO from SFO to IAH in F

Last Airbus A300 series 600R flight: AA from MIA to LAX in Y

Last BAC One-Eleven flight: Pacific Express from SFO to SBA

Last BAe 146 flight: PSA ("Catch Our Smile!") from LAS to BUR

Last Boeing 727-100 flight: AA from DSM to DFW in F

Last Boeing 727-200 flight: NW from BOI to MSP in F

Last Boeing 737-200 flight: AS from Cordova, Alaska (CDV) to ANC (aircraft was a 73M Combi)

Last Boeing 747-100 flight: UA from HNL to LAX in F

Last Boeing 747-200 flight: CO from HNL to LAX in C

Last Boeing 747-300 flight: Qantas (QF) from HNL to LAX in C (as an airline marketing manager working in Hawaii at the time, I was able to non-rev on this flight as QF did not have domestic traffic rights and thus could not sell seats between HNL-LAX although stopover traffic was permitted).

Last Convair 880 flight: DL from IAH to ATL in Y

Last Douglas DC-8 series 50 flight: DL from ATL to DTW via an intermediate stop in DAY in Y

Last Douglas DC-8 "Super" series 60 flight: NA from IAH to MSY in Y

Last Douglas DC-9 series 10 flight: TW from CVG to STL in F

Last Douglas DC-9 series 30 flight: NW from MSP to HOU in F

Last Douglas DC-10 flight: NW from AMS to MEM in Y (upgrade did not clear, darn it, but I did get World Business Class going over MEM-AMS. This was just before NW completely retired their DC-10s).

Last Fokker F-28 flight: Horizon Air (QX) from GEG to SEA

Last Lockheed L-1011 flight: DL from SFO to HNL in F

Last McDonnell Douglas MD-11 flight: Swissair (SR) from ZRH to JFK in C

I think that's it for yours truly with regard to jet equipment no longer operated in the U.S specifically concerning scheduled passenger operations (is anybody still flying pax in the MD-11 to the U.S?)......

Seat 2A

My last 720B flight was also aboard Ecuatoriana, flying from Miami down to Quito in May of 1983. No doubt you all remember that Ecuatoriana's aircraft were wildly colorful canvasses and my aircraft (HC-AZQ) did not disappoint. Unfortunately, I never did get to fly aboard the non-turbofan engined variant of the 720.

After a bit of checking, I found a few other notable last flights:

727-100: Jul 05, 1991 United from San Francisco to Los Angeles
727-200: Sep 24, 2002 Northwest from Tampa to Memphis
DC-8-10/50: May 03, 1984 Aeromexico from Acapulco to Mexico City
DC-8-61/63: May 23, 1980 United from Newark to Denver
DC-8-71/73: Oct 05, 1989 United from Seattle to San Francisco
DC-9-10/15: Mar 28, 2003 Northwest from Memphis to Nashville
DC-10-10/40: Dec 11, 2011 Northwest from Minneapolis to Seattle
L-1011: Feb 28, 1997 Delta from Atlanta to Salt Lake City
BAC-111: Oct 07, 1984 Florida Express from St. Petersburg to Orlando
Electra: Jun 25, 1994 Reeve Aleutian from Dutch Harbor to Anchorage
Concorde: Jan 12, 1979 Braniff (Aboard Air France aircraft) from Washington DC to Dallas

Alas, I never managed a flight aboard either the Comet, Trident or my personal pick as the world's most beautiful jetliner, the Vickers VC10.

WHBM

Got me thinking about a few "lasts" apart from my 707 as well.

DC9. This was a British Midland one Edinburgh-London, in 1995. By this time this trunk route was entirely scheduled for 737-400s, but one evening this DC9 turned up as a substitute. Was really down at heel in the cabin, despite which it was sold on shortly afterwards - to Valujet !!

BAC One-Eleven. This was a British Airways one in 1992, Birmingham to Edinburgh and return next day. I knew from the aviation press that they were in their last weeks, so this time there was the melancholy knowledge during the flight that it was a Last, of the very first jet type I ever rode in (that was British Eagle in 1968). In contrast to the DC9, the interiors of the BA One-Elevens were immaculate and spotless right to the end, you would have thought it was just out of cabin refurb.

Trident. Did many of you from the US ever go in a Trident ? One-time stalwart of BA short-haul from London, last of many for me was, I think, Manchester to London in 1985. For the first time I was in the rearward-facing seats, half the cabin was laid out this way. Minimal fuel and probably no freight leading to light weight and a real rocket opwards. Felt if not for my seat belt I would fall right forward. The Trident had a nickname of the "Ground Gripper", for supposedly poor takeoff performance. Not on this day.

748. The real one, not the current Boeing imposter. British Airways, Edinburgh to Birmingham. 48 seats, every one taken, most in business suits. A real squash. I went back to the washroom and was amazed to find the emergency exit door was in there, while the plumbing fittings were as basic and exposed as those in an old railway car.

Boeing 727. That was in the US, about 1990, Delta, Vancouver to LAX.

Lockheed Tristar. 28 October 1999. The very last day of Caledonian Airways Tristar operations, by complete chance ours was the last commercial flight our aircraft made. Alas I don't know the registration, the whole fleet was retired that day, at the end of the summer season holiday flights. Faro in Portugal to London Gatwick. About 6 hours late, something went u/s during the turnround in Faro, and they had presumably packed up all their spares stock.

Tupolev 154. March 2008, St Petersburg, Russia to London Gatwick on Rossiya Airlines. Yes, really that late. Only one flight a week remained on the Tupolev rather than the replacing 737s, and guess who organised their whole trip around this. I have about 100 photographs !

Have to end on a high with Concorde. First and last time, in the last weeks of service. 3 hours 8 minutes JFK to Heathrow. I'll never do that again !

cs57

Since we are on "last" flights, I"ll join in...........

Trident Two--7/3/79--SVO/LHR BA
Viscount--PIK/ABZ/EDI--summer 1975
SD360--4/6/92--DL ALB/LGA (Business Express)
Concorde--2/28/92--LHR/JFK BA (what a delight this trip was! Terminal Four was almost new then, and we boarded from the Concorde Room right to the aircraft)

OT--Is the former CR in Terminal Four now the Air India Lounge? My gate on DL to BOS two weeks ago was from the extreme east end, so maybe it is built over.

Track

Let me add my last 707 flights also:

April, 1979, AA JFK - Phoenix - Tuscon
October, 1979, PA Washington-Dulles - JFK
February, 1981, Pakistan Internat. Bombay-Karachi

And then
February, 1964, TWA 1049G Constellation Hartford-Springfield - JFK
April, 1981, Interflug Ilyushin-18 Berlin-Schoenefeld - Prague
July, 1987, CAAC Trident Guangzhou-Guilin
May, 1991, Kenya Airways DC-8 Bujumbura-Nairobi
September, 1994, Balkan Antonov-24 Bourgas-Sofia

Seat 2A

So late last night I'm sipping Russell's Reserve and perusing the schedules in a 1966 International edition OAG. One of the interesting things I came across was some long trans-oceanic flights still being operated with propellor equipment. Granted, there were still lots of regional flights being operated with DC-4s, -6s and -7s, but I managed to even find a trans-oceanic Constellation.

One of these flights was one that any budget traveler old enough to travel between the U.S. and Europe in the 1960s and early 1970s would remember - the very affordable service between New York and Luxembourg via Iceland offered by Loftleidir Icelandic Airlines. While all the major airlines of the day were criss crossing the Atlantic with 707s and DC-8s, Loftleidir utilized a stretched version of the Canadair CL-44 known as the CL-44J. Equally interesting was the fact that until the introduction of the stretched DC-8-61/3s in 1967, the CL-44J offered the most capacity per airplane across the Atlantic with seating for 189 passengers. The CL-44 was also pretty fast by propellor driven standards, cruising along at close to 400mph. It was often marketed under the name "Rolls Royce 400 Jet Prop" since from a marketing standpoint Rolls Royce was a more highly regarded and recognizeable name than Canadair.

Anyway, this was but one of the trans-oceanic flights operated by props in 1966. Anyone care to have a stab at any others that I found (of have yet to find) along with the equipment used?

Remember, we're looking only for inter-continental, trans-oceanic flights here.

One last thing: tonywestsider, you are spot on regarding the original name of Continental's 747 First Class lounge. It was the Diamond Head Lounge, and a great place for a Mai Tai it was, too!



This is actually a picture of Continental's Oceania Lounge, but still..., what a nice lounge!



Cheers!

tonywestsider

Mahalo for the photo of CO's Oceania Lounge!

Also, thanks for the memories of Icelandair's Canadairs. As a kid, I remembered the airline always had the coolest ads, always with the most modern graphics of their planes as silhouettes in the background.

I do not have access to this type of research at the moment but to respond to your question about transoceanic flights using propellor equipment, I seem to remember when the Emperor of Japan (then, a Prince, along with the Princess) arrrived in HNL circa 1964 on a chartered JL DC-8, there was a DC-6B starting up next to them, with all of the smoke coming out of its piston engines. I was a kid at HNL, watching all of this activity. I seem to recall the DC-6B belonged to an airline called United States Overseas Airlines (USOA). In fact, here is a cover from one of their timetables in 1960:

http://timetableimages.com/ttimages/usoa.htm

Apparently, USOA had propliner service with DC equipment between Asia, HNL and the west coast mainland in the 1960s. Can you confirm?

miniliq

You're spot on. USOA advertised DC-6B "pressurized comfort" "300 miles per hour" and in the US in 1960 they served MIA, LGA, YIP (Detroit Willow Run Airport), MDW, BUR (today's Bob Hope, called Lockheed Air Terminal in 1960), OAK, HNL, AWK (Wake Island), GUM, OKA. Their weekly flight to Asia was LGA-YIP-MDW-OAK-HNL-AWK-GUM-OKA 9a Tue to 2:30a Fri -- that must have been an exhausting flight.

They advertised connections to TPE, HKG, BKK, MNL, SEL, FUK, TYO, and OSA, but I don't have the details of equipment used -- presumably also the DC-6B.

Seat 2A

The story of United States Overseas Airlines was an interesting one, part of which you can read a bit about HERE. USOA filed for bankruptcy in 1964.

By 1966 however, jet travel was well established and trans-oceanic propellor driven flights were few and far between. Any others that late into the jet age?

Cattle Airlines

My last time I flew aboard a 707 was a bit more recent

707-September, 1984, Lan Chile
747SP-June, 1992, United

Some day, the last time you were on an A340 will be memorable.

WHBM

Actually the big 4-engined piston aircraft disappeared here in Europe well before the USA - always surprising to find the big fleets of TWA Constellations and United DC6s still operating in 1966.

That trans-oceanic Connie has had me thinking. My HUNCH is that it is likely a South American carrier operating over to Madrid. There was also the Pacific Northern flight from Seattle to Kodiak, which was still a Constellation into 1967. That was more than 5 hours, almost entirely out across the North Pacific Ocean, away from land.

Well indeed it already is, but for a different reason. A long haul in a Boeing 777, followed by another in an A340-300, sitting at pretty much the same relative position just behind the wing. The difference in cabin noise level (777 = thundering, A340 = whispering) was so marked, one immediately following the other.

jlemon

Seat 2A, I cannot think of any other prop or turboprop operators at that time......however, I did come up with several related quiz questions:

What airline operated the last scheduled passenger service with prop-driven equipment between the West Coast and Hawaii and what was the aircraft type?

And a related quiz item: name the respective airlines that operated the last scheduled passenger services between the West Coast and Hawaii with the Boeing 707, the Boeing 720B and the Douglas DC-8.

Track

Yes, Loftleidir was the cheap way for us students to get to Europe in the 1960s, and in 1968 the Cl-44s were still on the route, when my partner and I flew to Luxembourg for a study-year in Germany. We paid $167.80 each (one-way) plus $19.50 for the 24-hour stopover in Iceland (this included hotel, food and tour of Reykjavik). The on-board meal included wine and cognac in the price. The return to New York was by Pan Am 727 Munich-Riem to Berlin-Tempelhof, BEA Viscount from Berlin-Tempelhof to Cologne, the train to Luxembourg and the Loftleidir fllight to New York.