As far as I can recall Air Anglia based one or more of its DC3s at Aberdeen in the early 1970s and it was from there that these aircraft performed their services under charter initially to Shell for rig crew changes at Sumburgh. I was on board as a passenger on the very first of these flights.
I cannot remember that the airline went into administration in 1972. If it did, then the directors Jim Crampton and Wilbur Wright kept their cards very close to their chests. At that time I think we were operating 4 DC3s and there was a considerable fall off of work for these aircraft, perhaps a contract was lost.
In the event several DC3 pilots were made redundant along with some ground support and office staff but there was no mention that the airline was in serious financial difficulties, particularly as Norwich Union were a major stakeholder.
At about that time Air Anglia chose to concentrate more on developing their scheduled services and the F27 was selected to develop the network thus gradually replacing the Daks.
This is all many years ago and Chevvron may well have been privy to information that never filtered through to me in the Ops Room.
I expect that he can remember the days when golf was still played on the airfield at Sumburgh and Les Isaacs the SATCO did a roaring trade in sheep skins. How times have changed!
Last edited by OUAQUKGF Ops; 5th Nov 2014 at 14:04.
Reason: Repetition