British Airways to Sydney in the 1980's

[Jackbr]

Does anyone recall the flight number, route and arrival/departure times of BA's flights to SYD in the days before the 744?

I'd also be interested to know if these flights were normally operated by 741s, or Rolls Royce powered 742s?

[zlin77]

I remember LHR-SYD about 1976, the flight from hell, from memory via Rome, Bahrain, Bombay, Bangkok, Hong Kong, Sydney..about 36 hours on board a 747-100.. G-AWN?...

[The SSK]

Do you have a year/month?

[Jhieminga]

http://www.timetableimages.com

You might find something on this site. Year/month would help indeed.

[Lordflasheart]

OTTOMH -

LHR to SYD 'til late 70s ? was mostly via HKG BA 888 ("The Late88" - thanks 2UE)

Replaced by - via SIN BA 11/12 or BKK BA09/10 – (as two separate services)

arrive SYD early morning – day shuttle to BNE or MEL
dep SYD for UK early evening.

Not sure where ADL, PER, AKL, CHC, BWN and BOM fitted in, but they did, more or less. Someone will know.

100/200 ? Mix and match. BA didn't do BOM-PER with the 100 because of performance issues I think. After the Roller did the inaugural and first few, they sent whatever they had available. LFH

[Airclues]

Some more information on this thread;

http://www.pprune.org/aviation-history-nostalgia/522590-boac_ba-long-haul-long-tours.html

[Allan Lupton]

FWIW I caught a BA 747 from SIN-LHR in 1977. It should have come from SYD but there was a strike of some sort in Oz so it started at SIN with only about 70 of us pax on board.
So few pax that the purser spoke to each of us and when he found I was an aviation person he asked if I'd like to go and meet the crew (far more normal in those days!) which I did. The Flight Engineer, like me, was ex de Havilland Tech School so we got talking and he complained about how the Pratt-engined 747 we were in couldn't get above FL380 until it had flown all night.
OT but everyone (me included) was then commanded to look out of the windows until someone had spotted the aeroplane from Bucharest they'd been advised was joining the same airway. As we were o/h Zagreb and they'd just jailed controller Gradimir Tasić there was some nervousness, no doubt.

[26er]

I remember travelling as pax via Singapore and Perth in, I believe 1976. Presumably a 741, but it was wearing a spare engine pod and couldn't get above FL290. When did that go out of fashion?

[DaveReidUK]

When did that go out of fashion?

When the Russians started moving big fans around in their An-124s ?

[SpringHeeledJack]

As a matter of economics, would a chartered AN124 really have been cheaper than fitting a spare engine pod and flying it (regular service) to the stranded jet's destination, even allowing extra fuel/time spent flying at lower altitudes ?


SHJ

[DaveReidUK]

As a matter of economics, would a chartered AN124 really have been cheaper than fitting a spare engine pod and flying it (regular service) to the stranded jet's destination, even allowing extra fuel/time spent flying at lower altitudes ?Well, given that pretty well everything in the airline industry is driven by economics, then clearly yes.

As well as the extra fuel and block time, you also need to take into account the potential loss of payload that results from bolting an extra 6 tons of engine under the wing, as well as the expensive aircraft downtime required to fit and remove the fifth pod.

[primreamer]

Jackbr,
Flew BA to Sydney in November 1988. Routeing was as follows:
Outbound, LHR-AUH-SIN-SYD.
Inbound, SYD-BKK-BAH-LHR.
All sectors were operated by P+W JT-9 powered 747's.
I recall that departure from LHR was late evening, around 2200L with arrival in SYD at approximately 0700L. Departure from SYD was slightly earlier in the evening, around 1900L, arriving in LHR early morning again at about 0530L. Sorry I can't be anymore exact than that with the timings. I'm afraid I can't remember the flight numbers either.