Originally Posted by
pax britanica
Re the CV 880
i wondered if these strange craft evr came to LHR because for many years my memory told me I saw a JAL 880 doing what would now be be done in a sim flying circuits to LHR while I was waiting for an infrequent bus in Hounslow High Street .
However I remembered the reg as JA8001 which was a DC8 although I always though ththe aircraft from the smoke and shape was a super rare 880.
CV 880 was hardly the ideal aircraft for LHr-Tokyo so did JAL really use them to LHR or not.
JAL by late 1961, when they started serving Europe, had just a handful of DC8s, reg JA8001 upwards, but these were used across the Pacific to the USA. The European flights were a string of medium hops, and there was likely little demand, so the smaller Cv880 was reasonable. They were reg JA8021 upwards, so you were nearly right. They only lasted a year or so before more DC8s replaced them and they moved to japanese regional, and domestic, routes.
A couple of carriers, Lufthansa was one, also used the medium haul Boeing 720B at the time on routes to the Far East.