The striking thing about that newspaper cutting is that very nearly all of the flights were on British built aircraft.

I remember when I was flying light aircraft in and out of Adelaide airport I used to see Monarch's Britannias. I had no idea that seven years later I would be employed by them on the BAC1-11, it was a fun airline in those days!

As a teenager and with the suitcases out of the loft we heard the news that Courtline had gone bust at the height of the summer season. We were supposed to be off to Spain in a couple of days with Pontinental Holidays from Luton, which was the foreign arm of Pontins Holidays. The holiday was saved as our Courtline 1-11 was substituted for a Dan-Air Comet. Not sure why Dan-Air would have a spare aircraft in the peak summer period but it saved our holiday.

I can remember even then that the aircraft interior looked very dated compared to a 1-11 and shook like there was no tomorrow when the aircraft reversed engines on landing back at Luton.

Talking of Monarch Britannias going to far away places, they operated a number of round the world flights for a West German tour operator in the early 1970s. Sheer luxury:O

A major piece of Luton history and the backdrop of many photos is set to disappear in the next couple of months with the removal of both Signature hangars which will create space for their new FBO.

I can remember Twin Otters flying low over Fine Fare and Wigmore as they headed for Luton's grass runway.



May 1983
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Jeff Bell

Cor, I remember seeing that Twin Otter at Luton - one of my infrequent visits, on the way back from Mildenhall Air Fete I think (the T-34C had crashed which obviously put quite a damper on the day).

View from a window
 

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Mick Bajcar/www.abpic.co.uk

And the cropped view now from the same window except this window and the wall in front of it will be gone when the final phase of Signatures redevelopment is finished. So another piece of history will be created that we will look back on in the years to come.
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Must have been the largest aircraft ever to use the road crossing.

DC-6
 

On arrival it taxied off the "eastern taxiway" onto the grass and then made its way down the grass runway. Same way back finding a point where the transition grass to taxiway was as easy as possible ! The maximum size for the road crossing was , I believe, a Dove (probably Coal Board G-ARUM)

Talking of rear facing seats, I seem to recall flying from Luton to Dublin in the early 90's on a Ryanair 1-11 which had at least one row of seats facing backwards.

What engines did the DC-6 have?

As I recall, th experiments with rear facing seats were the first couple of rows. I was on a Trident (don't know which version) from LHR~HAM in the mid-70s and was aske to fill out a questionnaire on the read facing seats. They were fine and, as we know, much safer. Naturally, humas like to face forward and, naturally, PR departments don't like to talk about prangs - so we don't have rear facing saeats.

As stated earlier, a BAC1-11 had a row of seats facing backwards and therefore facing a front facing set of seats by the overwing emergency exit. I always use to try and get these for the extra leg room.

I flew on a British Eagle Britannia from Heathrow to Basel in 1963 and all the seats faced rearwards as they had a trooping contract and MOD (or whatever they were called in those days) insisted upon it.

P&W R2800s

AKA P&W Double Wasp (CB16 and CB17 variants on the DC-6).

This DC6 visitor to Luton was delivered to American Airlines in 1956 and was scrapped in 1984.

Registration Details For N9232Z (Quo Vadis) DC-6-A - PlaneLogger

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Mark Lysons

The old terminal after it was tarted up complete with a large array of plastic plants.

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The Navigators' Bar complete with fountain with a Little Chef in the background
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There used to be a globe on a plinth that sat in the middle of the terminal. If you look carefully when this photo was taken the brickwork was up but not the plinth or globe.
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Remember it well.....through security in 2 mins, plenty of seats air-side and no race to the gate queue!! (unlike now!)

07/10/71
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From cj241101 collection

Looks like a Northeast Viscount in the background. I think they were part of British European Airways but what was their name before they became Northeast?