BOAC B747-136 Routes

[Skipness One Foxtrot]

Anyone have a list of the regular routes out of LHR? East Coast USA obvs but did they ever get as far as LAX or SFO?

[treadigraph]

I went to Nairobi on one in '71.

Think I've asked this before but a vague idea we stopped at Frankfurt. Also Entebee but that may have been by VC-10 in '69.

[ZFT]

Johannesburg via Nairobi daily

[rog747]

I think the 747-136 eventually did the West coast to replace the 707 and VC10 but with a YYC or YEG stop ?

Re NBO/JNB I think it stopped at FCO or FRA (certainly at first) as NBO non-stop was too far

They also went to the Middle East - Far East - and Australasia but with oodles of stops

Try and find a mid 70's BA time table and that will help you or this https://www.routesonline.com/news/38/airlineroute/261621/197778-ba-inter-continental-network/

Also the LHR-LAX was op'd by ANZ DC-10 30's on a lease with BA until the RR -236 arrived when they took over the West Coast

[Peter47]

I believe that British Airtours did a Gatwick - LAX rotation stopping at Winnipeg outbound (I'm not sure about inbound) and that would probably have been a 136.

I know from a flight deck visit that 136 & 236s were operated by the same crews. I believe that they also had the same pax configuration. I was travelling to Toronto on a 236 which was probably a late substitution. The same could be done in reverse but at the expense of payload for a long distance route. Pan Am operated to the West Coast for many years with 121s although they really weren't really suitable and were very payload restricted. Of course anything operated by a 747 before the 236s arrived in, I believe, 1974 but am happy to be corrected, would have been a 136 operation.

[rog747]

I believe that British Airtours did a Gatwick - LAX rotation stopping at Winnipeg outbound (I'm not sure about inbound) and that would probably have been a 136.

I know from a flight deck visit that 136 & 236s were operated by the same crews. I believe that they also had the same pax configuration. I was travelling to Toronto on a 236 which was probably a late substitution. The same could be done in reverse but at the expense of payload for a long distance route. Pan Am operated to the West Coast for many years with 121s although they really weren't really suitable and were very payload restricted. Of course anything operated by a 747 before the 236s arrived in, I believe, 1974 but am happy to be corrected, would have been a 136 operation.

KT British Airtours had a brand new RR 747-236 G-BDXL direct from Boeing in 1984 (negus) for TA charters - it was in a high density config - This a/c then went to mainline
In 1986 KT obtained G-BMGS (landor) an ex SAS -283B which was then passed to CKT Caledonian

[Peter47]

I stand corrected....

[dixi188]

Late 70's some of the Sydney flights used -136 and stopped in Hong Kong and Muscat BA012 I think..
Normally through Muscat about 0200 local time, but if late, ie. daylight, then it was often too hot to go direct to LHR and a tech stop would be made.
I was on one flight that stopped in Athens in the afternoon for two hours without a working APU.
After the Iran revolution in Jan 1979, more BA flights used Muscat instead of Tehran. I saw 4 BA 747s on the ramp together one night, I think they were all -136.

[Flightwatch]

The -136 served Oz until the late 80s! There was a daily service to SYD which stopped both ways at SIN and variously at BAH, AUH or MCT also. Outbound they then fanned out across Oz usually on a shuttle from SYD to BNE, MEL or ADL. There was also a 3 weekly service by -236 from LHR to BOM and PER. Twice a week this flew non-stop to AKL and once via SYD to AKL. Likewise there were a couple of -236 services a week via BKK to SYD. This was pretty much continued until the -436 took over. There was a flight crew base maintained in SYD where a 3 month posting could be had living in rented accommodation and flying the routes around the antipodes and up to BKK and SIN.

[crewmeal]

LHR - FRA - BAH - BKK - HKG - DRW -SYD
LHR - ZRH - THR - BOM - SIN - PER - SYD
LHR - BAH - SIN - SYD
LHR - MCT - SIN - MEL
LHR - ZRH - NBO - JNB
LHR - NBO - MRU (1 week off for the crew)
LHR - THR - BOM - HKG - MEL - AKL
JFK - BDA - JFK
LHR - BDA - KIN - MEX
LHR - ANC - HND
Various Caribbean routes NAS ANU BGI
The 136's couldn't do LAX or SFO until the 236's came along, so they were left to the Mini fleet (707's VC-10's
I have the BOAC menus for most of the above.

[Asturias56]

The -136 served Oz until the late 80s! There was a daily service to SYD which stopped both ways at SIN and variously at BAH, AUH or MCT also. Outbound they then fanned out across Oz usually on a shuttle from SYD to BNE, MEL or ADL. There was also a 3 weekly service by -236 from LHR to BOM and PER. Twice a week this flew non-stop to AKL and once via SYD to AKL. Likewise there were a couple of -236 services a week via BKK to SYD. This was pretty much continued until the -436 took over. There was a flight crew base maintained in SYD where a 3 month posting could be had living in rented accommodation and flying the routes around the antipodes and up to BKK and SIN.
Yes - I seem to remember using them to the Far east well into the mid-80's................ they started to look a bit frayed by the end of that time - especially when the competition had upgraded big time

[TCU]

LHR - BDA - KIN - MEX
T'was my first ever widebody flight as a spotty 13 year old in 1978 (LHR-BDA leg and back). Out on G-AWNH on 28th June, back on G-AWNL on 23rd July.

The smell of jet fuel, mixed with humid tropical air, as I walked down the steps in the afternoon sun at Kindley Field, remains with me today.

[l.garey]

I flew in G-AWNJ as late as February 1990, LHR-Abu Dhabi-Singapore (BA1011).

If I remember correctly the Singapore flights then were normally BA11 and 12 with the -436, but this one was substituted, via Abu Dhabi.

Laurence

[Union Jack]

The -136 served Oz until the late 80s! There was a daily service to SYD which stopped both ways at SIN and variously at BAH, AUH or MCT also. Outbound they then fanned out across Oz usually on a shuttle from SYD to BNE, MEL or ADL. There was also a 3 weekly service by -236 from LHR to BOM and PER. Twice a week this flew non-stop to AKL and once via SYD to AKL. Likewise there were a couple of -236 services a week via BKK to SYD. This was pretty much continued until the -436 took over. There was a flight crew base maintained in SYD where a 3 month posting could be had living in rented accommodation and flying the routes around the antipodes and up to BKK and SIN.

Something a left seat acquaintance of mine managed to organise for several UK winters in a row.....

Jack

[Skipness One Foxtrot]

The 136's couldn't do LAX or SFO until the 236's came along, so they were left to the Mini fleet (707's VC-10's
I know there was a subfleet of long range B707-336Bs but did the VC10 really beat the original Jumbo on range?

[crewmeal]

I know there was a subfleet of long range B707-336Bs but did the VC10 really beat the original Jumbo on range?

The VC-10s AFAIK didn't have the same range as the 747 -136's. From memory the SVC-10 did the BA591/2 LHR - JFK - LAX - HNL - NAD - MEL and back.

[Brian 48nav]

rog747 and treadigraph

The RAF sent me to Nairobi as a pax on a BOAC 747 in Jan' 72 - definitely a direct flight.

[rog747]

I know there was a subfleet of long range B707-336Bs but did the VC10 really beat the original Jumbo on range?

I am sure the VC-10 could do Entebbe and NBO non-stop back to LGW but I do not think the early 747-136's could do NBO-LHR non-stop - My pal used to fly them often on the NBO/JNB but am sure he said they stopped at FRA or FCO....

[rog747]

rog747 and treadigraph

The RAF sent me to Nairobi as a pax on a BOAC 747 in Jan' 72 - definitely a direct flight.

Ah thanks, direct as in non-stop?

- maybe it was the homebound back to LHR that had to stop?

[crewmeal]

My pal used to fly them often on the NBO/JNB but am sure he said they stopped at FRA or FCO....

BOAC/BA had traffic rights from/to various European routes to certain long haul destinations.

I certainly operated NBO - LHR non stop many times on the 136's

[treadigraph]

Certainly have retained a very strong impression of a stop at Frankfurt but I was only 7. It was definitely LHR-NBO probably September '71.

[STATSMAN]

In September 1976 did

LHR-FRA-NBO-JNB BBPU

JNB-NBO-ZRH-LHR AWNL

Both flights full.

[Anilv]

They flew to SIN as late as the early 90s.

Anilv

[l.garey]

See my post 13, above.

Laurence

[Flyer126]

LHR - FRA - BAH - BKK - HKG - DRW -SYD
LHR - ZRH - THR - BOM - SIN - PER - SYD
LHR - BAH - SIN - SYD
LHR - MCT - SIN - MEL
LHR - ZRH - NBO - JNB
LHR - NBO - MRU (1 week off for the crew)
LHR - THR - BOM - HKG - MEL - AKL
JFK - BDA - JFK
LHR - BDA - KIN - MEX
LHR - ANC - HND
Various Caribbean routes NAS ANU BGI
The 136's couldn't do LAX or SFO until the 236's came along, so they were left to the Mini fleet (707's VC-10's
I have the BOAC menus for most of the above.
British Airways' 747-136s did serve SFO. I flew LHR-SFO on G-AWNI and SFO-LHR on G-AWNG, both in September, 1978 and both flights nonstop.

[zlin77]

My memories on G-AWNF, LHR-FRA-ROM-BAH-BKK-HKG-SYD circa 1976, about 36 hours total trip time, my lasting memory is the cabin cleaning during transits, FRA was a back-pack vacuum cleaner with extension lead, ROM was a carpet sweeper, BAH was a straw broom,,,decreasing technology the further East you went.

[olympus]

LHR - MRU

Embarked on this service at LHR one morning on G-AWNF (I think around 1980 when I was with BAe athough it could have been earlier). We got as far as BAH where we were all off-loaded for reasons I can no longer remember. All the pax were put up in various hotels (I and others were in the Gulf Hotel) and 24 hours later the flight resumed. My memory is a little vague after all these years but is a diversion to BAH reasonable for a flight going to NBO or would we have been going LHR-BAH-MRU?

A more vivid memory of this flight is that whilst walking to the departure gate I met a very nice young Mauritian woman who needed help with her various bags. We contrived to sit next to each other when on board and arranged to meet up again in Mauritius. We met many times subsequently and are still in contact to this day and she named her son after me! (Her son but not mine!)

[cooperplace]

in about 1982 I flew on one LHR-MCT-KUL-SIN-SYD-MEL IIRC bloody thing kept stopping every five minutes.

[nonsense]

Shortly before Christmas 1971 my family flew on what I believe was the first BOAC 747 flight from Melbourne (MEL, Tullamarine by then) to Hong Kong via a refuelling stop in Darwin.
After several days in Hong Kong, we flew (not by BOAC 747) to Bangkok, at which point our plans fell apart when India closed their airspace during the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indo-Pakistani_War_of_1971) which lasted from December 3rd to December 16. If anyone knows what exact date Indian airspace was actually closed (surely December 3rd?), that would nail our flight down to no more than about a week earlier.

We subsequently flew to the UK via Tehran and Beirut and returned to Australia with a few days each in Barbados, Mexico City and New Zealand, and numerous refuelling stops and transfers, in time for the start of school at the end of January 1972.

I was eight years old. Bangkok, Hong Kong, Tehran and Beirut were pretty exotic places back then!

[WHBM]

For the original question (BOAC days), the first 747 route is well known, LHR-JFK, but the second is less so, JFK to Bermuda. The same aircraft could manage the whole lot within a 24-hour rotation, day after day.

After several other North American points the aircraft then got put onto Jo'burg via Nairobi, and then some Far East/Australia, both the latter via various combinations of Frankfurt and Rome, not for range reasons but just for traffic. This pretty much covered the 747 ops in BOAC times.

The California service has long been something of a fascination; as far as I am aware BOAC never ran the 747 there, and shortly after the BA merger the Air New Zealand DC-10 arrangement started. Both Pan Am and TWA did run nonstop to LAX/SFO with the -100, but it was regarded by BOAC as extreme on range, and they used operating techniques BOAC did not wish to follow. Certainly comments from ATC at the time about the summer midday departures westbound from Heathrow, especially if on easterlies off 10R (now 9R), showed a certain genuine concern given the known reliability issues with the JT9D. Once gone, a bit of humour returned, Pan Am sometimes being described as having been a "Hedge Clipper" or TWA as "Departing via the Piccadilly Line".

BOAC traditionally ran on from California, generally San Francisco via New York, through Honolulu to both Stydney and to Hong Kong via Tokyo, and both these generally carried more US than UK-originating pax, but these were progressively given up. British AW was a bit thin on capital expenditure at first, but the first 747-200B/Rolls Royce delivered late 1970s were immediately put onto LAX as their first run in lieu of most, but not all, of the Kiwi DC-10s, and then started a San Francisco flight as well, finally having their own aircraft with the range.

I was a bit surprised in about 1996 to get a BA 747-100 (in fact the pioneer AWNA), from Vancouver to LHR, which was my only -100 from the West Coast, but that's a bit shorter than California.

[Brian 48nav]

WHBM

That reminds me - there was a specific SID off 10R for those BA 747 Westbound departures going North in the summer. It initially followed the DVR routing towards DET before turning north to BPK, IIRC all at 4000' alt. I just can't remember its title.
I bet my mates HD and Talkdown Man over on ATC Issues will remember it.

My mate, Talkdown Man, has come to my rescue! It was a Polar Departure!

[WHBM]

British Airways' 747-136s did serve SFO. I flew LHR-SFO on G-AWNI and SFO-LHR on G-AWNG, both in September, 1978 and both flights nonstop.
The route only started in Spring 1978, I was on one of the first (it had been running for just a week but was full), and it was allocated one of the initial 747-200/RRs, by that time there were half a dozen of them. Of course, there must have been days when the -100 would suit, whether it was winds, cargo load, or whatever.

[renfrew]

The first 747 flight was LHR-JFK 14 April 1971.
There was a proving flight JFK-PIK-LHR the day before and I was lucky enough to get a ride down from PIK. on G-AWNE.

[WHBM]

The first 747 flight was LHR-JFK 14 April 1971.
There was a proving flight JFK-PIK-LHR the day before and I was lucky enough to get a ride down from PIK. on G-AWNE.
This was about 12 months after the first deliveries, the first three BOAC aircraft came in Spring 1970. There was a non-agreement with the pilots which led to them being unused for a considerable time. BOAC made a financial virtue of this by leasing out the JT9D-7A engines to other operators who were being plagued by the unreliability of the early units (in fact some of the engine issues never went away).

[renfrew]

Yes my first trip on a 747 was actually on TWA in May 70.

[condor17]

Summer '75 74-136 passed through Tehran , several times a week en-rte Oz . We were laid off at the time time and working 'security' in Tehran.
In dispatch office we had a sweepstake on eng failure on dep . The person with divert ticket had hand on the 'fone ...... big sheet flame lights up the night .....
'' Bahrain , Tehran , the 011 is on the way . Another engine change ''. It was the time of ovalising fan cases on JT-9s.
Handled Qantas 74-100s. V hot start , engineer called catering ....'' Many bags of ice please '' .
Cowlings opened , every orifice stuffed with ice bags , cowls close . Eng start ...... taxied away leaving a trail of melt water , and smell of melting plastic .

rgds condor .