Aeroflot was the IL86 operator, Moscow-Seattle-LAX.

I'll have to go and look out my old paperwork but something tells me there was an IL62 operator in the 1990s into Seattle from Khabarovsk. I have this down in my IL62 suggested carriers (coming soon) as Aeroflot themselves, but it may have carried on after they transferred services not from the Moscow hub to locally based ex-Directorates which became independent airlines)

This stop was at Gander, not Goose Bay, for the same reason that they stopped at Shannon in Ireland as well. There were no Soviet types (apart from the big turboprop Tu114 of the 1960s) that could get from the Soviet Union to Cuba nonstop, and western fuel along the way was a foreign currency drain. Around 1979 the Soviets agreed with Ireland to build a large tank farm next to Shannon, and Soviet aviation fuel (fully up to Western spec) was shipped over by bulk tanker from the Black Sea. A few years later the same was done at Gander. Therefore these two points became key to getting across the Atlantic.

Even the Tu114 couldn't quite get from Moscow to Havana nonstop, so they refuelled at Murmansk, up in the Arctic.

Referencing my earlier post (#631), I have confirmed that Continental did indeed operate B747-200 series aircraft. CO first operated the B747-100 model back when the 747 was introduced and just about every major U.S. airline operated the type. CO then phased out the B747-100s apparently in favor of DC-10-10 and DC-10-30 aircraft.

However, when PeoplExpress was folded into Continental, this marked the return of 747 operations by CO. Specific models operated included the B747-230B, -238B and -243B. CO then phased out these 747 models but kept operating the DC-10s until the B777-200 was introduced.

Yes, I was. Here it is from the November 1969 OAG:

BA 591 LHR-JFK-LAX-HNL-NAN-SYD

Three years earlier, BA operated a 707 on the LHR-JFK-SFO-HNL-TYO routing.

BOAC had operated the North Pacfic route since prop aircraft days. It carried on to Hong Kong and was actually on a Hong Kong licence to serve the USA - the predecessor of Cathay Pacific's transpacific services. BOAC also did Hong Kong to Johannesburg on the same basis. All the crews were out of London; they were away from home for weeks.

The Sydney run was known as the South Pacific, and had earler been 707s instead, but changed over to VC10s as they steadily came on line in the late 1960s. The North Pacific route was always 707s until it was given up. BOAC did make these periodic equipment changeovers on their long multi-stop routes, and as different crews were qualified on different types, the logistics at changeover time were a nightmare.

Magadan Airlines (Malavia) and this is what I recall seeing at SEA:
http://cdn-www.airliners.net/aviatio.../4/1865415.jpg
They used TU-154s as well.

Excellent! Was this a Super VC10 aircraft?

Also curious to know what their traffic rights were....obviously, BA could not carry local traffic between JFK-LAX/SFO-HNL but I'll assume they could carry stopover traffic. Were they able to carry traffic originating in the U.S. to NAN, SYD and TYO and back?

Yes, the Supers did all the transatlantic VC10 flights apart from a few early flights; the Standards, with significantly less capacity but much better field performance, were used to Africa and the nearer Asian points.
Yes, this was the bulk of the traffic on these routes, they didn't carry a lot through from London. The Sydney route was very joint with Qantas, to the extent that they had the same flight schedules on alternate days, some days BOAC, some days Qantas.

The accident to fully loaded BOAC 707 G-APFE on departure from Tokyo for Hong Kong, which had come throuh from San Francisco and Honolulu, and which crashed into Mount Fuji after breaking up in extreme turbulence, had a majority of US travellers on board, including a large incentive group from the Thermo King Corporation headed for Hong Kong.

CO 747s and DCs; BOAC at HNL
 

Thanks all for the great historical recounts.

Jlemon: Regarding post # 647. Yes, I think there are some photos on the internet that show some 200ish looking CO 747's. I also remember seeing at one point or another, all versions of CO 747s and DC-10s making their way in and out of HNL. I think HNL was a CO hub sometime ago.

jlemon, WHBM, Seat 2A: As a kid who went to HNL back in the day to watch planes all day long, I got to see both the BOAC Super VC-10s and 707s. I would look at the departures board in the terminal and then look at those planes, still remembering that the 707 was TYO bound and the VC-10 would be NAN bound. Those memories are still with me so thank you all for confirming and reviving them for me. :)

No, FL never flew jets to COD. WA did fly there way back when (in fact, on the same flight that served SHR in many cases). I don't have access to my old schedules right now -- they're in a storage unit -- but I'm sure I have a timetable from those days. Would have been early to mid 70s.

For those who aren't aware of this interesting resource for these :

http://www.timetableimages.com/ttima...e/complete.htm

Click on the date rather than the airline name.

Looking back at an old Western timetable from 1968 as well the Feb. 1976 OAG, I'm still not seeing any WA service to Cody.

The route including Sheridan you mentioned actually operated Denver-Cheyenne-Casper-Sheridan-Billings with some flights continuing on to Great Falls and Calgary. This route had been served by Lockheed L-188 "Electra" turboprops which were then replaced with Boeing 737-200s. Perhaps you were thinking of Casper instead of Cody?

More likely Sheridan or West Yellowstone but even then, I don't remember Western ever serving Cody either. I've got OAGs from the sixties, seventies and eighties and none of them show WA service to Cody. This doesn't mean it didn't happen but as a regular reader of the OAG and an employee working out of Denver Stapleton, I had a pretty good idea of what was going where. We (Frontier) served Cody with 580s but given the size of the town back then combined with West Yellowstone being better suited as an entry point to Yellowstone (and possibly as an airport that was better equipped to handle 737s) is it possible that the OP was thinking of service to West Yellowstone? I recall WA offering a seasonal service there in the 1980s.

From the old Western flight info I've been able to dig up, the Denver-Cheyenne-Casper-Sheridan-Billings service was rather linear in nature (especially when one looks at the WA route map in their timetable) and pretty much followed what is now the I-25/I-90 corridor. I believe the West Yellowstone service flowed south toward SLC, LAS and SoCal and thus not into DEN. I remember seeing a Western B737-200 at WYS many years ago (we were on a family vacation and I prevailed on my folks to stop so I could check out the terminal) and you are correct: the WYS service was seasonal in nature and only operated during the summer months. I also believe that WYS was the smallest community, population-wise, ever served by WA jet equipment in the lower 48 states although the service was, of course, primarily aimed at tourists visiting Yellowstone National Park. This was back when passenger jet operations were still prohibited at Jackson Hole (JAC) and the only service at this particular airfield at the time was provided by FL with Convair 580s - but you probably already knew that having worked for good old Frontier!

Thank you, WHBM, for this excellent information. It's interesting to note the very close cooperation between BOAC and Qantas back during this time. It appears that BOAC was truly a global airline back in the day as was Pan Am.

I also did not know about what had to be a truly horrific accident experienced by BOAC operated B707 in Japan. It sounds about as bad as the JAL B747SR accident that occurred in Japan some years later.....

Exactly 46 years ago today (5 March). Flight number... 911
http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/d...00/2515321.stm