An assumption on my as Clarkson and Court Line were so closely linked, seemingly misplaced, my apologies, I guess Dan-air would have provided charters for Clarksons as they did for pretty much every travel company, only sorry I never got to fly on one of their Comets.

Miles Kingsmill Moore
 

My name is Hugh Kingsmill Moore. I am sad to report that my father died after a short illness, surrounded by his three children and his beloved wife Ann, early on Tuesday morning (2/6/15) . He was 85. He retired from a distinguished medical career in 1993 and promptly regained his PPL at Blackbushe.

He did this with the express purpose of proving to his three children that all the flying yarns were not entirely fictional. He flew each of us at least once for a day trip. My trip with my sister Alex to the Isle of White being a wonderful and treasured memory. Not long after these trips he hung up his flying gloves for good. He spoke often and warmly about his days at Autair and Court Line and never lost his love of aviation.

The tale of the perilous trip to Lourdes is deeply entrenched in KM family history, as it should be after about a thousand tellings! Dad will be missed terribly but gave us all a yardstick with which to measure a truly honourable, fulfilled life. RIP dad.

Hugh

ps it was a Bentley (wouldn't have been seen dead in a flashy Rolls)

Hugh,

Please accept my sincerest condolences. As I said, it was a great pleasure to know your father, even slightly and briefly, and I am sure his loss is very keenly felt. Not many students stick in my memory, and even fewer for the pleasure that their names gave on the booking sheet, in anticipation of an uproarious time in the sky to come. And on that, your father delivered in spades. I'm glad he was able to share his passion with you, it must have been a thrill for him too, and I sense he was adept at finding thrilling things to do.

Sincere best wishes to all your family, and sorry for getting the marque wrong. All I can say in my defence is that I was more looking forward to seeing the driver than the car.

Miles Kingsmill Moore
 

Hugh,

My condolences to you and your family on the loss of your Father. I remember him well from the time when I was the Teaboy and Ops Assistant at Autair. He was a well loved and popular character who in those days used to fly for Autair at the week-ends. For my sins, apart from dispensing tea and matches for Maurice Rowan's cigarette " Have you got a light Old Man? " I also produced all the crew rosters which led on several occasions to BALPA and their delightful and respected Rep Captain Geoff Cole threatening industrial action. In those days crews could legally be rostered for 16 Hour Duty Periods!

Typically I see that on Saturday August 20th 1966 your father was rostered as First Officer with Captain Len Prudence (RIP) to fly a scheduled service on an Ambassador from Luton to Blackpool and Glasgow and back.

You mention that Miles had a Bentley. In those days your Dad had a Mini-Cooper - see my earlier post when he took a nap on the hard shoulder of the M1. Maurice Rowan (Ops Director) and Pete Dibley (RIP Chief Pilot) both used to arrive at work driving big old black Bentley Saloons and very stylish they looked parked outside the hangar.

Incidentally is Marice Rowan still alive? He too was a charming man.

Hugh it was a privilege to have known your father. Those were indeed the days!

MKM
 

Maurice Rowan is indeed alive according to my mother, but his formidable wife Pam died a few years ago. I met Maurice and Pam in their medieval French house in the battlements of Castilnau de Montmiral, nr Albi. We were on a family holiday so all of us were there. Dad and Maurice had a great time talking about the good old days. Very memorable evening!

Thanks Hugh,

So pleased to hear that Maurice Rowan is still alive. A great Boss, who never mentioned his Military MBE for bravery which he received after pulling a pilot out of a blazing aircraft whilst serving in R.A.F.

On his retirement from aviation he and Pamela became Antique Dealers initially at Aldbury in Hertfordshire. Pamela became quite an authority on early English porcelain!

Best wishes Tom.

I believe I am correct here, although others posting are the experts :

Court did the bulk of Clarksons flights from the London area, flying from Luton. They also did flights in some years from Bristol and Cardiff, but in other years these were done by Cambrian instead (ironically, with the One-Eleven 400s sold off by Autair when the Court conversion happened).

Dan-Air ran Comets for Clarksons from other bases, being Gatwick (not as extensive a programme as that from Luton), Manchester, Teesside (not Newcastle) and Glasgow. They did operate for most other travel companies, but I think Clarksons might nevertheless have been Dan-Air's No 1 charterer.

Court probably had a few other minor charterers, but the only other major one I have reference for was Student Travel Service, who did summer charters (not ITs), generally midweek, for students from Luton to various European points not normally associated with UK holiday flights, like Frankfurt or Copenhagen.

It's probably far too many years too late now, but if anyone has a Court internal "timetable", or ops plan, for the fleet from high summer when everything was fully deployed, those of use who follow UK airline history would be keen to preserve it.

Beverley
 

Sorry to be so (too) late discovering this interesting thread. I was the co-pilot on the delivery flight of the RAE Beverley to Luton. After I had left Farnborough, my Boss and captain on the delivery, Pete Sedgwick (a proper test pilot) handled the final flight to Hull where it was destined to be the clubhouse for the aero club there. One earlier correspondent thought that while with Courtline it may have made one or more training flight, but I doubt it as getting pilots qualified before registration seems doubtful to me.
My memory is probably wrong, but I believe one good thing that came out of the collapse (at least for future package holiday pax) was either the invention or the strengthening of the ATOL passenger protection scheme.

Interesting piece of film from 14 minutes 20 seconds about the arrival of Courline's first Tristar when it was delivered to Luton. Anyone recognise anybody?

This is a different film that is on the Luton Nostalgia thread

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jh9hPobkTiA

I recognise the Captain - Len Prudence-but cant place any other names apart from the Directors John Young and Ed Posey.

I am sure Peter Hogg is there.

Those airstairs were amazing.

Peter Dorrington is shown as one of the greeters.

Indeed they were. Did any other L1011 have these inventive and useful addition, or was Court the only customer to specify them when ordering ?



SHJ

L1011 Airstairs
 

Hate to correct you but the Airstairs were an absolute nightmare:if they worked properly it all looked very smooth but if not the F/E climbed down a rope ladder from the lower galley complete with long drive tool. If the cargo door was open you had to locate the correct "socket" insert the tool and crank it "n" number of turns, then onto the next and so on for I believe five separate sockets. Passengers off, new passengers on and repeat the process in reverse. The climb back up the rope ladder. I recall doing this at Almeria and finally entered the cabin to cheers and applause from the 400 passengers who had been briefed on the progress by the Captain!! Apart from that they weighed an awful lot and were removed not too long into L1011 operations. As an aside I believe they were designed by the same guy as designed the HP Victor undercarriage and if you've ever watched that sequence you'll understand the Airstairs. Happy days indeed!!

Thanks for the insider knowledge mr gumpied. I suppose like a lot of over-engineered things, it looks great on paper (or film!), but out in the field the more complex, the more issues that can arise. I'm reminded of those Mercedes Benz cabriolet cars with their 30 odd actuators to facilitate the opening and closing of the soft top :) At least with the Court Line system the F/E got a good workout when it started playing up :}



SHJ

@Gumpied yes, you could take one look and just know that they were going to be a reliability nightmare. But I still think they were amazing ;)

Just as a point of curious, did the Tristars have weight limits leaving Luton?
Be lucky
Dave
The avgasdinosaur

Remember seeing the pink tristar parked up in a rather sad sight around 1975 at Luton a year after courtline went bust while boarding a Britannia 737 to ibiza also had a relation who lost her job it was a sad state for the uk holiday industry

PSA had them as well, used on Los Angeles-San Francisco shuttles with short turnrounds. Like the Court ones, these aircraft had a limited life before being stored for some time and then sold. But the airstairs went to the lower level only, internal stairs then went up to the main deck. However if you look at a photo, although shorter, the design looks similar.

Photos: Lockheed L-1011-385-1 TriStar 1 Aircraft Pictures | Airliners.net

There's also a discussion about Tristar airstairs, including an extended photo series about the engineering mock-up of the Court ones, here

http://www.airliners.net/aviation-fo....main/4954604/

Incidentally, the Ilyushin 86 widebody had a similar arrangement as the PSA ones, with a baggage counter inside at the lower level where you left your bags.