LUTON History and Nostalgia
aceatco, retired
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Britannia did a series of flights to KLAX from Luton with the B707, tech stopping outbound, but often coming back direct. Often we would not get FPL, the first we knew is when given an estimate by London.
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As a bit of an aside the purchase of "C" series turbofanned 70s was a I think a smart move at the time when many competitors (British Midland, Donaldson, Dan Air and LLoyd) had bought turbojet 321s readily and more cheaply available from Pan Am. They would have pretty useless for West Coast USA- were gas guzzlers come 1973 - and as perhaps an aside poor for any kind of ops out of Luton except perhaps the Med, I remember BD's 'YBJ taking until the Delta/26 intersection to get airborne going just to Palma.
As a bit of an aside the purchase of "C" series turbofanned 70s was a I think a smart move at the time when many competitors (British Midland, Donaldson, Dan Air and LLoyd) had bought turbojet 321s readily and more cheaply available from Pan Am. They would have pretty useless for West Coast USA- were gas guzzlers come 1973 - and as perhaps an aside poor for any kind of ops out of Luton except perhaps the Med, I remember BD's 'YBJ taking until the Delta/26 intersection to get airborne going just to Palma.
- bit of a hoo hah with HMRC over the import tax duty on these but they got away with it - they operated 7 until the merger with BUA
(2 were brand new and built for Caledonian AW -399C)
G-AYEX being one of the 7 - returned to BCAL after the BY lease
G-AYSI also went to BCAL after BY
British eagle had also ordered 2 new 320C's for 1968 but were not really operated and one was never delivered - they had a tax issue iirc and one was re-regd in Bermuda or bahamas
one of this pair went to Transavia then to Caledonian AW G-ATZC
the other to MEA then to BOAC G-ATZD
Lloyd did have one 320C for a while - G-AZJM (to BCAL)
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and was being painted in their colours when I peeked in hangar 89 on 8/4/73.
hard to imagine these days- eventually it got a keypad I think.
I can remember peeking in at G-AYSI in spring '71. It was the first to feature the then new livery-couldn't work out at first why it had red on it.
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There was a door on the other side as well, overlooking the taxiway albeit with an 8ft high wooden fence. The week following the delivery of G-AYSI, myself and a school friend, noticing the door was ajar, ventured down the access road to peer into the hangar hoping to get a view of the 707. We met an engineer coming out, so, expected to be told "clear off" (or something similar), we turned away only to be invited in by the engineer and given a tour of the newly arrived 707, in which he obviously took great pride. One of those unforgettable memories from the days before high security, health & safety etc.
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Invicta did a lot of ad-hoc work, picking up flights on behalf of others rather like Titan today. A I have mentioned before quite a bit passed to them after Court Lline went bust- Court Line flew for Jetway, Pontins, Warners etc. as well as in house Horizon and Clarksons at the end.
Passengers who had booked expecting a nice new One Eleven thus ended up with the dulcet tones of four Rolls Royce Tynes for three hours down to Alicante on a Vanguard in September '74.
Passengers who had booked expecting a nice new One Eleven thus ended up with the dulcet tones of four Rolls Royce Tynes for three hours down to Alicante on a Vanguard in September '74.
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One of the Britannia ex B707 F/Engs was Dave Brown who ran the ground school on the B737 and B757/767.
He was loaned out to British Midland on a wet lease to Kuwait in late 70's.
Sadly died recently
As for Pilots on the panel of a B707 God help us it never happened as all the F/Engs I flew with were ex ground engineers who knew every bit of the aircraft backwards.
He was loaned out to British Midland on a wet lease to Kuwait in late 70's.
Sadly died recently
As for Pilots on the panel of a B707 God help us it never happened as all the F/Engs I flew with were ex ground engineers who knew every bit of the aircraft backwards.
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With regards to invicta using the vanguard to Alicante .Flybe have been using the Dash down to Alicante recently and I know last year saw it in August I regularly fly many times to Alicante I bet the customers had a nice surprise.Saying that Cross air use to fly the Saab 340 in to Alicante from Zurich.
Dave said the most worrying aspect was when the hijackers checked passports and separated Jewish passengers from the others. One of the bad guys looked at Dave's passport and commented that David was a Jewish name. Dave said he was prepared if necessary to demonstrate anatomically by removal of clothing that this was not the case.
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Brit 707s did do charters to Singapore and Hong Kong. I have proof on Luton Airport movement sheets from that era as well as the other destinations previously mentioned.
Some more Luton history from 1970 in this UK AIP AGA extract.
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Some more Luton history from 1970 in this UK AIP AGA extract.
Before this they had been routed Brookmans Park, Kilburn, Epsom and Dunsfold.
There was also Brookmans Park, Detling, Cranbrook and Hastings.
Can't remember when these went.
Also like the crossing the M1 motorway bit- how does that work in IFR- time at given speed? Was replaced by DME 9 from Bovingdon I think at some stage.
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Never got my head around why runway 26 had then and still has a displaced threshold when the runway is on top of a hill, which just happened to be the size of the turning circle.
Presumably after 08 departures southwest bound were routed cross radial 39 Bovingdon 3000 feet or below.
Not sure how these min noise routings tied in with the SIDs.
Edit: according to the AIP there were no SIDs in effect for LTN in 1969.
Last edited by Discorde; 13th Apr 2018 at 15:56.