Many thanks for all the replies and interest on the old Queen lol.
Re LH NBO accident - yes seems BA had a similar incident to the LE flaps early on before LH, but managed to wing it and live another day.
Re BOAC 747 on holiday charters - They certainly did fly to Majorca and I wish I had kept the 1971 Enterprise Holidays brochure spread showing the LHR-Palma 747 summer charter series.
I know BOAC flew Palma's the following summer too.
The Brochure had come out the winter before (70/71) so it was well planned. My parents had booked us our summer Hols on it in January 71.
Photo here below of BOAC 747 at Palma Sept 1972.
https://abpic.co.uk/pictures/view/1278484 photo c.
Dietrich Eggert
At that time we saw SAS/Scanair, KLM, Sabena, and Aer Lingus were all regularly using their 747's for Summer and winter IT flights, along with dedicated charter airline Condor to the Mediterranean and the Canary Islands.
Swissair also occasionally flew their 747 for their own partner Balair.
Remember folks back in the day long haul aircraft came back in early morning and sat all day at LHR for an evening flight. So there was slack in the day.
They still do (SAA for one, sit at LHR all day) and until recent years Qantas did some cruise ship charters LHR to IST and BCN with their 747's from LHR during their slack day time.
I got back from IST one Saturday afternoon as a non rev on one...
Also on Sunday afternoons in 1971 BOAC did some
pleasure flights for the public from LHR to showcase the new Jumbo age. I never did one but plenty of folk did.
I seem to recall check-in was in the Technical areas, not T3.
BOAC 747-136 Upper deck lounge was called the
Monarch Lounge. IIRC no lower deck lounges nor pubs on BOAC - That was for our Yankee friends all off to Honolulu with CO and UA...
BCAL LGW 747 ops -
BCAL had toyed I gather, with the 747SP but went with the DC-10.
They leased 747-148 Paddy Zulu with BA crews, from EI during DC-10 factory delays in 1978/79, PZ operating BCAL's first 747 flight to HOU 31/10/78.
Their first owned 747 was a -230B from LH, 'XN' came in for summer 1982 (I had wrongly recalled BCAL's 747's had all came later on with 2 from Alia and 2 from Wardair, making 5 in the fleet by 1987)
Aerolineas Argentinas had first planned to obtain from Boeing 747's back in the early 1970's and their officials in charge of the purchase of new planes faced choosing the best plane for the company together with the manufacturer’s pressure, especially highlighted by the magnitude of the investment considered.McDonnell-Douglas published a pamphlet in late 1973 entitled
Aerolineas Argentinas and the DC-10, which discussed the advantages of this aircraft based on the needs of the company, and carefully showed that the Boeing 747 aircraft was not needed by Aerolineas Argentinas, which would mean higher costs and more time in the return of investment.
A compromised solution seemed to be leasing. In the first half of 1974, an agreement with Pan American to lease a Boeing 747-100 was discussed but was cancelled in June because of some members of the Congress requesting reports about the deal to the President, adding a series of arguments on the performance of the 747-100 compared to the DC-10. That demonstrated an accurate read of the above mentioned pamphlet. Lawmakers finally argued that the commissioning of wide-bodies by the local airline would only serve no objective benefits to the country flag airline. Despite pressure from Boeing, the aircraft was not hired by Aerolineas Argentinas because the company could not reach an agreement with the crew on salaries that would apply to fly a Jumbo. If this transaction would have taken place, it would have been totally new for the airline, because until then the company had always been on owned fleet, and had only rented machines to meet seasonal demands.
However manufacturers did not stop and continued their contacts, and even conducted advertising campaigns in Buenos Aires newspapers. Finally, in August 1974, a new deal with Boeing was closed for leasing one Boeing 747-100 and buying another new one, which would be financed by Eximbank.
This agreement had to be approved by the President, whose signature was expected March 1975, but the Ministry of Economy which was weathering a monumental crisis never approved the operation.
The aircraft was registered in Argentina as LV-LRG,and was available from April 15 at a cost of USD 6,500 per day. Due to the lack of the presidential decree the plane did not leave the factory. Meantime Aerolineas Argentinas, painted the Jumbo in company colours (twice) and ordered audio and video equipment at its own expense. These extra costs were lost because the aircraft was never received.
Originally built for Delta in 1970 as their first 747-132 and registered as N9896, it was returned to Boeing in 1974. It was offered to Aerolíneas Argentinas and painted in the company's old 1970's colours, and given the registration LV-LRG, then it was repainted in the new colours, but due to payment issues was never delivered. The registration was then reassigned to a Fokker F-28 of the same company.
Had it been delivered, it would have been Aerolíneas Argentinas' first 747. It went to China Airlines, then to Pan Am in 1978 as Clipper Mandarin.
photo here of LV-LRG in AR 1970's livery before repaint -
https://forums.x-plane.org/uploads/m...46cf0fcb49.jpg
repainted -
https://www.gacetaeronautica.com/gac...02/jumbo4a.jpg
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-7...600/LV-LRG.jpg
Aerolíneas Argentinas first true new 747 order was for a 747-287B LV-LZD with -7J engines (all later AR 747-287B orders from 1979 had -7Q engines)
We think it was delivered with just the 3 UD windows, and conversion to 10 was done later,
as was done on most early build -200B's, although a few -200B's kept only 3 until their end.
Built in 1975 as a white tail, it was not delivered to AR until late 1976, but was sold back to Boeing in 1982.
Virgin Atlantic in 1984 bought it as their first 747, G-VIRG Maiden Voyager