The good thing with the 1-11 generally was the build quality. Typical British belt and braces design and construction (which turned up in similar form on the DC-9), as used on the equally tough HS748 and Viscount. Just a shame about the rather underwhelming Speys. Once the Romanians took over production, the design and powerplant were of a previous generation so I suppose the aircraft were bound to look dated, to western eyes anyway. As WHBM says, YU-ANS was only three years old when I flew on her but she looked like she'd been around much longer.
Aviogenex must have been laughing when they got their hands on the pair of 727s from the Yugoslav government in 1983. Still in production, reasonably new and undoubtedly with relatively low cycles on the airframes. They, and the machine acquired from Alitalia, turned up all over Europe in the following decade, along with the JAT 727s. Did JAT ever use their 737-300s on their Air Yugoslavia charter work ? I don't ever remember seeing them, usually the 727s, DC9s and the 707s for a spell.
Last edited by Mooncrest; 2nd Mar 2022 at 08:31.