Great picture. Those were the days!

Haven't been an active contributor to the Old Timers thread for quite awhile although I enjoy reading it regularly. But your mention of Fuerteventura triggered a memory of taking my wife and 10 year-old son on a similar school holiday (we lived in London at the time) to one of the other Canary islands, Lanzarote, in 1980, on a Dan-Air BAC-111 from Luton (LTN) to Guacimeta airport (ACE). And your description of the barren, volcanic landscape on Fuerteventura matches Lanzarote; in fact NASA used (and still does) areas in Lanzarote as a training/testing spot for astronauts and moon-buggies. But a more distinct memory is -- our first experience with public nude beaches! Was that a feature on Fuerteventura?

55. Correct! Here's the sched....

FL 695: Tulsa (TUL) 10:50a - 11:30a Denver (DEN) 12:10p - 1:14p Palm Springs (PSP) 1:38p - 2:10p San Diego (SAN)
Freq: TUL-DEN daily except Sundays; DEN-PSP daily
Service class: S
Meal service: Lunch DEN-PSP
Equip: B737-200

BTW, this was the only nonstop service from Denver to Palm Springs and from Palm Springs to San Diego in early 1985.

51. Time to close this one out.....

The airline was Muse Air and the executive who made the above statement was the air carrier's founder (along with his son Michael), CEO and namesake, M. Lamar Muse. Here's the print ad:

MCpreferredservice

Mr. Muse had a long and colorful career in the airline industry going all the way back to Central Airlines where he served as President back when actor (and Air Force pilot) Jimmy Stewart was on the board of directors for the Fort Worth-based local service air carrier. Mr. Muse later served as President of Southwest Airlines as well as previously serving in various positions with Trans-Texas Airways (TTa), American Airlines, Southern Airways and Universal Airlines.

At this time in 1985, Muse Air (MC) was operating MD-80 and DC-9-50 equipment. Muse Air had also previously operated one lone DC-9-30; however, that airplane had left the fleet by this time according to the Muse Air historical website:

https://www.sites.google.com/site/museair2/

I enjoyed a number of flights on Muse Air, usually on the MD-80 between Austin and Los Angeles as well as into and out of Houston Hobby (its primary hub), New Orleans (its focus city) and Miami, and also flew on the DC-9-50 as well. It was a great little airline with a motivated and enthusiastic staff.

I thought this would be the first mention of nudes on the thread, but it seems JL reported on similar once in Hawaii ! !

And I think this has generally moved on in Europe from former times, just like topless has disappeared as well. Now on that trip in the Air 2000 757 in the mid-1990s, up at the other end of the island at Corralejo which looks across to Lanzarote, it was indeed present (the onetime-Miss WHBM of the era instantly declined). But all seems gone now.

I'm more surprised at Dan-Air taking a One-Eleven to the Canaries, which were always thought of as beyond the aircraft's comfortable range. Some used to refuel in Portugal if there were headwinds, but that was expensive. Laker came up with some ops procedures which allowed their One-Elevens to be regularly operated from Gatwick (not further north) to Tenerife, but others felt they were cutting things a bit fine.

Scandinavia developed an affinity for the Canaries quite early, and that is really a considerable hike diagonally right across Europe which was well beyond the previous generations of Mediterranean holiday flight aircraft, so they quickly had early cast-off 4-engine jet aircraft (and even ran DC-7s before that), several had one or two DC-8s, and of course those all-time European holiday airline classics, the Spantax Convair 990 Coronado fleet. We had a Finnair A321 through Fuerteventura yesterday, only the most recent versions can manage it, which is why Finnair previously had a small subfleet of 757s which concentrated on this.

Well, I now wonder what the heck I reported on! Possibly a certain beach on Maui.....and, oh by the way, I did keep my swimsuit on.

However, way back in the day when I was attending the University of Texas at Austin, it was an accepted practice to go "skinny dipping" at nearby Lake Travis at a place called "Hippie Hollow". Ah, those were days....and the Armadillo World Headquarters, a large, comfortable counter cultural music hall in Austin that also had a terrific outdoor beer garden serving wonderful food, was in full swing. I attended quite a few concerts at the 'Dillo during my time in Austin. Artists and bands that played at the Armadillo over the years included Dire Straits, The Police, Roxy Music, Genesis, Janis Joplin, the Jerry Garcia Band, Leon Russell, Bruce Springsteen, Steely Dan, Talking Heads, Little Feat, Fats Domino, Journey, the Pat Metheny Group, Roy Buchanan, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Van Morrison, Frank Zappa, ZZ Top, Kraftwerk, Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen, Willie Nelson and many, many more.

And, of course, there's an airline angle here as AUS was served by only three air carriers back in the mid 1970's: Braniff International operating Boeing 727-100 and 727-200 equipment, Continental operating the Boeing 720B and 727-200, and Texas International operating the Douglas DC-9-10. The longest nonstop flight from Austin back in 1975 was a daily service to Washington Dulles flown by Braniff with a 727-100. Things have changed quite a bit at AUS since then with air service being moved some years ago to the old Bergstrom AFB (a former B-52 and F-4 base). BA showed up at Austin awhile back and I now hear that KLM is planning to begin service into AUS as well.

Some things change and some don't...

AUS airport not only has BA (been there for a few years) and KL starting next May, but also LH to FRA, who started last year, forcing DE off the route. DY has done LGW for a few years and just (as in, this morning) announced CDG as well. Five TATL destinations from AUS compared to the IAD you remember.

On the other hand, Hippie Hollow is still very much a clothing-optional beach locale. According to Wikipedia it's the "only legally recognized clothing-optional public park in the State of Texas". While I never went during my years in Austin, based on what I've heard I doubt it's reputation has changed much since you were there!

Well, I wasn't aware of the current Lufthansa and Norwegian service or the past Condor service into Austin! It's been quite some time since I've been over that way. And BTW, the first time I arrived into AUS (via the old Robert Mueller Municipal Airport) was on board a Trans-Texas Airways (TTa) Convair 600 from Dallas Love Field back in the late 1960's.

While we're in an interlude between quiz questions, I was hoping someone here could help me with some concrete details of a vague childhood flying memory that I have. If anyone on the internet knows, it will certainly be those on this thread!

Time period here is the mid-1990's. I grew up back east, in Charleston, WV, while my parents are both from Utah. Since flights out of CRW were (are) expensive my parents almost always drove us to CMH or CVG to fly to SLC. According to my memory we flew mostly WN and DL. DL had a much larger hub at CVG at the time, so that makes sense, while apparently WN had a fair number of flights at CMH where we could single connect to SLC (I remember STL and MDW for sure. Who knows where else). I know that sometimes we hopped from CMH to CVG on DL, as that brought the fares down. Once, on the return, the flight was cancelled so DL put us all on a bus to drive back to CMH from CVG. That one I remember well.

Anyway, on to the question: As is oft-discussed in this thread, direct flights with multiple stops were once much more common. I would assume we took these on multiple occasions, though I only actually remember one, and it's the details of that flight that I'm curious about. One winter (I'm pretty sure there was snow on the ground) we flew, probably from either CVG or CMH on our way to SLC. It's entirely possible that we originated in CRW instead, though I would think it third-most-likely in this case. The SLC portion was almost certainly a separate flight (i.e. not on the same direct flight as the other legs); we were always connecting through hubs in the Midwest. I would guess that we're talking about the 1993-1996 range, though I could be off on that. Regardless, etched in my mind is the fact that we had a stopover, where we remained on the plane, in Appleton, Wisconsin (ATW).

The questions, then, are: Is this even possible? Were there direct flights or milk run type flights from Ohio or WV through ATW to some airline hub where we could've connected to SLC? Maybe on NW to MSP or DTW?

I will readily admit that my memory is fallible and that this stopover (which I'm 99% sure happened) may not have occurred at ATW. I just figured I'd ask the collective minds here since this one has been bothering me ever since a more grown-up version of myself started regularly and meticulously logging flights a few years ago.

I also understand that this questions is rather vague, and won't be offended in the least to be told that there's not enough information here to go off of. Thanks for trying!

Time to grab my rather battered OAG dated September 15, 1994 (a survivor of the Big Flood of 2016 here in Lafayette).......

From Columbus (CMH), I see one daily direct Northwest flight to Salt Lake City (SLC) operated with a DC-9-30 which made one stop at Minneapolis/St. Paul (MSP).

From SLC back to CMH, I see two direct one stop flights, one operated by Northwest and the other by America West. The daily NW flight operated with a DC-9-30 made a stop at MSP and on Saturdays there was an equipment change from a D9S to a DC9 at MSP as well. The daily America West flight operated with an all-coach configured B737-200 was a red eye (fare class was Yn denoting night coach) and made one stop at Las Vegas. You may recall that America West was operating a hub at CMH at this time.

From Cincinnati (CVG) to SLC, there were the usual hub to hub nonstops operated by Delta with B727-200, B757-200, B767-300 and L-1011 equipment plus a couple of one stop flights also operated by DL, one with a 757 via MSP and the other with a B737-200 also via MSP.

From SLC back to CVG, it was all Delta service as well with 757, 763 and L10 nonstops plus a single direct one stop flight operated by DL with a 72S via MSP.

This OAG does not list any direct service between Charleston (CRW) and Salt Lake City (SLC).

And turning to the weather....

Well, my goodness....Tropical Depression 17 has now formed in the Gulf of Mexico and just might become Tropical Storm Olga before it makes landfall on the Louisiana coast and then possibly moves right over Lafayette tonight with the potential for heavy rain and possible flooding.

We will obviously be very glad when our tropical weather season is finally over and done with this year.....

a winter flight might well have made a fuel stop at ATW during a MSP weather hold
you will also be very glad when you are 8000-some miles away from that weather and enjoying Tahiti (next week, yes?)

Yep, but we will also be keeping a weather eye on the Gulf back home as hurricane season does not officially end until November 30.

Sure would hate to arrive home to a flooded mess and a soggy BMW....... :eek:

P.S. - And our National Hurricane Center (NHC) has now upgraded the aforementioned tropical weather system to Tropical Storm Olga which should make landfall on the Louisiana coast just south of us and then pass just east of Lafayette tonight.

Just so you don't feel particularly picked out, we left Fuerteventura yesterday evening in a substantial Sahara-style sandstorm, which turned to horizontal rain at the end, quite unforecast according to the pilots, and arrived back at London Stansted more than 20 degrees C cooler with everything saturated, and flooding elsewhere in the country

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-50199254

We once again dodged the tropical weather bullet as heavy rain and tornadoes associated with Tropical Storm Olga stayed east of us.

However, we have been in contact with friends in Sonoma County in northern California where the situation is dire due to the Kincade Fire. Wind gusts of 80 mph were relentlessly driving the fire through wine country at dawn this morning resulting in at least one winery we know of (Soda Rock) where a friend works being burned to the ground. What's worse is the communities of Healdsburg and Windsor are now threatened. The extremely high winds (which are being called "historic" by the National Weather Service) have grounded firefighting fixed wing and helicopter air tankers. The U.S. 101 freeway in that area is closed and it appears over 100,000 people have been forced to evacuate. If the winds do not relent (and a wind gust of 93 mph was just reported), it's possible the fire may burn all the way to the Pacific Ocean in Sonoma County. This is a truly terrible situation and we continue to hope and pray for our friends out there.

Unfortunately, no sign of relief to come. Too bad one of the tropical storms that form off the Baja Coast can't go north and dump a lot of rain to help put out those fires.