WHBM, The cabin crew on those shots were US crew and some of the cabin service shots were in the full size cabin mockup. The "passengers" were Lockheed employees family who were also "used" on the 400 seat emergency evac! The shots around 4 minutes are the VMCG tests which used a LARGE baulk of timber strapped the the fuse and cooled by water from on board ballast tanks!

My word - those airstairs really are something. Difficult to imagine fitting that to an aircraft nowadays, and worth watching the video for that alone. Unbelievable. I knew they'd done it, but the other thing in the video that I'd never seen before was the integral baggage belt loaders. Did those survive in later TriStar operation with other airlines?

The Soviet Ilyushin 86 widebody, which was somewhat contemporary with the Tristar, was also self handling (in fact even more) where it was wished. In this case there was a lower hold-level entrance, with short airstairs, which led to a lower level baggage counter (and crew seats) where bags were taken from pax who had brought them on board. Pax then climbed stairs to the main seating level. It was thus completely self-sufficient, but outside the Soviet Union was difficult for airport terminals to handle pax going right through to the aircraft carrying hold baggage, so the standard arrangements for that prevailed.

Unfortunately the only decent account of the process I have seen has been ruined by Photobucket withdrawing their links to pictures accompanying a description of this.

I could make a joke about diplomats and their families.......

I was a passenger on an Il86 flying from Alma-Ata to Moscow in 1986. After a very bumpy approach the pilot pulled off an absolute greaser of a landing at Moscow and the whole cabin erupted with cheers and clapping.

https://i.pinimg.com/736x/70/2d/dd/7...b76fe4a016.jpg

baggages in the following years were loaded into and handled by ULD (AVE) containers for most of the time on wide bodies once the equipment was available at airports
bulk loading still occurred now and again if the airport had no ULD facilities
a 767 went into Skiathos once - that was bulk loaded

afaik only Court and LTU took the aft airstair and cargo hold bulk baggage belt options

PSA's 5 a/c had a drop down fwd airstair into the lower deck which had 16/18 saleable and/or lounge seats - only 2 new a/c went to PSA and LTU took the other 3

All of that was standard stuff on old Soviet aircraft. Not just the embarrassing applause on every touchdown, but the universal greaser as well. It carried on with Tu154s to recent times. I don't quite know how they do it, but Russians have commented (and my experience is likewise) on the Western-style thumper percentages now that Boeing/Airbus are pretty universal in Russian fleets.

Some other countries do the clapping as well. The Air France A340 destroyed by fire in the Toronto overrun accident apparently had the pax do applause on touchdown, immediately followed by the flight deck command to Brace ...

Autair, Court Line old-timers might be interested to know that Keith Spragg who started his airline career with Autair has recently published a Memoir which is titled 'I Have Control'. Includes a couple of chapters on flying the Vikings and Heralds.

And tomorrow I have to endure yet another Ryanair 737 being thrown at the ground

Belatedly reporting the passing of Captain Maurice Rowan MBE (mil) in March 2018 aged 97. One time Operations Director of Autair International Airways. He gave me my big break into civil aviation at the beginning of 1966. Cherished memory of a jump seat ride with him in one of the new HS748s LTN/BLK and return. Maurice was rather shamefully sidelined by the company when it expanded and became Court Line.

Dear Adam and Lynne,

I both sent you a private message.

Regards,

Luca

That may well be cn 1024. Regisered EI-CNN it was owned by TBG Airways and operated on ACMI flights under Aer Turas AOC. Went to GAMCO for a C check and found extra work needed doing that TBG couldn't finance.