Originally Posted by
treadigraph
One bit of nostalgia for me was visiting the airport very early on a Saturday morning, probably in 1980.
After accompanying my sister through check in and waving goodbye to her at security, I wandered up to the top of the Terminal 3 car park at about 7am and was delighted to see the Kar-Air DC-6 thundering down 10R
The Kar-Air DC-6BF (they only had one, it was ultra-reliable) operated a Finnair cargo flight from Helsinki to Heathrow, Manchester, then back home. At this same time I was working in Manchester, and it regularly routed directly overhead the city centre, and me, (presumably after a 23 departure and a right turn) at about 0900.
you could set your watch by the Kar-Air DC 6
Curiously there was a later DC6 operation the same. In the 1990s I regularly visited family for the weekend at the north end of The Wirral. Air Atlantique had a regular job with their DC6 on Manchester to Dublin Sunday newspapers, which left Manchester at 2300 on Saturday night, and came very punctually overhead, via the WAL VOR, probably just above MSA for the sector, about 20 minutes later. The R-2800s were audible for almost 10 minutes, and I always went outside to hear, and hopefully watch, it pass. When I didn't visit, just telephoned, I would learn that "I heard your old aeroplane go past last night". It normally returned direct to Coventry, but sometimes retraced its steps at about 0200. Funny how it woke me up again.
In much more recent times I caught up with the Air Atlantique crew, after they brought the DC6 into London City for its summer airshow, and they recalled the Dublin night newspaper flights. An interesting memory, of them hammering slowly along up there, and me down below watching them.