jlemon

8. Yet another excellent guess.....however, the air carrier was not Pan Am, the equipment wasn't a 727 and JFK was not the third stop.

jrl767

ok, now I'm stumped ... equipment isn't a 727 or a 737; I don't think US Air operated the ex-Mohawk BAC 1-11s much farther south than DCA, the only carriers that I can recall running DC9s along the Atlantic coast were Delta and Eastern, and as far as those are concerned, I'm highly confident that jlemon would have mentioned the availability of First Class in seeking either of these as an answer (that's why I didn't offer PA)

so I guess we're looking for either a startup or a previously extant regional that was beginning to spread its wings ...

jlemon

You are on the right track, sir!

WHBM

I still think Pan Am may provide the clue, because they junked the old National secondary points pretty soon after the National merger, and someone else will have come along.

Altair was one that capitalised on this. They had F28s and DC9s. They were based in Philadelphia, which gives us the third stop. We've had a lot of Fokker questions recently.

Lets go for Altair. If they picked up the old National route south of Washington then maybe they routed Jacksonville-Savannah-Charleston SC-Washington-Philadelphia-Hartford. With an F28.

jlemon

8. Correct! Altair (AK) began operations as a commuter air carrier with Beech 99 turboprops during the late 60's. They then added Nord 262 turboprops to their fleet. By the early 1980's, the turboprops were gone as Altair had become an all-jet airline with a small fleet of DC9-30 and F28 aircraft which they called "Starjets". I believe the F28s were series 4000 aircraft. The flight in question also had an interesting routing. Here's the complete sched....

AK 385/348: Buffalo (BUF) 11:05a - 11:30a Rochester (ROC) 12:00n - 1:00p Philadelphia (PHL) 1:40p - 3:10p Savannah (SAV) 3:35p - 4:00p Charleston (CHS) 4:30p - 5:50p Washington D.C. (DCA) 6:30p - 7:05p Philadelphia (PHL) 7:50p - 8:45p Hartford/Springfield (BDL)
Op: Daily
Equip: F28
Note: flight number change to AK 348 at SAV (AK 385 was shown as thru service from BUF, ROC and PHL to CHS)

Jet equipment apparently assisted in causing the demise of Altair as they were out of business a short time later.

WHBM

Just to add that the Antonov 12 UR-CAH has just rumbled over the house again headed north-east at 26,000 feet, on a pretty similar track to the last report. It has left Tangier instead of Marrakesh this time, both in Morocco, and again seems headed for Scandinavia.

It disappeared much quicker than last time, and FR24 says it's doing 344 knots at altitude, about 100kt faster than before. Presumably empty this time.

Seat 2A

16. How many seats were there in first class on board Fokker F28 Fellowship series 1000 and series 4000 aircraft operated by USAir?

As long as I've still got a good internet connection, I'm gonna go with 8 seats. For some reason I'm thinking it was 16 but that just seems like entirely too many during the late 80s and 90s. I could see an airline doing it in the 60s though... Anyway, let's go with 8.

jlemon

16. Ah, it was not eight seats.....and nor was it sixteen seats.

Please guess again, sir!

jrl767

16- I'm thinking about how USAir configured their E70/E75/E90 series jets -- with no seat 1A immediately adjacent to the forward door -- which makes me wonder if there are actually two answers: 10 on the Series 1000 and 14 on the Series 4000

WHBM

I'm going to go for four.

I seem to remember in an old edition of the late lamented annual JP Airline Fleets book, which showed seating configs, that there was a small jet type with just four F seats.

jlemon

16. Another good guess.....however, it was not 10 seats in F on the F28 series 10 nor was it 14 seats in F on the series 4000. In fact, both models operated by US were configured with the same number of seats up front.

And I see WHBM has weighed in.....

jlemon

16. Correct! Both the F28 series 1000 and series 4000 as operated by USAir in 1992 were configured with just four seats in first class in a 2-2 layout. BTW, the series 1000 had 59 seats in coach while the series 4000 had 64 seats in coach, both in a 2-3 layout.

jlemon

Finally back home from yet another business trip to the big city of Houston as we intently watch the southern Gulf of Mexico with an eye toward the development of a possible tropical weather system north of Yucatan perhaps by next week.

And just two quiz items left to go. Plus, I will submit a number of bonus quiz items as we roll into the weekend.

jlemon

Time for several bonus quiz items on a beautiful but very warm Friday afternoon....

21. It's 1961 and you are in Mexico City. You need to travel to Houston and have discovered a flight that meets your schedule which operates twice a week. You'll depart MEX at 2:15 PM and arrive in HOU at 6:45 pm. This flight will make one intermediate stop en route. Name the airline you'll be flying on, the intermediate stop and the aircraft type. ANSWERED

22. Identify an airline that was operating Lockheed L-188 Electra service into Nassau, Bahamas (NAS) in 1973. ANSWERED

23. In 1975, this airline was operating a nonstop flight from McAllen (MFE) to an international destination twice a week. And yes, the destination was in Mexico but the service did not depart to Mexico City or Monterrey. Name the air carrier, the destination and the equipment flown on the route. ANSWERED

24. In 1978, this air carrier filed with the CAB for passenger authority from Chicago Midway Airport (MDW) to 23 cities. The operator stated in its annual report at the time that used Boeing 727-100 aircraft as well as a new twin jet type would be used for the new service. It then subsequently ordered and took delivery of new Boeing 737-200 equipment. However, it never commenced the planned new passenger service from Midway. Name the air carrier. Hint: this air carrier is still in business

25. Identify an airline that was operating American Eagle code share service with DHC-6 Twin Otter turboprop equipment on behalf of AA in 1985. Hint: this airline previously operated as an independent commuter air carrier with Short 330 and Twin Otter equipment

WHBM

Could this be Pan Am ? In which case it would be on a DC-6B, stopping at Brownsville on the way.