Thank you Finncapt. I was a regular on the DC-10s on the LAX route at the time, I wonder if you were ever up front when I was back in the cabin.
The flight commonly routed over a VOR in northern Wyoming called Crazy Woman (KCZI)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crazy_Woman_Creek and, in the days when crews still made periodic cabin PAs without the film watchers going berserk, it was more often than not announced by the flight deck as we passed by. Probably too politically incorrect to do so nowadays.
For flight times, LAX is just slightly over a daily round trip. The BA DC-10 flight arrived at LAX a couple of hours after the opposite departure had left. If the westbound had been cancelled (see below) Air NZ just turned their plane at LAX round; they didn't send one to BA unless they were getting one back.
BA never marketed the flight as a through one to New Zealand, as at the time they still had their own 747 service going the other way through Singapore. One occasion when we had a cancellation due to a sudden fuellers strike at Heathrow (and probably a flight time overrun) the Auckland pax were transferred to this 747, departing in the evening. It must be unusual to get a reroute going the other way round the world. The through pax always seemed to be Kiwis, so maybe Air NZ, who had no service to London at the time, marketed it as such at home.
I understand the Air NZ DC-10 flight deck was built to the KSSU (KLM SAS Swissair UTA) standard, and to avoid having to go to Auckland for sim checks the BA crew went to Amsterdam and used time on the KLM one. Which must have made a change from repetitive LAX and back trips.
Regarding the L1011-500 ops, I once had one on BA LHR-SEA-YVR, with the brief stop in Seattle when, in those days, you could just stay on board. They even served an afternoon tea
in economy on the hop from Seattle to Vancouver - no local passengers. Probably 1982. The skipper announced the Boeing plant at Everett as we overflew it - I wonder how many realised we were not in one of its products.
The Bangor tech stops did have advantages, as westbound pax would go through US customs there and thus could walk straight out at Orlando. In addition a BGR-MCO-BGR roundtrip was possible for the relief crew. Bangor long had a marketing department who pitched for this tech stop business rather than Gander. Several UK charter operators did this, with 757s as well as Tristars and Laker DC-10-10s. I will leave it to others to recollect old times at the Bangor hotac ......
