Originally Posted by
kcockayne
I well remember in 1966 or ‘67 the Saturday Gatwick to Las Palmas, “British United 451” & the Sunday “British United 453” to Tenerife - both Bristol Britannias - trundling their way across from ALD to FRQ (consol beacon), whereupon they changed over from Paris West 129.0 to Paris Radio on 5551.5 / 5626.5 / 6567.0 HF for the trip onwards to LG (another consol). The estimates between Paris & Madrid were also passed on the same frequencies; usually after 5 or 10 minutes of blind calls on the radio. This would be followed by them working Canarias & Casablanca on HF about 75 mins further on. These were the only 2 flights per week from the UK to the Canaries at the time. How times change - nowadays there must be well over a 100 per week ! In those days, internal Iberia & Aviaco CV440s operating between Madrid & airports in NW Spain could also be heard on these frequencies calling for their clearances from Madrid whilst on the ground, & later , making position reports when airborne.
Wow - very interesting - thanks.
Although BUA did fly their VC-10's down to Las Palmas from 1965? (fuel stop and BUA had traffic rights) on the West African and South American scheduled runs.
(Did the 1-11 200 also do the West African run that early, stops at Lisbon and LPA on the way?)
The BUA charter Brits would soon be accompanied a year or so later to the Canaries by charter jets of -
Dan Air (Comet) Laker (1-11) Channel AW (Trident, which I gather set a record for fastest STN-LPA flight in 3hrs 15 mins)
and Caledonian also got their 2 new 707's in 1967 - Global and Horizon Holidays chartered them for holiday flights to Spain, Balearic's and to the Canaries.
Ooops sorry thread creeper