Vintage airliner photos

I love the Ports-o-Call Convair 880 (or 990?), and the various 747SPs!

 

The SP's are awesome.

Funny how small the engines look on the DC10's, even compared to the L1011's.

L1011 is still one of my favorite planes. Spent a lot of time on them when I was a kid and my mom worked for Eastern.

 

What is the Empire? F28?

 

I had to chuckle seeing the SABENA logo....back in the day when I was corporate, our Director in Europe always called them "SuchABadExperienceNeverAgain"...

 

Some great and rare subjects. Jet America, my first commercial flight ever. Love the SP shame we don't see them here in the U.S any longer (except the occasional Saudia -SP at LAX)

 

As an engineer on the C-130 program, thanks for the photos of the Transamerica Herk.

I'll be able to add some pics to this thread if I ever get a round tuit and scan a whole lot of slides I have stashed away.....

 

I have a few Jet America model planes that look just like that. Now, who could have made those...?

 

My wife and I flew to and from London in 1993 on a UAL SP just out of refurbishing after being purchased from Pan Am.Flew the same one back a week later. Our departure out of Heathrow was delayed for over an hour due to incoming traffic. The pilot got on the horn and told everyone not to worry about connecting in Seattle because, " This airplane can make up the lost time." We arrived at SEA right on time, 1100.
Pilots to whom I have spoken that flew the SP's said that it ws the most enjoyable and that it flew like a big fighter.

 

There is a very cool bookstore www.batteryparkbookexchange.com in Asheville I was visiting over the weekend and they had an aircraft section where I found this book on the 707. I had no idea the design went back to the 50s....I found some of the wording odd. Must be a British writer.
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There is a corporate 747SP on the west coast as well.

Wasn't Jet America purchased by Alaska, and the kernel of Alaska's MD-80 operations?

 

I was on Jet America's first flight from Long Beach to Chicago for $4.05!

There's 2 747 SPs in Vegas I think. Part of Venetian Hotels flight line.

Great post and pics....

 

Wow, great pics and, as usual, great comments and insights!

I used to see a lot of Kuwait Airways 747SPs when I traveled around the Middle East as a kid. Also, I have been on two flights that were hijacked on the next leg, right after I got off the plane and they took off again.

 

I worked on the 367-80 in 1953, then on the KC-135 which followed in 1954-55, then we started on the 707 in 1955-56 and stayed with it until 1960. I then worked on the 720, 727, and 747, 767,and 777. The 707 is an antique now and so am I.

 

How incredible! What was it like to fly the older airliners? I found it interesting in the book that they had to widen the 707 four inches in order to make room for 6 chairs, vs the original military version. Also, I thought it was fast at that time, at 612 mph cruise. Are the jets much faster today, and if so how much faster? What was it like to really fly back then, vs all the electronic aids you have today? I watched the original Airport the other night, with Dean Martin, George Kennedy, etc, and loved it. Call me nostalgic, but I really somehow think thinks were better then in some ways. I just dawned on me that must because I was young with no responsibilities...

 

Boeing actually widened the fuselage twice between the Dash 80 prototype and the eventual production 707s, because Douglas kept doing the same on the DC-8. The original width is unique to the Dash 80; the intermediate width is what all the KC-135s were built to; the final width is what all the 707s (and all the Boeing narrow-bodies ever since) were built to.

The jets may or may not be faster today, but they usually fly slower, because that's more economical. In 1960, New York to San Juan was listed as 3:15 in the timetable; today's flights are closer to 4 hours!

 

Vintage... ???

I was expecting to see DC-3's, 7's, Connies, Pan Am Martins...

Those are all jets (including turboprops).


Some older friends of mine belonged to the 'Ports of Call Travel Club' here in Denver. Great cheap vacations. They started chartering airline planes, then got their own... had a couple planes as I recall, including the Convair 990 above.

I believe the Convair 990 was the fastest airliner at that time.

 

Scheduled times are longer now because of delays, and the fact that on time performance is now being monitored-- so to avoid being late, the scheduled time is made longer.

I don't know what the 707 cruised at (Bob?), but I doubt if it typically cruised faster than a 747-400 does today. Probably faster than a 737, though.

 

One of my favorite stories of early 707 operations occurred over Gander when a PAA 707 was outbound for Europe and was passing through something like 19000 feet. Overhead was an inbound BOAC Comet at 31000. The 707 had just reported in and stated his altitude, the Comet captain then came on the horn and said, " Pan Am 707 what are doing WAY DOWN there at 18000 feet?" The answer, " .82, what are you doing?" There was no response.The 707 could cruise higher than that at times.

 

Nicely played.

 

Three -SPs in the states. The first is in California and belongs to the owner of "Fry's Electronics".

The other two you refer to belong to Sands Aviation, and are used to fly high-rollers between Macau and Vegas. However, Sands has had these aircraft advertised for sale for quite some time. Really gaudy inside, aimed at Asian clientele with lots of green/jade and gold coloring.