British Airways 707-436 questions

[snooky]

Here is G-APFL as it is today.

Photos: Boeing 707-436 Aircraft Pictures | Airliners.net

[ATNotts]

WHBM

Airtours charters were always announced as Tango

I recall my sister going on a schools exchange to Austria, and the flight number on the ticket being identified as "tango xxx" which as a young reggie spotter back then seemed strange to me, as I too thought (knew) that the IATA 2-letter code for Beatours was KT.

[merlinxx]

WHBM

BEA airtours callsign was Kilo Tango or BEETOURS. Flt # were KT000 etc. Even when on lease acft still held G reg., confused some folks when a G reg 70 arrived in SyrianAir livery I think I know as I was there from the start of ops in 1970

PS: airtours was always a lower case a to avoid confusion with the tour operator Airtours up north !

[Jackbr]

Does anyone know when the first 436 was painted in full BA negus livery? Were they still operating under the name of BOAC, or had the British Airways name been officially adopted before the livery change

[WHBM]

I don't believe there would be a version of the Negus livery that said BOAC. It incorporated (somewhat) elements of both BEA and BOAC liveries, as the post-1974 merger colour scheme. It was the other way round, the previous separate company schemes were initially rebadged as British Airways or British Airtours. These seem to have lasted for some time; there's a photo of ARWD still with the old BEA colours (but KT titles in the new font) on Airliners.net dated 1978.

One 707 we have missed is "Spread Legs" (OK, Sierra Lima), G-AYSL, a 707-321 (old JT4A straight-pipe engines) which BA took from Dan-Air and which ran in 1978 in mainstream BA titles, then in the 1979 season transferred to Airtours at Gatwick. As well as non-standard engines for the fleet it had it's own non-standard livery derivation with a grey under-fuselage as well. I wonder what it did out of Heathrow initially.

Photos: Boeing 707-321 Aircraft Pictures | Airliners.net

[A30yoyo]

Interesting 707 related post #45 in the Papa India thread yesterday
http://www.pprune.org/aviation-histo...o-today-3.html

[Arriva driver]

"Spread Legs" G-AYSL at Heathrow mainly operated to Tel Aviv to replace Tridents which were having spar troubles and also did a few there & backs to other places as well.
It was not deemed politic at that stage for BOAC/BA flight crews to operate BEA/BA flights so we had to masquerade as Dan Air crews. Cabin crew were wonderful BEA/BA volunteers and if I remember correctly "Mandys" (of Rice-Davis fame) was the place to go in Tel Aviv.

[WHBM]

There were a lot of charters-in at this time, BA were notably short of aircraft, long-term, and the Trident problems just added to it. I can actually recall Britannia 737s at Heathrow operating BA subcharters in 1978, along with two MEA 747s which were leased for a couple of years.

However there was some crossover between the divisions, as two VC-10s were moved across to European work sufficiently permanently as to appear in the timetables, they operated to Athens, Larnaca, Lisbon and Amsterdam. I'm looking at the relevant timetable now !

[Flightwatch]

The MEA 747s were dry leased for a number of years. I flew both of them, G-BLVE/F I think,, and they were good performers having PW JT9D-7Q engines. Whilst VE was used in an all pax configuration and could turn up anywhere, VF was in combi form and used mainly LHR-SVO-NRT and LHR-ORD.

[Ron Cake]

British Airtours were using a 707 on charter for RAF tropping flights to Hong Kong in the early 1980's. They positioned at BRZ to load the pax then routed via Bahrain. if there were adverse winds, Calcutta was used as and additional refuelling stop.