Berlin Tempelhof 1960s-1970s question

[tubby linton]

Csman what was your speed down the corridor in the 1-11?I believe that Pan Am went about 370kts.

[The SSK]

I bet the folks in those apartments just *loved* the 1-11s

[CSman]

1-11 berlin

It was a long time ago,but if I remember correctly ,the 727 was faster in the cruise ,but we could climb faster,the corridors were low, so top levels were much sort after, especially in the winter

[arem]

Seem to recall we went up and down the corridors at 300kts, I think vmo on the 111-510 at those levels was only about 320 kts but may have been higher, 727's were faster I think - certainly the 707's could cruise at 340kts low down, we regularly overtook the VC-10 between MAN-PIK

[GotTheTshirt]

Autair had a base in Templehof in the 60's.
Started with a DC3 and developed into 2 Vikings.
Great Days !
Saturn had a DC 6 operation from the same hangar. The end one near the flats!
Autair started with ad-hoc freight including some runs from Hannover with explosives ( For demolition - the bits the Allies missed)
Ended up with the 2 Vikings flying 5 days a week THF-AMS-THF with flowers and quick change Friday night to Pax for runs to Syltt and Bornholm over the weekends
The corridor was 10,000 ft high 5nm wide so the ATC radar was pretty active with course corrections.
Pan-Am lost a 727 on the route
THF was very nicely located just across the road from the Schultheiss Brewery ! ( Who delivered !)

[JW411]

The corridors were a lot more than 5 miles wide. They were two-way corridors and, from memory, I would have said they were 20 miles wide.

I did quite a lot of corridor flying in the 1960s; Argosys to Gatow and Viscounts to Tempelhof.

[cornwallis]

In the late 1980s the corridors were ten miles wide.I remember trying to get around weather on the way to HLZ and the US controller saying "you are 9.8nm right of the centerline what are your intentions?"Very long pause whilst we went around cb and then said "coming left back onto track."Going outside the corridor involved declaring an emergency.The PanAm crews used to ask for a shortcut at the western end of the central corridor .It was called the ??? transition and was named after the guy who invented it.
Certainly fun days

[GotTheTshirt]

Cornwallis,
Yes they were 5 m each side of centerline
That sort of comment was the one I was refering to "get back in the middle"

JW : I remember there were actually 3 separate corridors

Some interesting info here : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Berlin_Air_Corridor

Northwestern / Hamburg Air Corridor: Hamburg, Bremen, Northern Europe

Southwestern / Frankfurt Air Corridor: Frankfurt (Main), Nürenberg, Stuttgart, Munich, Southern Europe

Western / Bückeburg Air Corridor: Hanover, Cologne/Bonn, Western Europe

[Krakatoa]

On my final flight out of Berlin in 1985 the corridors were 10nm either side of the centre line.
Re the west end of the centre corridor, yes ATC would give a short cut to the south if you asked for a ............ transition. I think it was something like Bedlow, named after a Pan Am captain. What an honour to have an air traffic proceedure named after you !

[BelArgUSA]

PanAm - AeroAmerica (1970s)

Ex PanAmigo here...
xxx
Was flying 727-121s in 1970-71, as F/E, generally on the FRA-THF run.
Then I went on the 707 and was away from the IGS for a few months.
Came back on 727 as F/O in 1972, mostly doing FRA-THF again + charters.
Speed - I remember 340 or 350 KIAS, some guys flew on the "barber pole".
Then got away again on the 707... then layoffs due to the oil crisis OCT 1973...
xxx
Later (1977) I joined a Seatte charter airline AeroAmerica, captain 707/720s.
They took over Modern Air (CV-990s) operation in TXL...
Operated charter flights for the "Berliner Flugerring" - Spain, Greece etc.
Mostly Y149 seats 720-027s... ex Braniff airplanes.
Ugly Braniff colors - orange banana, or chocolate blue...!
US cockpit crew, German cabin staff.
I left TXL to work with AeroAmerica 707s in Pakistan...
AeroAmerica/Fluggerring operation taken over Air Berlin, around 1979-80.
Originally, Air Berlin was a US air carrier, they had 707s...
xxx

Happy contrails

[JW411]

Well, although I have been down all three corridors, my greatest experience (including being used for formation practice by Soviet Mig 19s) was on the centre corridor starting at Hehlingen.

It was a 2-way corridor in the 1960s with 5 nms either side of centre giving a total of 20 nms width for the whole corridor. It is possible that my memory is letting me down but I shall look at some old charts next time I'm in the attic.

[Flightwatch]

Had the pleasure of flying the corridors for 14 years in the 1-11. I am pretty sure that in fact they were 10 statute miles wide either side of the centre line due to some quirk when being set up.

The upper level was FL100 and was assigned as per quadrantal rules meaning the centre and northern corridors were FL045, 065 and 085 outbound and 035, 055, 075 and 095 inbound. The south, haaving a track less than 270 degrees was 100 etc. outbound and 090 etc. inbound. The only exception was when the East Germans/Russians were having an exercise on Luneburg Heath when it would suddenly be OK to transit at 150 or 160!

It was possible to deviate outside the corridors if there were cunimbs blocking them so long as a full Pan call was made. PanAm was particularly good and precise at this and several times I heard the call, "Pan Pan, Pan Pan, Pan Pan - Clipper xxx, heavy weather on the left hand side, diverting x miles to the left/right of the corridor boundary". Never any repercussions that I knew of.

However the ATC was run by the US military and was a training base and they got extremely excited if you went within a mile or so of the edge, giving imidiate turn instructions. On the so called "Super 1-11" we had a wonderful area nav aid called Harco (based on Decca) and when working correctly we could navigate to within a few hundred metres of the boundaries. The main problem was that Harco would often "jump" a lane without warning so you had to be pretty bold to resist the frantic ATC instructions and convinced of your position.

It wasn't uncommon to be asked not to reply to calls from ATC for training purposes and to then see how long it took for the u/t controller to catch on - not long usually to their credit. Also when operating into THF they liked us to do "no gyro" PAR approaches - they too usually worked out well.

As far as speed was concerned we tried to fly the 1-11 "on the bell" at 333 kts, the vno. However the 727-100 did something in the order of 390kts so in the southern corridor which was much longer than the other two, if we got established at FL100 Pan Am would barrel past us at frequent intervals 2,000' below.

Happy days!

[GotTheTshirt]

This is the Pan Am 727 that the East Germans claimed went out of the corridor.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pan_Am_Flight_708

[Lexif]

Ralf Manteufel uploaded a really nice collection of over 800 mostly Tempelhof pictures from the 70s to airliners.net:
Link.

[hangininon747]

hangininon747

Just found this thread and can offer some info. BEA had operated the German Internal services with Viscounts up until 1968, but planned an all BAC111 service from 1969 onwards. Over the winter of 68-69 most of the Viscount crews had to go on conversion courses to the 111 so to keep the schedules going Comet 4Bs operated most services, the Comets having been replaced on their traditional Eastern Mediterranean routes by Tridents. My logbook shows the first flight I operated into Berlin was on 27th August of 1968. Unfortunately we had to divert to Tegel as Tempelhof was reporting "Nil Braking Action", I guess in August that must have been due very heavy rain. We operated throughout the winter, and the last one I operated was on 8th May 1969 when I operated into Tempelhof from Munich and out again direct to London Heathrow.

[Boxkite Montgolfier]

An abiding memory of doing the checks in a Viscount early morning at Templehof in the '60's!

The cockpit door was shaken by the entry of a large, blue rinsed, female Americano who bellowed,

" Excuse me Sonny, is this the First Class Compartment?"

My eyes didn't dry for days!

[26er]

I remember that the short cut from the south to centre corridor near Hehlingen was a "Bigelow" named after a Panam captain based in Berlin.

[WHBM]

to keep the schedules going Comet 4Bs operated most services, the Comets having been replaced on their traditional Eastern Mediterranean routes by Tridents.

When the BEA Comets went to Airtours for holiday flights they came back to Berlin, as they managed to get business from the German tour companies. There are some photographs around of them, all at Tegel. I presume for the longer hauls to Tenerife or Rhodes they could not use Tempelhof.

[Discorde]

Here is the disposition of the corridors in July 1989, just prior to reunification. Britannia Airways did trooping flights into Gatow with 737-200s.

The crew briefing states that "the corridors extend 10 statute miles either side of the center line". (American spelling since Britannia sourced their plates from Jeppesen.) The briefing also confirms the requirement to call PAN PAN PAN to Berlin Center for weather deviations outside the corridors. Another requirement was to have the Interception Procedures readily to hand. The statute (rather than nautical) miles spec probably derives from the terms of the 1945 Potsdam Agreement.

[tubby linton]

Discorde you are correct. I joined Euroberlin in the Summer of 1989. The cbs must have known where the corridors were located as they seemed to grow inside their boundaries, I can still hear the USAF controller telling us we were 9.9nm right of the centreline , as we were avoiding weather and any further deviation would involve a Pan call
I also remember going down the southern corridor and a DDR Mig that was rolling around the corridor around us. This was before the days of tcas , but he did get very close.