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Always had a soft spot for Pan-Am. During my time as a Field Engineer with RCA in the late sixties - remember AVQ-10, 20 & 30, plus their DME's & Transponders, I got to fly with more airlines than I care to remember. From Tarom to Icelandair, and most in between. Why so many? Because invariably they were picking up the tab. But Pan-Am was special.

Flew numerous flight into Templehof, Berlin with Pan-Am - 1968/69, at the sharp end. Couldn't fly around nasty weather because of the restrictions of the Corridor, so I was tweaking the weather radar internals after each flight to improve it's weather penetration. Pan-Am's crews were some of the best people I've ever met.

Often the No. 2 would hop out of his seat and I would hop in, allowing me easier access to the radar display. Flying up the Berlin Corridor in the right hand seat of a 707 was quite an experience not easily forgotten. Happy times indeed.

Alison

Ansett ANA first plane I flew on in Oz. 727 maybe?

Alisoncc wrote:Always had a soft spot for Pan-Am.

Alison

Ah Pan-Am, I only flew with them once, Miami-Heathrow, but is was business class on a B-747. I kept the menu! And I found another from a previous flight, in the seat-back in front of me.

They are now framed and on my Pruning room wall.

As for remembered airlines, at one time I had a support job for the UK and Scanwegia and was based in Leeds.

I was frequent SLF on Dan Air and Air Anglia.

The Dan Air 748 that was based in Leeds did a 'bus trip' something like Leeds - Glasgow - Leeds - Cardiff - Bournemouth- Jersey - Guernsey - Bournemouth - Cardiff - Leeds - Glasgow - Leeds.

This was dead handy for me as I could have an early start, go to Glasgow, do a days work and still get home that night.

Air Anglia did a similar trip up and down the East Coast with a F-27 based at Norwich, I used it to Edinburgh. The F-27 went on to Aberdeen and then over to Stavanger. It was the Oil & Gas special with lots of cigar smoking Texans!

The Dan Air 748 that was based in Leeds did a 'bus trip'

It was actually called 'Link City'

Wodrick wrote:

The Dan Air 748 that was based in Leeds did a 'bus trip'

It was actually called 'Link City'

Whatever it was called it was a very useful service. I was a big fan.

As I said, I had to cover the whole of the UK, but in practice I didn't have to travel much beyond a line Bristol - Southampton or north of Glasgow - Edinburgh. I managed one trip to Bournemouth, picked up a hire car, drove to an RN installation in Portsmouth, fixed their problem and back at Hurn to catch the northbound flight and was home for tea!

If I needed to get to somewhere in Europe, BA had Viscount flights to Schiphol, with its myriad of connections.

I also used to go to Brussels for courses of up to 6 weeks at a time. So I liked having my car with me. I used to drive to Hull and use North Sea Ferries overnight to Rotterdam and then drive to Brussels by 10:00. It was less intrusive than flying, and I got to have transport over there.

At that time, it all made Leeds a handy place for me to operate from and have a desk.

One humorous aspect, I lived in Tadcaster & my next door neighbor was the local Chemist. He walked to his shop every day, came home for lunch and visited his wholesaler in Leeds once a month. His holiday was spent in Cleethorpes!

Me, It was unusual for me not spend at least one night a week away in a hotel somewhere. The chemist simply couldn't comprehend my lifestyle.

British Caledonian and those lovely ladies in kilts who would bring around a hot breakfast on the Gatwick to FFaM morning flight.

On one almost-empty flight I was in row two and after serving our food and drinks the cabin ladies congregated in row one. And of course I listened to their conversation...

"I wen' back there, and what do you think ? He had his willy out !"
"Och, Fiona, he didna´"
"Aye he did, the dirty wee man."
"What did you do ?"
"I lookit him straight in the eye, and I said: 'put that thing away, and I don' want to see it again until after we land".
Pause
"Fiona, oh no, do ye not realise what you said ?"
Pause, many giggles.

Happy Days !

OFSO wrote:British Caledonian and those lovely ladies in kilts who would bring around a hot breakfast on the Gatwick to FFaM morning flight.

On one almost-empty flight I was in row two and after serving our food and drinks the cabin ladies congregated in row one. And of course I listened to their conversation...

"I wen' back there, and what do you think ? He had his willy out !"
"Och, Fiona, he didna´"
"Aye he did, the dirty wee man."
"What did you do ?"
"I lookit him straight in the eye, and I said: 'put that thing away, and I don' want to see it again until after we land".
Pause
"Fiona, oh no, do ye not realise what you said ?"
Pause, many giggles.

Happy Days !

I agree, I do miss British Caledonian, a great airline.

British Caledonian and those lovely ladies in kilts

I used to spend a lot of time in the Holiday Inn near Brussels Airport (Zaventum), when B Cal had night stopped, the cabin crew always turned heads when they came in to breakfast.

It was the smartest cabin crew kit ever.

BCAL - I married one of those lovely ladies back in the 70's. Still kick myself for not working hard enough at the relationship with the result it ended in tears. As an airline nothing has ever come close to BCAL as far as I am concerned, and as an employer I never had a better one than their helicopter company - my avatar is one of their S61's.

Probably biased, because my Dad flew for them ,but it's Cambrian for me, especially the Prestwick crews

OFSO wrote:British Caledonian and those lovely ladies in kilts who would bring around a hot breakfast on the Gatwick to FFaM morning flight.

On one almost-empty flight I was in row two and after serving our food and drinks the cabin ladies congregated in row one. And of course I listened to their conversation...

"I wen' back there, and what do you think ? He had his willy out !"
"Och, Fiona, he didna´"
"Aye he did, the dirty wee man."
"What did you do ?"
"I lookit him straight in the eye, and I said: 'put that thing away, and I don' want to see it again until after we land".
Pause
"Fiona, oh no, do ye not realise what you said ?"
Pause, many giggles.

Happy Days !

Tee hee.. I was flying a trip with the DC-3 once from a dirt strip in the boonies back here to base. We had a full load of guys that had been in the bush for a month cutting slash for the right of way for a hydro electric power line. They hadn't seen a lady for a month, and to say our stew - for such were they called back then - was well endowed would be a gross understatement. We were just at top of descent on the 45-minute flight when she came storming into the cockpit and announced:
"There's some dirty sob back there jerkin' off!"
"What?? Whaddya want me to do, go back and give him a hand?"
"It's not funny, I'm not going back there again, you asshole."
And she didn't. I went back before landing to make sure everyone was belted in and then at the gate to open the door and let the guys off.
That was better than 40 years ago. She quit flying and became a prison guard at a maximum security prison near here. She's retired now, I see her every so often and we have a laugh about the wanker from Mile 191. She remarked one day that the stuff she has seen while a prison guard makes a wood cutter pulling his pud look pretty tame.

I recall two HS748s being repossessed from the wonderfully named airline "Goa Way" and parked at Manchester for a considerable time.

Wodrick, surely you can remember these? They might even been in the care of Dan Air during their stay.

Always had a soft spot for British United Airlines. My first 'real' flight apart from the AEF Chipmunks. And they took me off to a nasty little war.

Sisemen wrote:Always had a soft spot for British United Airlines. My first 'real' flight apart from the AEF Chipmunks. And they took me off to a nasty little war.

My newly wed wife's 1st ever flight, and my 1st civilian one was a BUA Britannia military charter, overnight Stanstead to Nicosia.

It and the cabin crew, immediately killed off all of her images of the glamour of flying!

Wodrick, surely you can remember these? They might even been in the care of Dan Air during their stay.

I don't remember the specific bombers, one had little to do with the hangar, but you are correct they would have been on "care and maintenance", we did a lot of that. On a quick Giggle it seems that Goa Way failed, great pity with a name like that, and the A/C ended up at Ryanair's version of Glasgow, Ayr International.
Most of my 748 experience was driving to LBA in the middle of the night to see G-ARAY.

Orion, Air Europe, Paramount, British Island Airways, Starways, British Eagle, Court Line,Air2000, Novair, Inter European Airways, Air UK Leisure, Laker. All without trying too hard, involved with most of these except the truly old ones. But worked with chaps that were ex Starways and Eagle.

Of those you mention Wodrick sure I had "dealings" with Air Europe,Paramount, Novair, as well as Dan Air and Laker who got me started in the business.

Brymon and their Dash 7s.Used to love flying in and out of Plymouth in one of them to and from LHR. Airways International Cymru and their two 1-11s.

Swissair in the late 1970s when it was still a class act.

Also at around the same time I had a couple of trips on Great Lakes Airlines - the Canadian one, not the US one, often called "Great Shakes" because it was still using piston-engined aircraft. The low speed and relatively low altitude meant you could see a lot more detail of the countryside passing below than was typical even then.