Well this has brought back memories!
I was a spotter at MAN from 1971-6. I remember Peter Hardy/PB Enterprises. I went on one of his trips once, I think to the Midlands, but nearly all my trips were with Eric Rowell/Norwag. Whatever happened to him?
I've got several photos taken there in the 1970s on jetphotos.net (Michael Blank) and can't resist posting this link to a photo I took of a star visitor in 1973, an Alitalia 747!
Flickr Photo Download: Manchester1973Alitalia747
I went out to the airport specially after school to see that-747s were very much still a rarity in 1973, let alone an Alitalia one. Anyone know why it came in?
Did my first flight from MAN in August 1962 on a BEA Vanguard to LHR, but unfortunately, as I was only four at the time, I've no memory of it, tho I do remember later flights to LHR on these aircraft-fabulous.
I lived in Cheadle and used to walk a long way to the far end of Gatley to catch the 44 to the airport.
I fly quite frequently through the airport nowadays: a soulless shopping centre, but efficient and with probably the best spectator facilities in the UK. The AVP doesn't really compare with the terraces, but as most airports nowadays seem to have no provision for spectators, by current standards it's marvellous. And they've now got there, a Concorde, a Trident 3, an RJX, a Monarch DC10 forward fuselage, plus, the latest arrival, a Nimrod.
More memories: a Pomair Ostend DC6B in the north bay one am; an Invicta DC4 coming in in 1971; a CSA Avia 14 coming in the same year-unbelievable to me at the time; sitting in the glasshouse; the Wardair 727; the very noisy and smokey Spantax CV990As; Air Spain DC8s; BOAC 707s and Super(?) VC10s; BEA Viscounts and Vanguards; Alitalia and Air France Caravelles; a Lofleidir CL44 in one of the north bays one morning; the appalling noise of BEA's Super 1-11s-they left behind an awful "crackling" noise when taking off; an Aer Turas DC7C; the first 747 to visit, taking off over my parents' house (it was BOAC, not Pan Am, I'm pretty sure); waiting till after dark one day for a Moormanair DC3 to come in; BIA Heralds; Air Anglia DC3s; a friend throwing one of my shoes onto the apron!-a kind airport worker threw it back; three C119s coming in early one morning-what air force were they and what on earth were they doing coming into M/C?; Dan Air Comets and later 727s; the Dan Air Nord 262; Cambrian Viscounts; Fairey DC3 G-AHCT coming in to the airport to die-it hung around for about two years; SAS DC9s; Sabena Caravelles and 727s; Invicta Vanguards-superb; the BMA Viscount that crashed in 1969 was G-AVJA; Swissair DC9s; Aviogenex Tu134As-I've got a photo of one of those on jetphotos.net; the Kar Air DC6BF, OH-KDA; SAS Caravelles; I'm reading a lot of these from my log book for 1972-the only one I've still got; Alitalia DC9s; BMA Viscounts; G-ARAI and G-ASNC-two eternally present light aircraft; RAF Britannias doing overshoots; an IAF C97 coming in to do two overshoots in 1974; BEA Tridents; KLM DC9s and occasionally DC8s; Tarom Ilyushin 18s; Dan Air 748s; a Donaldson Britannia; Carlos Santana and his band coming in on an Electra-very rare then; etc etc-I've left out what I consider to be the more boring ones, like Laker 1-11s, Aer Lingus 737s and 1-11s, BCAL 1-11s.
The wide body pier was under construction in 1971-I know, because I've got a (rather poor) photo of an Air France Caravelle parked on the west side of the International pier and the pier is under construction in the background, thus bringing an end to runway 28/10. I've still got most of my CAMs from those days and I am so glad now that I took a few photos in between spotting-again, see jetphotos.net.
Happy days.
For more photos by me from the 1970s, taken at MAN, go to Proplinerman on flickr.com, page 4-BEA Viscount and Vanguard, Dan Air Comet, a BMA Viscount in a hybrid livery, an Invicta Vanguard.