Lone Star One

I am trying to find out what commercial aircraft would have been operating into and out of Berlin Tempelhof during the 1960s-1970s. I know that most of the commercial services would have been dominated by the IGS (Internal German Service) operations of the former Allied powers. So far I have come up with the following:

Pan American

DC-6
727-100
737-200

BEA

BAC 1-11

Air France

Vickers Viscount
Caravelle

Did BEA fly Tridents, Viscounts, or Comets into Tempelhof? I'm not so sure about the Tridents and Comets as Tempelhof's runways might have been too short, but I've found nothing so far on possibly Viscounts.

Were any other airlines allowed to operate into Tempelhof during this timeframe?

Thanks in advance for any information!

JW411

BEA most certainly did fly Viscounts (802/806) into Tempelhof. I did a year with them (seconded - on and off) in 1964.

PanAm did not use DC-6s into Tempelhof but they did use DC-6Bs. (In fact, I'm not sure that PanAm ever operated a DC-6 - I know that PANAGRA did). I commuted from Dusseldorf to Tempelhof several times with PanAm in a DC-6B and very comfortable it was too.

Air France of course operated from Tegel (which was built from scratch during the Airlift).

The British (RAF) airfield was at Gatow which is now the site of the Luftwaffe museum.

renfrew

In 1961 BEA operated Viscounts and Panam DC6Bs and DC4 freighters.
In the 1968 timetable there are a few Comet flights.

Liffy 1M

Here is an excellent website about the Berlin airports which I came across recently. Many of the photos on it are mouth-watering in nature! They can be accessed through the menu on the left.

http://www.planeboys.de/startseite/haupt.htm

The Tempelhof section is at http://www.planeboys.de/thf/indexthf.htm

Lone Star One

Egads, that site is positively mouth-watering! That is precisely the information I'm looking for, thank you much!

WHBM

That's an interesting site about Tempelhof's history.

BEA was all Viscount at Berlin by 1960. Their competition was Pan Am with DC-6Bs, and the Viscounts were preceived better. When Pan Am introduced the 727s in 1965 BEA was suddenly at a disadvantage, and they refitted some Viscounts with better seat pitch etc and they operated as a subfleet within BEA out of Berlin.

The Viscount's replacements were the fleet of One-Elevens that came in 1968-69. This coincided with Air France giving up their small IGS operation (which always operated out of Tegel, and they had used Caravelles latterly) and going into a cooperation with BEA. For this reason the BEA branding was taken off the new One-Eleven fleet, they operated with plain blue tails with just "Super One Eleven" written on them, and with joint BE/AF flight numbers.

In the 1960s there was also a Pan Am daily 707 service to New York via Hamburg, but the 707 could not operate out of Tempelhof so this always used Tegel.

The German holiday companies used German charter flights to the Mediterranean from other German airports, but from Berlin they had to use Allied airlines. Dan-Air was to the fore here, I presume they had a crew base there. Other UK charter companies came and went over time, although runway restrictions meant they really favoured Tegel.

Due to the 4-powers restrictions operators from Berlin had to use pilots who were nationals of their own countries, but the cabin crew were locally-recruited Germans.

ONE GREEN AND HOPING

If an ad hoc charter counts, did a Templehof - Prague in an Argonaut in June '65. It was an Eastern European tour with the Boston Philharmonic, and their instruments and stage props tagged along in an Ace Freighters 749 Connie. Remember it mostly because my Captain ( ex 617 sqd; Half page obit in Daily T'graph a lot later ) didn't see why we should waste time on the corridor to FRA. Russians got all crinkly and chased us back on. Well - more or less. CB's, No VOR's, but a PanAm DC6 up ahead, and listening to all the fuss claimed to have an on-board MF beacon TX. Never managed to tune it, and I appologise for straying away from the thread, but does anyone know if this really was normal equipment on the PanAm IGS DC6's?

Whilst Stuttgart runway was being re-modelled in around 1963, Pan Am had a beautifully restored DC3, in their colours, and polished to mirror standard, that shuttled STR FRA. It's possible it could have operated into Templehof as well.

One further type that did at least one trip out of Templehof to Munich, was a Moreton/BUA DH Heron in about 1965. It was V quietly dispatched from LGW on the occasion of Albert Speer's release from Spandau. I still occasionally keep company with the Lady who went along as translator.

Just looked at the Planeboys photos............The Air Links Argonaut
G-ALHT photo dated 16JUN64 on the THF section, is the same aircraft we operated to Prague on 09JUN65 as mentioned above. The Argonaut was externally similar to the DC4, but pressurised with DC6 type bits. The engines were Merlin family with crossover exhausts. Intercoolers, and two stage Superchargers. Big green leather pilot's seats, ( the important bit ) and CB's that looked like banks of light switches. Huge dials; No weather radar, but drift sight on the floor under the Nav table......

My Dad's Little Boy

Liffy,

Thanks for the heads-up on this one.

What a cracking web-site!

Cheers,

MDLB

The SSK

I absolutely love THF and it's a shame it will soon be no longer. Landside approach is like Euston Station, drive along a busy city road, turn left and bam, you're there. The terminal is an architectural marvel, inside and out, and the idea of a covered apron just boggles me.

I was last there in November, flying in/out with an SN 146. Departure was on a Saturday late morning and the day's departure board consisted of our flight, a Mannheim, and a couple of city sightseeing trips. I had a bit of time to spare so I perused the monument in the little park outside, to the memory of the fliers killed in the airlift - about 80 of them I counted.

WHBM

I too have always liked Tempelhof, last time in was on Conti Flug in a 146 from London City in the 1990s (shame this route disappeared). On short finals you come down between the apartment blocks that seem closer to the runway than most hangars at airfields !

And that terminal is a real model of 1930s architecture, both inside and out. And the U-Bahn station is just on a nearby street corner next to a greengrocers, yet far more convenient for the terminal than the Underground at Heathrow.

SSK, interesting you compare it to London Euston train station, this was going to be rebuilt in 1939 (whole project cancelled by the war) and the plans of the frontage look remarkably similar to Tempelhof, with the emphasised verticals and big central tower. It was just the architectural fashion of the time. Euston was finally rebuilt in the 1960s to a new and very unappealing contemporary design.

WHBM

Just for further info here is the BEA timetable at Tempelhof for summer 1962. It is all Viscounts. There are 4 aircraft which overnight here and they operate all the IGS services. Two each day return to London and another two come out, so a likely pattern is that aircraft came through from Heathrow and spent two nights at Berlin before returning to base.

Arrivals

0900 BE 672 HAJ
1045 BE 700 FRA
1045 BE 718 CGN
1145 BE 684 HAM
1250 BE 618 LHR-DUS
1450 BE 686 HAM
1630 BE 712 MUC
1845 BE 706 FRA
1855 BE 622 LHR-CGN-HAJ
1915 BE 714 MUC
2120 BE 720 CGN
2225 BE 688 HAM
2240 BE 678 HAJ
2325 BE 698 DUS

Departures

0620 BE 671 HAJ
0700 BE 719 CGN
0730 BE 617 DUS-LHR
0740 BE 699 FRA
0930 BE 685 HAM
1115 BE 711 MUC
1130 BE 623 HAJ-CGN-LHR
1235 BE 687 HAM
1500 BE 713 MUC
1520 BE 705 FRA
1800 BE 721 CGN
2000 BE 697 DUS
2010 BE 689 HAM
2030 BE 679 HAJ

The SSK

There's a pic of an Ace Freighters Connie dated 7Jun65 with an Air Links Argonaut in the background - and a note that Ace only flew into THF once - could you or they have got the date wrong?

ONE GREEN AND HOPING

Thankyou, SSK. I didn't spot that photo until after posting the above.

My logbook shows that we arrived from Bergen on the 6th. June, and then left THF again on the 9th. The photograph appears to have been taken on the 7th., after we had put the two aircraft to bed and were waiting for the orchestra to pitch up for the next leg of the tour.

Thankyou, Liffy, for the Web link. At the age of 22, I had yet to aspire to camera ownership, so the glance back is much appreciated.

I assume that the orriginal terminal, if it remains unaltered, must be iconic in the world of Art Deco, and will be preserved. I certainly hope so.

The SSK

One proposal was to turn it into a fly-in clinic for the rich and famous, but I don't think there's much enthusiasm for that.

Big Bucks Bernie

From the Mayor of Berlin and the ruling government's point of view, yes, but according to a poll done about a week or so ago, about 73% of all Berliners would much rather prefer to see Tempelhof remain open as a privately run airport (together with the proposed new clinic and hotel).

But for some reason, which nobody in Berlin can understand anymore, the government just does not want to listen to reason. They are absolutely hell-bent on closing Tempelhof, regardless of what great opportunities get squandered along the way in the process, and to me, that is unbelievably infuriating to say the least...

tubby linton

Did Templehof have a PAR in the 1970s?

wrecker

Flew a Comet into Templehof in the 60s and a Trident in the 70s

arem

Was looking at the THF web site and noticed the picture of the Hermes 'DA taking off - looked in my fathers logbook of the time and lo' it was him!! - taking off to Palma - a 5hr flight in those days - at least it was 10:30 for the return trip

Magic

CSman

Flew the Cambrian Bac1-11 out of Templehof many times in 1971/72, great fun always competing with Pan Am 727 for on time departures

tubby linton