Looking for help from some of you history buffs...
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Looking for help from some of you history buffs...
I emigrated to the States in 1955 on a TWA flight. Flew from Frankfurt, Germany to New York, with stops in Shannon, Ireland and Gander, Newfoundland. It was quite a trip for a kid.
I was able to secure a copy of the flight manifest for that flight, and it lists as the aircraft number "N-6007-C U.S.A.". I can remember that the plane was a Lockheed Constellation or Super Constellation with the triple tail. I am attempting to get a pic of that plane to include in my family history file. I found a website (The A. J. Jackson Collection in the UK) who had that id number listed in his inventory of pictures. Does anyone have any experience with him? I attempted to send an email for info, but it was rejected by the server.
If I am unable to contact them, are there any other sources for aircraft pictures were I would be able to obtain a pic of that particular plane?
Thank you,
CaseyC
Houston, Texas USA
I was able to secure a copy of the flight manifest for that flight, and it lists as the aircraft number "N-6007-C U.S.A.". I can remember that the plane was a Lockheed Constellation or Super Constellation with the triple tail. I am attempting to get a pic of that plane to include in my family history file. I found a website (The A. J. Jackson Collection in the UK) who had that id number listed in his inventory of pictures. Does anyone have any experience with him? I attempted to send an email for info, but it was rejected by the server.
If I am unable to contact them, are there any other sources for aircraft pictures were I would be able to obtain a pic of that particular plane?
Thank you,
CaseyC
Houston, Texas USA
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Photo Search Results | Airliners.net
N6907C. Mid Air over NYC, 12.16.60.
N6907C. Mid Air over NYC, 12.16.60.
If you want a copy of the TWA timetable page for your family file as well, there's one for 1955 on line here :
Index of /ttimages/complete/tw55
Pages 19-20 are the ones for the Frankfurt to New York flights.
All the Frankfurt flights stopped at London as well. The first class flights were notionally nonstop from London to New York, and used L-1049 Super Constellations. The tourist class flights stopped at Shannon and Gander and some (as yours) used the older standard L-749 Constellations which had less range.
N6007C "Star of Ohio", Lockheed builders number 2643, was a typical example of the large Constellation fleet TWA had. Delivered new in August 1950, it stayed on the roster until stored at the TWA maintenence base in Kansas City in February 1966, which was a good long run for an aircraft of that era. It never was sold on, and was disposed for scrap a couple of years later. It was one of a large batch of 20 TWA had built in 1950, registrations N6001C to N6020C inclusive, so you may have better luck tracing a closely comparable aircraft photograph.
A J Jackson's photographs of London Heathrow in the 1950s-60s are a brilliant resource from the period, it seems he took a shot of every aircraft he saw.
Index of /ttimages/complete/tw55
Pages 19-20 are the ones for the Frankfurt to New York flights.
All the Frankfurt flights stopped at London as well. The first class flights were notionally nonstop from London to New York, and used L-1049 Super Constellations. The tourist class flights stopped at Shannon and Gander and some (as yours) used the older standard L-749 Constellations which had less range.
N6007C "Star of Ohio", Lockheed builders number 2643, was a typical example of the large Constellation fleet TWA had. Delivered new in August 1950, it stayed on the roster until stored at the TWA maintenence base in Kansas City in February 1966, which was a good long run for an aircraft of that era. It never was sold on, and was disposed for scrap a couple of years later. It was one of a large batch of 20 TWA had built in 1950, registrations N6001C to N6020C inclusive, so you may have better luck tracing a closely comparable aircraft photograph.
A J Jackson's photographs of London Heathrow in the 1950s-60s are a brilliant resource from the period, it seems he took a shot of every aircraft he saw.
Last edited by WHBM; 2nd Mar 2011 at 19:15.
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A.J.Jackson collection
If it is any help the web site is www.ajjcollection.co.uk and is at Brooklands Museum you can order prints of any airplane they have in the archives which is very extentsive for the "older types of airplane"mostly in Black and White. [To the moderator this isn't meant to be a advert just info]
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Constellation L-749 N-6001C
Hi,
This is my first post on this website.
I am trying to find out as much as possible about TWA Constellation L-749 N-6001C. Were there any differences between N-6001C and the other aircraft up to N-6020C and beyond?
I arrived in New York at 10:00 am on Thursday, 21st July 1955 on this plane, having flown from London, via Shannon, Eire (and possibly Gander, Newfoundland). On the manifest, the 'Time of Departure' was given as '13'. Does this mean that the journey commenced 13 hours earlier? The Captain was Thomas Lynch. Does anyone know anything about him? There were 59 passengers, 7 of whom were not US Citizens. There were 10 crew members.
The flight number was 963/20, which originated in Frankfurt. I am also trying to find out as much as possible about this TWA route. What were the scheduled arrival and departure times? What actually happened? Were there any problems with the flight? What were the rules and procedures for the passengers? Which New York airport was used? Which airport buildings were used by the passengers?
Does anyone know anything else that might be of interest? Photographs for example?
Thank you.
Al
This is my first post on this website.
I am trying to find out as much as possible about TWA Constellation L-749 N-6001C. Were there any differences between N-6001C and the other aircraft up to N-6020C and beyond?
I arrived in New York at 10:00 am on Thursday, 21st July 1955 on this plane, having flown from London, via Shannon, Eire (and possibly Gander, Newfoundland). On the manifest, the 'Time of Departure' was given as '13'. Does this mean that the journey commenced 13 hours earlier? The Captain was Thomas Lynch. Does anyone know anything about him? There were 59 passengers, 7 of whom were not US Citizens. There were 10 crew members.
The flight number was 963/20, which originated in Frankfurt. I am also trying to find out as much as possible about this TWA route. What were the scheduled arrival and departure times? What actually happened? Were there any problems with the flight? What were the rules and procedures for the passengers? Which New York airport was used? Which airport buildings were used by the passengers?
Does anyone know anything else that might be of interest? Photographs for example?
Thank you.
Al
N6001C (US registrations normally written without a hyphen) was just the first of this batch of 20 Connies, delivered in March 1950, the remainder followed at the rate of around two a month. Like most of the others, it remained in service (latterly just confined to domestic services, of course) until the mid-1960s, in its case September 1966, and like N6007C described above was parked up at TWA's Connie maintenance centre for a couple of years, never found another buyer, and was then broken up for scrap in 1968.
Looking at the 1955 timetable it appears this flight was numbered 967 for the Thursday arrival in New York Idlewild (nowadays JFK); it was 963 on other days of the week. A typical westbound overnight schedule of the times, the TWA timetable shows an optional stop at Shannon, but does not mention Gander. However, the various stops on transatlantic flights of the time were notably flexible depending on winds, and often bore little relation to the published timetable (the same applied to the arrival times). You will find the complete TWA 1955 westbound summer transatlantic schedules here ;
http://www.timetableimages.com/ttima...55/tw55-19.jpg
http://www.timetableimages.com/ttima...55/tw55-20.jpg
click on the images to enlarge them. Note that First Class and Economy ("Sky Tourist") were operated on different aircraft at the time.
Looking at the 1955 timetable it appears this flight was numbered 967 for the Thursday arrival in New York Idlewild (nowadays JFK); it was 963 on other days of the week. A typical westbound overnight schedule of the times, the TWA timetable shows an optional stop at Shannon, but does not mention Gander. However, the various stops on transatlantic flights of the time were notably flexible depending on winds, and often bore little relation to the published timetable (the same applied to the arrival times). You will find the complete TWA 1955 westbound summer transatlantic schedules here ;
http://www.timetableimages.com/ttima...55/tw55-19.jpg
http://www.timetableimages.com/ttima...55/tw55-20.jpg
click on the images to enlarge them. Note that First Class and Economy ("Sky Tourist") were operated on different aircraft at the time.
Many old Connies flew out their lives in the Carribean being used as freighters. Some even had rubbed out Pan Am and TWA paintwork on the side. Sea transport was unloaded by lighters that would cause half the load to disappear between the ship and shore so V&As, like perfume, cigarettes went by air.
I went over one at Belize. The tyres were soaked in oil and the inside of the cabin was lined with thin plywood. The flight engineer was just filling in some paperwork. The problem was with No 4 which they had to feather on the way in. He had solved that but there was still a problem with No 3's oil consumption and the were shutting that down after take off and restarting it before landing.
Later on a Connie forced landed at Belize. I believe, not having been there at the time or seen the accident report, that it had a prop overun that flew off and took out an adjacent inboard engine that rotated on its bearers and jammed the undercarriage. The whole shooting match landed in a considerable state of disrepair on one main and nosewheel but conveniently ended up clear of the runway. Despite being in the most heavily guarded airfield in Central America in slowly disappeared, except for the propellers, in a few weeks.
I went over one at Belize. The tyres were soaked in oil and the inside of the cabin was lined with thin plywood. The flight engineer was just filling in some paperwork. The problem was with No 4 which they had to feather on the way in. He had solved that but there was still a problem with No 3's oil consumption and the were shutting that down after take off and restarting it before landing.
Later on a Connie forced landed at Belize. I believe, not having been there at the time or seen the accident report, that it had a prop overun that flew off and took out an adjacent inboard engine that rotated on its bearers and jammed the undercarriage. The whole shooting match landed in a considerable state of disrepair on one main and nosewheel but conveniently ended up clear of the runway. Despite being in the most heavily guarded airfield in Central America in slowly disappeared, except for the propellers, in a few weeks.
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Passenger Manifests For Aircraft Arriving in New York City until 1957
Hi WHBM,
Thank you very much for your reply to me and also for your earlier reply to the original poster, CaseyC.
Do you know the cn or sn numbers for the Lockheed Constellation L-649A aircraft given the registration numbers N 6001 C to N 6020 C inclusive? Presumably cn means construction number and sn means serial number (of manufacturer). Does N stand for 'number'? Does C stand for 'Constellation'?
Do you know the names given to the rest of these aircraft? Presumably, they are all named after US States, as is the case in N6007C "Star of Ohio", Lockheed builders number 2643.
The TWA timetable to which you have provided links, is actually dated September 25, 1955 and is different to the timetable that applied at the time of my flight, to New York, on flight 963/20, which departed London on Wednesday, July 20, 1955.
I have been unable to find, on the internet, a TWA timetable that applied to July 1955 (apart from a picture of the front cover that featured Disneyland). However, I have been able to deduce, with certainty, that in July 1955, there were two Flight 963 per week, which originated, on Wednesday and Saturday, from Frankfurt and stopped at London and Shannon and sometimes Gander en route to New York. I don't know what time the 963 Flights departed Frankfurt, London and Shannon but I have found, from online Passenger Manifests that, with one exception, the nine arrivals in New York, in July 1955, all arrived between 9:35 am and 10:47 pm, local time i.e. 'Daylight Saving Time' or 'Eastern Daylight Time'. There is no evidence that anyone used Eastern Standard Time for these records. My flight arrived at 10:13 am on July 21, 1955. I have looked again at the original record and realized that the wayward '13', written above the other numbers, was in fact connected to them - so I have answered my own question from my previous post.
After making my previous post, I discovered that it is possible to browse the Passenger Manifests in the ancestry.com records for the 'New York Passenger lists, 1820-1957', which are found under the heading 'Immigration and Travel'. Click on 'browse these records', or similar wording, then enter the year, then the month, then the day, and then click on 'not stated', in the list of names of ships. Click on search, and you get all of the Passenger Manifests for the date entered of all passenger carrying aircraft that landed at La Guardia or Idlewild airport in New York City for that day.
There were about 120 t0 250 passenger manifest for each day, for the records that I searched between 1950 and 1955. It is possible to click on 'previous' or 'next' to browse the records sequentially or one can enter the sequence number and hit 'enter' or click on 'go', to bring up any particular Passenger Manifest.
The Passenger Manifests are normally sequenced in the alphabetical order of the airline, so if one is interested in TWA, one should start looking at the end of the sequence. Sometimes there are also 'strays' at the end.
Within each airline, the Passenger Manifests are arranged with the main immigration summary page at the front. This contains the itinerary, the time and date of arrival, the number of US Citizen passengers and the number of alien passengers, and also the crew list. Then after the summary page, comes the individual Passenger Manifests for each airport at which passengers boarded the aircraft.
These bundles of Passenger Manifests are normally arranged sequentially, within each airline, based on the flight number. So, TWA Flight 963/20 will come after TWA Flights with lower numbers which arrived in New York City, in this case, on July 21, 1955.
The Flight number suffix, eg '/20', refers to the scheduled date of departure. So, in the case of the errant Flight 963/13, this Flight was due to take off from Frankfurt on Wednesday, July 13, 1955. In fact, Flight 963/13 departed late from Frankfurt - on Thursday, July 14, 1955 and arrived in New York City at 12:13 am on Friday, July 15, 1955.
It took me four days of intensive research on the ancestry.com website to deduce all of this, so I am passing on the fruits of my labours to facilitate the research of other members of the 'Professional Pilots Rumour Network'. I think that this should be entered by the moderators as a new topic, so that it can be disseminated as widely as possible for the benefit of other researchers.
Thank you very much for your reply to me and also for your earlier reply to the original poster, CaseyC.
Do you know the cn or sn numbers for the Lockheed Constellation L-649A aircraft given the registration numbers N 6001 C to N 6020 C inclusive? Presumably cn means construction number and sn means serial number (of manufacturer). Does N stand for 'number'? Does C stand for 'Constellation'?
Do you know the names given to the rest of these aircraft? Presumably, they are all named after US States, as is the case in N6007C "Star of Ohio", Lockheed builders number 2643.
The TWA timetable to which you have provided links, is actually dated September 25, 1955 and is different to the timetable that applied at the time of my flight, to New York, on flight 963/20, which departed London on Wednesday, July 20, 1955.
I have been unable to find, on the internet, a TWA timetable that applied to July 1955 (apart from a picture of the front cover that featured Disneyland). However, I have been able to deduce, with certainty, that in July 1955, there were two Flight 963 per week, which originated, on Wednesday and Saturday, from Frankfurt and stopped at London and Shannon and sometimes Gander en route to New York. I don't know what time the 963 Flights departed Frankfurt, London and Shannon but I have found, from online Passenger Manifests that, with one exception, the nine arrivals in New York, in July 1955, all arrived between 9:35 am and 10:47 pm, local time i.e. 'Daylight Saving Time' or 'Eastern Daylight Time'. There is no evidence that anyone used Eastern Standard Time for these records. My flight arrived at 10:13 am on July 21, 1955. I have looked again at the original record and realized that the wayward '13', written above the other numbers, was in fact connected to them - so I have answered my own question from my previous post.
After making my previous post, I discovered that it is possible to browse the Passenger Manifests in the ancestry.com records for the 'New York Passenger lists, 1820-1957', which are found under the heading 'Immigration and Travel'. Click on 'browse these records', or similar wording, then enter the year, then the month, then the day, and then click on 'not stated', in the list of names of ships. Click on search, and you get all of the Passenger Manifests for the date entered of all passenger carrying aircraft that landed at La Guardia or Idlewild airport in New York City for that day.
There were about 120 t0 250 passenger manifest for each day, for the records that I searched between 1950 and 1955. It is possible to click on 'previous' or 'next' to browse the records sequentially or one can enter the sequence number and hit 'enter' or click on 'go', to bring up any particular Passenger Manifest.
The Passenger Manifests are normally sequenced in the alphabetical order of the airline, so if one is interested in TWA, one should start looking at the end of the sequence. Sometimes there are also 'strays' at the end.
Within each airline, the Passenger Manifests are arranged with the main immigration summary page at the front. This contains the itinerary, the time and date of arrival, the number of US Citizen passengers and the number of alien passengers, and also the crew list. Then after the summary page, comes the individual Passenger Manifests for each airport at which passengers boarded the aircraft.
These bundles of Passenger Manifests are normally arranged sequentially, within each airline, based on the flight number. So, TWA Flight 963/20 will come after TWA Flights with lower numbers which arrived in New York City, in this case, on July 21, 1955.
The Flight number suffix, eg '/20', refers to the scheduled date of departure. So, in the case of the errant Flight 963/13, this Flight was due to take off from Frankfurt on Wednesday, July 13, 1955. In fact, Flight 963/13 departed late from Frankfurt - on Thursday, July 14, 1955 and arrived in New York City at 12:13 am on Friday, July 15, 1955.
It took me four days of intensive research on the ancestry.com website to deduce all of this, so I am passing on the fruits of my labours to facilitate the research of other members of the 'Professional Pilots Rumour Network'. I think that this should be entered by the moderators as a new topic, so that it can be disseminated as widely as possible for the benefit of other researchers.
