Long Range Australians!

[GAMPY]

I read somewhere that early in its QANTAS career, the Electra was used on the London service which always seemed unusual to say the least! Another long range Aussie anomoly was in yesterday's Telegraph Magazine. It shows the Beatles flying from HKG to DRW by F27 in 1964. Now that is a sector length of some 2750 miles and the F27 had a range of only some 750 miles. Did they really embark on a journey of such a stage length in an aircraft designed for short haul commuter flying?

[A30yoyo]

I think it's an error that the Qantas Electra served London.

[GAMPY]

It always struck me as being somewhat fanciful but wherever I read it, they seemed quite certain. Doubtless someone will let us know!

[mustafagander]

The L188 never flew to London. It did the Tasman and South Africa.

[GAMPY]

Caption of the interior shot said 'On the flight from HKG to Australia........' and a second photo showed the F27 on the ground at DRW. Maybe I read too much into it?

[GAMPY]

and thanks Mustafagander for the L188 update. Where I live, the daily papers arrive by L188 from Mon to Sat but not for too much longer I imagine!

[A30yoyo]

It's recorded at Tokyo on airliners.net.....what was the routing to South Africa?....sounds like a long over-water stretch
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[WHBM]

Qantas Electras never went to London, unless Lockheed delivered them this way round rather than across the Pacific.

It's recorded at Tokyo on airliners.net.....what was the routing to South Africa?....sounds like a long over-water stretch

It was indeed a long way, and operated for several years as such after the Electras replaced the Qantas Constellatons before finally going over to 707s. It was a joint route with SAA. In this 1963 timetable page (below) Qantas are using Electras and SAA are still using DC7Bs, both with a fortnightly frequency; there can't have been a lot of traffic. Routing was SYD-MEL-PER-Cocos Islands-Mauritius-JNB. Trip length for the crews, slipping along the way a fortnight at each point, must have been huge.

http://www.timetableimages.com/ttimages/complete/qf63/qf63-09.jpg

Regarding Tokyo, Electras went there as well, routing SYD-Darwin-Manila-HKG-TYO. This was a more frequent Electra operation; in 1960 here it was four a week as far as Hong Kong, with two a week extended to Tokyo. Another timetable scan (down at the bottom of the page) :

http://www.timetableimages.com/ttimages/complete/ba60/ba60-11.jpg

By 1962 Tokyo had gone over to Qantas 707s.

[Max Tow]

WHBM - tks for timetable - fascinating stuff! Re crew duty, I assume the night stops in MRU on the QF flight were to allow the same crew to stay with the aircraft PER/JNB/PER and avoid any fortnight slips? Long duty days, though....

[Noyade]

http://img851.imageshack.us/img851/116/img014mr.jpg (http://img851.imageshack.us/i/img014mr.jpg/)