LUTON History and Nostalgia

[oldandbald]

Monarch 720B and FL430

The Monarch 720Bs were my favourite and I certainly recall, again if my memory serves me, that going down to Tenerife at FL410, me on the jump seat, I forget why but think it was head wind the Capt asks for 430 and we "creep up" to that level, however Flt Engineer not happy and we go down again after only a short while . Lucky to have had a number of splendid trips with Monarch and Britannia at that time

[cj241101]

This day in history....

1970 and what I believe was the first international scheduled service (discounting the BMA brief flirtation with Dublin in 1967). Skyways Coach Air started a twice each Saturday and Sunday summer only schedule to Ostend on 16/5/70. The airline ceased operations the following January but soon reformed as Skyways International and again operated the Ostend service in summer 1971. From memory this was 3 flights Saturday and one Sunday. Poor quality photo I'm afraid using a Kodak Instamatic.



G-ARMW 16/5/70

[lotus1]

Great pictures please carry on posting I do have a good couple in the loft I must find them safair herc instone b170 on the same day I remember landing at Luton in the early hours of the morning from ibiza flew in on Britannia 737 having to wait for coach back to kings cross so I decided to walk up to the old spectators area it was pitch dark then suddenly the whole area was lit up in brightness by a abc vanguard believe reg was g apes comming in to the apron this was around 1982 when the Falklands punch up was on I had to laugh the government sold off all Belfast fleet and when this flared up had to charter these in along with tradewinds 707 to asention Islands i also believe Abc also did a couple of runs they where the days

[cj241101]

LTN's first flight from New York?

Probably not, but it seems topical at the moment. This Fournier RF-4D took part in the Daily Mail transatlantic air race in May 1969, which was held to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the first Atlantic crossing by Alcock and Brown in 1919. It stopped at Luton en route to Biggin Hill on 11th May. It was accompanied by a rather rare type (in Europe at least) in the form of Aero Commander 100/Lark Commander N3622X, which I inexplicably failed to get a photo of.







N1700 11/5/69


The pilot Mira Slovak flew an aircraft like this (an RF-4 with the same registration) from Germany to the US in May 1968; for an interesting account of that flight see:- Fournier RF4D N1700 Mira Slovak, Twirty-Six Horsepower Over the Atlantic


The aircraft pictured above ended up in the Seattle Boeing Museum of Flight at Everett. Very recent reports (15th May) indicate it is now in the UK at Gloucestershire, officially registered N1700G. See:-https://twitter.com/egbjdh
(link doesn't work, so need to copy and paste into browser window. That works!).


Have corrected some of the above, with thanks to Dave Reid for providing the additional correct information.

[cj241101]

more from 1969

variable quality as usual, best I could do with my trusty Kodak Instamatic.



G-APDL 8/4/69, shortly after Dan Air based a Comet at LTN late in March 1969.
The Eagle Britannia in the background (old light aircraft park) I believe was G-AOVK which was stored at LTN (along with G-ARKB) early in March 1969, finally getting broken up Feb 1970.



G-AVYB 31/5/69
Channel Airways operated 2 Palma flights on Sundays during summer 1969.



G-AVHK 21/6/69
Channel Airways again with G-AVHK operating the "Scottish Flyer" "bus-stop" service.



G-ATBE 21/7/69
Operated by Handley Page this aircraft was a regular sight until being sold in Canada as CF-CQT 1/4/70.



N16399 27/9/69
Somewhat rarer, this ex-Air France DC-3 (ex F-BEFN) was en route to the USA. N16400 (ex F-BFGT) followed it on 3rd Oct.



G-ARKA 23/3/69
Shown just before delivery, ex-Eagle G-ARKA saw service with Tellair for only a few months before being ferried to Coventry on 31/10/69, where it remained until being broken up in October 1971.

[DaveReidUK]

Originally Posted by cj241101

The pilot Mira Slovak flew this aircraft from Germany to the US in May 1968; for an interesting account of that flight see:- Fournier RF4D N1700 Mira Slovak, Twirty-Six Horsepower Over the Atlantic

The aircraft ended up in the Seattle Boeing Museum of Flight at Everett. Very recent reports (15th May) indicate it is now in the UK at Gloucestershire, officially registered N1700G.

Mira Slovak was nearly killed, and his Fournier destroyed, when he crashed at the end of his Germany-USA flight in 1968. The following year a newer RF-4D inherited the registration N1700 and that's the one that went to the Museum of Flight and was recently noted at Staverton.

[Pain in the R's]

Didn't know Handley Page which was based just down the road at Radlett operated their own DC3. I wonder why they needed a DC3? They went bust in March 1970 which I guess why this aircraft was sold a month later.

Plenty of HP Heralds in my younger days at Southend

[cj241101]

N1700

Dave, thanks for the correct info. Have amended my original. Colin Jones.

[cj241101]

foreign operators 1980

I remember 1980 as the year of the DC-8. Apart from the usual Scanair invasion plus the Finnair DC-8's flying for Kar Air, 3 DC-8 operators new to the airport started flying in. Aeral flew an extensive programme using their own (leased from Overseas National) aircraft N9110V, with a few flights on Kar Air's OH-KDM. Bursa operated once a week as did CP Air.

In spite of this, the overall airline count was well down on 1979. Condor and Hapag-Lloyd , both regular for a number of years, (including their Bavaria and Germanair incarnations) disappeared never to return. No Air Malta, Trans Europa, Maersk Air, Royal Air Maroc, Itavia or Middle East programmes. J.A.T combined the Pula and Dubrovnik flights into 1 rotation each week. Tarom only managed a short series in April. Here's what we did have:-

Sterling Airways Caravelle 10B/12 all year, Caravelle 6R’s had all been sold or scrapped by July 1980; 727’s summer only. Basic programme only around 5 flights each week with the usual extras Jun-Aug.



OY-SBE 10/8/80

Austrian DC-9-32/51 late Sun evening all year
Tarom1-11 500 Bucharest Sat Apr only
Bursa Hava Yollari DC-8-21/50 Istanbul Mon 21/4-3/11

TC-JBV 12/5/80. Still in the basic livery of its previous operator Hamerein Air. Their later aircraft TC-JBY and TC-JBZ were in a more attractive green and blue scheme, of which I failed to get a picture.

J.A.T. B707-320C Fri 2/5-26/9
Aeral (Italy) DC-8-55 from 3/5 - early Sep variable programme, up to 3 flights some days peak summer
Inex Adria DC-9-30 Mon Pula 5/5-6/10 Pula Fri May-Sep
Scanair DC-8-62, DC-8-63 (S.A.S.) A300B (S.A.S.) June-Aug

SE-DFK 20/7/80

Transair Sweden 727-100 10/6, 1/7, 8/7 (Linjeflyg F-28), 5/8 x2 (1 by S.A.S. DC-9-41), 12/8
CP Air DC-8-40 Wed Toronto via Prestwick Jun-15 Oct



C-FCPM 3/9/80 (think it was still carrying CF-CPM actually, 5 years after Canada officially changed their registration prefix to C-)

Kar Air DC-8-50 DC-8-62 (Finnair) Caravelle 10B (Finnair) Jun-Sep DC-10-30 (Finnair, 3/7 only)

OH-LHA 3/7/80

Linjeflyg Fokker F-28 probably only 3 flights Thu 21/8-4/9
Minerve Caravelle 6R several ad-hoc flights Jul/Aug

Aer Turas Britannia CL-44

EI-BGO, EI-BBH 3/4/80 (their entire fleet at the time).

Geminair Britannia



Laker operated DC-10-10’s during the ski season Jan-mid Apr; Milan-Malpensa Thu 1235/1450, Turin Fri 1220/1450
Orion based a 737-200 at the airport from May
Redcoat introduced CL-44 G-BRED in August, replacing Britannia G-AOVS

G-BRED 1/7/81


G-AOVS Luton 12/10/80. Used by the BBC for their series "Buccaneer" about a fictitious cargo airline Redair, screened summer 1980. Aircraft was then used for fire training; The fuselage still exists somewhere near the fire training ground (still there 21/5/15)

Air Ecosse started late night mail flights with Bandeirantes, 3 flights each weekday night
Skyways Cargo continued with their 6 nights a week newspaper flights to Amsterdam with FH-227's, unfortunately going into receivership on 16th October.
Air Bridge were still operating their 6 nights a week newspaper flight to Glasgow with a Vanguard Merchantman.

[LTNman]

See post 69 for other photos



Origin of photo unknown

[dc9-32]

Superb photos CJ, and memories are flooding back. I remember as a young boy sitting down the side of the BY hangar watching the likes of Germania 1-11's taxi past.

Some years later, I'd be bashing out loadsheets for a whole variety of machines including Caravelles, 1-11's, 737-200's, DC9's..........happy days.

[LGS6753]

In reply to an earlier question, the Britannia 707s operated to KL and to Georgetown, Guyana IIRC.

I was thinking that Summer 15 was shaping up to be an interesting summer with around 13 operators - I hadn't realized the variety on view in 1979/80!

[cj241101]

number of airlines and pax numbers

quote:-

"I was thinking that Summer 15 was shaping up to be an interesting summer with around 13 operators - I hadn't realized the variety on view in 1979/80!"

In spite of 24 airlines with regular flights summer 1979, many of the foreign carriers were only operating 1 flight a week, and the total passenger numbers were only around 2.8 million (can't find the book that would tell me exactly). 1981 saw most of the Scandinavian flights return to STN, coinciding with Monarch reducing their based fleet to just 3 aircraft after opening bases in LGW/MAN and GLA with consequent redeployment of some of the LTN fleet. Annual passenger figures dropped to around 1.6 million in the early 1980's as a result. They did begin to recover with the arrival of a certain Irish airline in 1986.

[LTNman]

9,530 1961
43,417 1962
127,297 1963
174,545 1964


419,885 1967/68
799,152 1968/69
1,594,010 1969/70
2,050,775 1970/71
2,897,506 1971/72
3,145,658 1972/73
3,140,175 1973/74
1,920,275 1974/75
1,868,753 1975/76
1,858,952 1976/77
2,003,714 1977/78
2,082,966 1978/79
2,230,568 1979/80
2,086,082 1980/81
2,017,737 1981/82
1,806,171 1982/83
1,735,706 1983/84
1,795,541 1984/85
1,635,116 1985/86
2,017,502 1986/87
2,681,158 1987/88
2,911,493 1989/89
2,694,794 1990
1,961,351 1991
1,963,345 1992
1,863,927 1993
1,816,054 1994
1,796,685 1994/95
1,907,193 1995/96
2,642,038 1996/97
3,405,596 1997/98
4,387,739 1998/99
5,466,128 1999/00
6,337,752 2000/01

[cj241101]

airport pax numbers

Thanks LTNman, were they from Dave Gearings book? (that's the one I can't locate). My 2.8 million came from the LLA 75 year anniversary book which I thought was very over-optimistic.


While I'm here, here's something from 1967 (15th July to be precise).

Anyone else as old as me might be able to identify the 2 aircraft outside the Autair hangar, both of which were based at the time, disappearing for different reasons by the end of that year.

[LTNman]

The stats came from an old spreedsheet I used to update. They were from different sources including old year books.

As for the photo looks like a Viking and HS 125. Just a guess without checking but the HS125 crashed on the roof of Vauxhalls after doing a simulated engine failure while the Viking was scrapped?

15th July 1967 was a Saturday so would the BM DC4 being a Jersey flight or had they no started yet?

[cj241101]

1967 memories

Spot on with the HS125, it is indeed G-AVGW which sadly crashed on to Vauxhall during a training flight on 23/12/67.

The DC-3 behind it was G-AMSN, still in the basic colours of Mercury Airlines who had ceased ops in Oct 1964. It was registered to a Lord Peter Calthorpe of Jersey on 22/11/65. I never saw it fly, and have no idea how long it had been at LTN. It was sold in the USA as N3455 on 28/12/67, then in Egypt as SU-BFZ and Ireland as EI-BSI before being restored to G-AMSN for Aces High on 13/11/89 (was still N3455 at North Weald Aug 1995). It moved briefly to Sandtoft in 1998. It was then back at North Weald and used in the TV series "Band of Brothers" in 2001. After being moved to Redhill on 24/6/04, it then went to the D-Day museum at Carentan, France in October 2004. Currently reported as being converted to a flight simulator.

The BMA is DC-4M G-ALHY and was operating the evening Jersey flight. This aircraft was withdrawn from use at East Midlands later in 1967, getting broken up there during 1970.

Not sure whether the Autair HS748 is G-ATMI or G-ATMJ.

Here's another one


G-ANBI 15/7/67
This is the view from the original spectators area to the left (south) of the terminal. Apart from the aircraft, it shows the area that became a grass (mud!) spectators car park in the summer of 1968.

[cj241101]

and now for something completely different....

Looks like Monarch's colour scheme, maybe that's why Apron Control parked it on stand 4 with a Monarch Boeing 720B behind it. A Morane-Saulnier MS760 Paris 2B.



N5878 19/5/79

[Lon More]

Going back a couple of pages

Didn't the 727 Greenline start at Luton then went to Watford, Maple Cross, Heathrow and finally Gatwick?

I used to catch it at Park Square if both ny car and bike were off the road together. Took about 1 hr 15 to West Drayton then a 10 minute walk to LATCC. OK when going on an afternoon but didn't work for other shifts.

There was an RF4 hangared in the club hangar in the mid 60s; sorry can't remember more about it

[cj241101]

Flying Club Fournier

Luton Flying Club had RF-4 G-AVNY registered to them from 2/11/67 to 4/6/71 according to G-INFO. Privately owned G-AVLW was also around late 1967 at least. The same owner had RF-5 G-BACE based in 1972.