WHBM

I think it's probably the United copywriter who could have written better. You can't take the whole fleet (which was 20) out of service in October when some have already gone. The first pair had already gone to Transavia in the Netherlands in May 1970, for use on their summertime holiday flights to the Mediterranean, as well as charters that hopped over each weekend to Southend, the little airport somewhat remote from London which we have encountered here before as a base for various old types. Southend was the first ever "proper" airport I took G-WHBM to, with its 5,500 foot runway and ILS it looked very long ... I bet from a Caravelle flight deck it looked very short ! It's a very short trip from one to the other, so minimum fuel, you can almost see across. Certainly from overhead Amsterdam Schipol at cruising altitude you can see the English coast, because I have done so from a BA 747.

Southend would have been a good short trip today, a lazy warm Sunday afternoon, clear blue skies, lunch in the garden, followed by bicycle trials , and a wide range of aircraft looping over the house to make an extended run in to Heathrow, along with all the high flyers from Amsterdam and Europe heading out across the Atlantic.

The bonus questions, to put them all in one place, are here :

WHBM

I think that's the way as well. Daily VC-10 JFK to Nassau, then the frequent Bahamas Airways hop to Miami. However, in 1968 Bahamas Airways had replaced their Viscounts with BAC One-Elevens, first they leased a pair of the standard 400 series for a year, then got two new Super One-Eleven 500s in 1969. I'm sure our sales guy would have wanted to be on the brand new aircraft.

A jet was a bit inappropriate for the short hop to Miami, and they didn't really go anywhere else, so not surprisingly by 1971 Bahamas Airways went under financially, and the pink-and-blue fleet came back to the UK for resale. The One-Eleven 500 pair went, inevitably, to Court Line.

https://abpic.co.uk/pictures/operato...0xSx%20BHSxBCx

That all being said, I'm really attracted by jrl's route, which is much more exciting

jlemon

Excellent photos of Bahamas Airways aircraft! I'm curious about the BAC One-Eleven photos, specifically the One-Eleven series 432FD and the Super One-Eleven series 515FE. What is the significance of the -32FD and -15FE with regard to the numbers and letters?

I, too, prefer jrl767's all BAC One-Eleven routing on AA, BN and GU.

And now back to the yardwork on a hot and humid Sunday afternoon with tropical air mass thundershowers moving inland from the Gulf of Mexico. I see an ice cold IPA in the not so distant future for yours truly.......

jrl767

the link is broken but I was able to figure out how to find the photo

the jet in front is clearly a 707; it looks like there's an outline of an emergency exit door just aft of the wing, which would make it a -300 ... the livery is familiar, but I can't make a positive identification ... a few of the other photos in the BCAL gallery are captioned "Hajj"; along with the green-and-black livery, it doesn't seem a stretch to guess that it was an African or Asian carrier

the nacelle contour of the jet in the rear makes me think it's a Convair 990, which combined with Hajj says probably Spantax

last night's IPA was "Pile of Face" from Against the Grain Brewing in Louisville; tonight I get to choose between a pair of Virginia products: Hardywood (Richmond) "Great Return" and Pale Fire (Harrisonburg) "Deadly Rhythm" dry-hopped

jlemon

I concur with jrl767 with regard to the B707 and CV-990 but don't have a clue concerning the airlines in question.....

WHBM

I've fixed the link; in an amusing moment you have found a different photo, not in the original set, but which is identical APART from featuring quite a different individual, in different clothing, in the foreground. Everything else is the same. The two guys must have taken one another's photos.

The nearer aircraft is a Saudi Arabian 707-320C, based at Jeddah, in the original hockey stick style tailfin livery, changed shortly afterwards to an allover green. Brand new in Spring 1968, at the time the Saudi long-haul fleet comprised just four aircraft (how times change); two 720Bs delivered a few years previously, and the two 707s. I shall ask the expert here, but I believe another difference is the 707-320C had a taller fin than the 720B. Both types were fitted with the long-distance HF aerial pointing forward from the fin, which I believe none of the US domestic 720B operators needed to fit. The airline seems to change its name backwards and forwards every decade or so between Saudia and Saudi Arabian.

The other aircraft is I agree a Convair 990, but belonging to ... Lebanese International. They bought two aircraft from American, and pretty much retained the unpainted finish, just removed the thunderflash cheatline and added their circular logo to the tail. Both were destroyed (along with the airline itself, they lost their entire fleet) later in 1968 in the attack on Beirut airport which blew up everything standing there at the time, so it was only for a few months that the two could have stood together. LIA didn't have schedules into Jeddah at the time, and their fleet usage on the ones they did have seemed to have days when just one was in use, so likely another Hadj charter, which has long been an "all hands to the pump" event for Middle East operators, as well as great off-season work for the UK holiday flight airlines.

Not a lot of importance, in an extension of the Boeing system, every separate order made for the One-Eleven got a different alpha-numeric suffix, which just related to the original build standard and facilitated ordering spare parts and such like. Both the number and letter parts seem to just increment as orders were placed. The detail is commonly not quoted unless necessary.

Aircraft used to have a lot more customisation by the manufacturer then than now. For example, BAC installed as standard rocker switches on the flight deck panels which pressed Down for on. However, the first Super One-Elevens ordered, for BEA, which later passed to BA, had the opposite. This was because the Trident, built by Hawker Siddeley, had this, and BEA wanted it standardised across the fleet. A later small order for BA, some of the last One-Elevens ordered, had the same.

However, in 1988, when BA bought out British Caledonian, they inherited a large fleet of One-Eleven 500s with the BAC standard layout (and of course different number suffixes). The UK CAA was not impressed with any of the plans to merge the two fleets, and insisted they remain separate, with separate crews, at all times. The old BEA standard operated from Heathrow and Manchester, while the old BCal ones ran from Gatwick, and later a good number moved to Birmingham.

jlemon

I managed to safely conclude the yard work before the first thundershower arrived and was then able to strategically retreat to a portion of our backyard deck protected from the elements. Time for a properly chilled beverage......which Lady K brought to me with all due ceremony. It was a Parish Brewing Company "Dr. Hoptagon" brewed just down the road from us in nearby Broussard, LA. Here's the narrative concerning this microbrew which appears on every bottle:

"Parish Dr. Hoptagon is a bada$$ Black IPA. Pleasantly offensive, this serum is bursting with bitter hops and black roasted malts. If you prefer weak, yellow beer or rainbow pooping unicorns, put this bottle down and slowly back away."

Speaking of rainbows, there's one out the window right now just before sunset as another towering thundershower bears down on us....

And this IPA is for ya'll......

jrl767

I spent a couple summers and long winter intersession breaks during college working at FAA HQ in Washington DC; for some weird reason I was obsessed with NTSB accident reports, which were available in the library on the top floor of the building (along with OAGs, but that's another conversation) ... one of the first I remember reading was on the Delta DC9-30 that crashed at BOS in July 1973; when the pilot started a go-around he apparently instinctively turned the flight director switch to what he thought was the proper detent in the Collins (original NE) system -- but the ex-Northeast jet had been modified to DL configuration, and that switch position resulted in a display that caused enough distraction for the crew to lose situational awareness

Reds2011

General Dynamics I believe.

jlemon

Just four more to go here.....and I'm off to Houston on business so there may be a short delay with regard to yours truly responding to your answers.

jlemon

I think this may have been the Convair 660 which was envisioned as a twin engine, short haul jet powered by the same Rolls-Royce turbofan engines.

WHBM

Yes, sharing the Rolls-Royce engine intended for the Fairchild F-228 was the General Dynamics (Convair) 660, probably their last stand at doing a commercial airliner.

http://www.secretprojects.co.uk/foru...?topic=26085.0

The GD board, however, decided they had enough of commercial projects, and let it go. The engine was to be the Rolls-Royce RB.203. This was a very complex three-shaft engine for such a small and low-powered unit.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolls-Royce_RB.203_Trent

jrl767

8- I'll posit (albeit with little if any expectation of being correct) a Piedmont 737, making stops at Charleston (CHS), Washington (DCA), and Baltimore (BAL)

jlemon

8. Well, hey, at least you took a stab at it! However, the airline was not Piedmont and the equipment wasn't a 737. On the plus side, the first stop was CHS and the second stop was DCA. But the third stop was not BAL.

WHBM

Was it Pan Am, having taken over the National routes that went up through Savannah, Charleston and Washington. In which case a 727. And the other stop could likely be JFK. I don't believe National ever served Hartford, but pan Am might have tagged it onto one of their own.