Last scheduled piston-engined airliner at London Airport?

[BEagle]

Sitting in the passenger bus at London (Hounslow) Airport t'other day, noting the endless procession of look-alike people-tubes, I began to wonder what/when was the last ever piston-engined (NOT turbo-prop) scheduled PASSENGER flight to leave the airport? And who was the operator?

Constellation? DC-7? Ambassador/Elizabethan?

Over to you.....

[PaperTiger]

Good question.

Without the passenger proviso, the quick answer would be the KarAir DC-6 which operated every weekday (ie. scheduled) up until 1982 (? I think).

Otherwise I suggest as candidates Iberia, Sabena or LOT Convairs.

[one11]

Probably not quite what BEAgle had in mind but in 1969/70 Westward Airways operated a shuttle to Gatwick with a BN Islander, shrinking to a Piper Cherokee in the final days

G-AXFC Britten-Norman BN-2A Islander of Westward Airways at the Gatwick General Aviation Terminal - 1970 - British Airlines of the Past - Some of the gone, but not forgotten airlines of Britain. - Caz Caswell's Aviation Photographs Web Site (http://www.airpixbycaz.co.uk/cazsite/aviation/airlines/balp/balp15.html)


From the heavier metal I suspect it will again be the DC-6B. The last bookable prop service into Gatwick was a Balair DC-6B from Basle operating 6 days a week up to 1981. Source Propliner Magazine.

[BEagle]

The question referred to scheduled passenger services from LHR, not Gatwick.

[one11]

Point taken re Balair which was just volunteering extra info, but the Westward Islander shuttle was from Heathrow to Gatwick and vice versa.

[Herod]

Possibly Eastern Airways DC3s from Humberside via Norwich. 1982/3?

[Proplinerman]

Before my time, but from photos, I know Icelandair, Persian/Iranian Airways and SAA were all operating big Dougs into LHR in the mid-sixties, tho I rather think the final service would have been in the late sixties, tho the Eastern Airways Dak's in 1982/3 guy could well be right and I'm completely wrong. Certainly, in the few days I spent at LHR in 1971-5, planespotting, I saw no pistonliners on scheduled passenger services.

[WHBM]

Cargo, not passenger.

I would also go for the Kar-Air DC-6BF swingtail. It routed several days a week as Finnair 032 from Helsinki to Heathrow (arrive 0100, depart 0700), then to Manchester (0805/0905) and back to Helsinki. I last saw it climbing over Manchester city centre in 1981 as I was walking to work. It was eventually replaced by a secondhand cargo DC9-10F on the same routing.

The normal aircraft in these final years (in fact the only one available) was OH-KDA, which was sold in June 1982 in the USA, and written off in 2001 operating in Alaska for Northern Air Cargo.

This was the last scheduled operation. Air Atlantique used their DC-6As as occasional stand-ins for other scheduled freight operators at Heathrow until quite recently.

For passenger I would suspect the operation by Air Anglia of Heathrow to Norwich, with Dakotas, but I am just guessing to prompt others' memories.In the 1979 timetable I have here their service Heathrow-Norwich-Humberside had become an F27. When they gave it up did Eastern have a go with DC3s, as described above ?

[Proplinerman]

Oh yes, OH-KDA, the last heavy pistonliner to fly a scheduled service into M/C. I realised in the late 1970s that this aircraft represented the end of an era, so I went out to Ringway one morning, specially to photograph it and here is the shot I took that day, thirty-two years ago now!

JetPhotos.Net Photo » OH-KDA (CN: 45202) Kar-Air Douglas DC-6 by Michael Blank (http://tinyurl.com/yc9qkeo)

[treadigraph]

I'm pretty certain Air Anglia used PA-31s into Heathrow on scheduled flight in the late 1970s; I recall seeing them most times I visited which wasn't very often. Not quite the DC-6 or Connie, but piston nonetheless!

[Gulfstreamaviator]

We operated a schedule from Norwich / Gatwck, as well as a Humberside / Gatwich schedule in Titans and PA31, can not remember the year, as Log Book not with me at moment.

These were scheduled services, on a sub charter basis.

Not LHR sorry.

Nick Probate had his PA31 based in LHR, but never operated a scheduled service, but this was a Charter Piston service based at LHR.



Glf

[Tim Zukas]

The 1/79 OAG shows Navajos into LHR; I don't see any pistons in the 10/82 ABC.

[Herod]

WHBM and Treadigraph,you're right about the Humberside, Norwich Heathrow route. It was flown with a Chieftain until April '79, when it became a turboprop service with the F27. However, Airuk, as it became, stopped the service in Oct '80 when Eastern Airways took it up, initially with DC3s (G-AMPO and G-AMRA ?). They would have run for perhaps two years until replaced by the SD3-30.

[WHBM]

Oh yes, OH-KDA, the last heavy pistonliner to fly a scheduled service into M/C.
Not quite, as Air Atlantique came back with a Saturday evening DC6 cargo service, departing at 2100, to Dublin carrying the Sunday newspapers printed in Manchester. It ran all through the 1990s. I regularly visited The Wirral in those days at weekends and always went out into the back garden as I heard it approaching, transiting the Wallasey VOR, and audible for a good 10 minutes as it hammered on along the Welsh coast. Dependent on where it was positioning on to after Dublin, it might return overhead again in the small hours; it always woke me up then, although nobody else in the house seemed to hear it !

[RedhillPhil]

Always raises a wry smile on my visage when I read in a "newspaper" about some "celeb" who's just jetted into London for.... (insert nonsense here).

[PaperTiger]

:confused:

Senior moment there, Phil ?