LHR diversions 1969
 

quote:-

"The first I remember is before I validated so pre-1971 when we took 45 diversions from Heathrow on a Saturday morning. We parked them everywhere, inc along the apron
centreline from stand 9, 'first in, last out'".

4th January 1969 I remember visiting the airport in the afternoon after hearing the lunchtime news referring to LHR and LGW being closed all morning due to fog, with LTN
being one of the airports accepting diverted flights. So I guess this was the day referred to by vintage ATCO? I counted 20 diverted aircraft so must have missed a lot.

https://i.imgur.com/L55bwkY.jpg

This was the only photo I managed to get before a fog bank crept across the runway, quickly enveloping the whole airport for the rest of the day.
For the record, the other diversions I recorded were 2 KLM DC-9's, 3 Aer Lingus Viscounts, 2 B.E.A. Vanguards, 2 more B.E.A. Tridents, a B.E.A. Argosy, Cambrian, BKS and Channel Viscounts, a BKS Britannia 102, 2 B.U.A. 1-11 200's and a BUIA Herald.

more old things....
 

Taken on 20th June 1970. Catair had several charters using their Connies in the summer and autumn that year. The last Connie I saw at LTN was F-BHMI on a
rugby charter 28th Feb 1971. This one is F-BGNG; Court Line 1-11 is G-AXMK. The aircraft outside the McAlpine hangar is one of their Piaggio P.166's.


http://i1380.photobucket.com/albums/...g?t=1432033398

Wow they are a couple of great photos and memories so thanks for sharing them here.

Both those photos are over sized so you need to remember that photos are meant to be no wider than I think 800 wide. You can use the edit link on photo bucket to reduce the size next time.

What foreign carriers operated into Luton in years gone by?
 

After a little perusal of my old logbooks and my memory chips I can come up with the following from 1967-1972. Included are some of the non-based UK operators as well.
No doubt not exhaustive, not guaranteed 100% accurate but here goes:-

Balair DC-6 1967-1970 summer only, early hours of Saturday
Adria DC-6 summer 1967 Sunday lunchtime
DC-9-32 summer 1971 Saturday
Condor Viscount summer 1967 Friday evening
Sudflug DC-7C mid July-mid Sept 1967, Sunday evening, Monday morning
Bavaria 1-11 400 July-August 1968, short series Monday evening, Tuesday morning
Channel A/Ws Viscount/HS748 Scottish Flyer service twice daily Jan-Oct 1969 Trident 1E summer 1969, Palma twice on Sunday
Skyways Coach Air HS748 Ostend scheduled service, weekends only, summer 1970
Bulair Ilyushin 18 summer 1969, June-September, Saturday mornings, fortnightly
Germanair 1-11 500 August-September 1970, Tuesday morning and evening
http://i1380.photobucket.com/albums/...g?t=1430423522
D-AMIE 180870

Aer Turas DC-4/DC-7/B170 regular newspaper flight Saturday late evening from 1970 plus ad-hoc charters, mainly horses
Paninternational 1-11 500 1st Nov-6th Dec 1970, Sunday, day stop
Aviaco Caravelle 10 (Iberia)summer 1971, Palma Wednesday evening, fortnightly
Conair DC-7B end March-October 1971, Friday afternoon then late Saturday
Tarom Ilyushin 18 30th May-3rd October 1971, Constanta, Sunday afternoon, also 1972 Sunday evening
Donaldson Britannia 300 summer 1971, Sunday
Skyways International HS748 Ostend scheduled service, weekends only, summer 1971, Beauvais charters
Phoenix Airways (Swiss) 1-11 500 Oct-Nov 1971 Saturday morning
Rousseau Aviation DC-3, HS748 April-May 1972, Saturday
Air Spain DC-8-21 from April 1972



Any additions/corrections welcome. If anyone is interested in later years please send a PM or post and I will work on it.

RUSSIAN PLANES ARE COMING TO LUTON!
 

This was the headline in the local Evening Post circa Jan 1969. I thought I still had the newspaper cutting somewhere but it's proving elusive.
The reality was, of course, not an invasion of MIG-15's or TU-22 bombers but a fortnightly Bourgas flight by Bulair, using their own IL-18's
and the occasional Balkan Bulgarian example as below.
Taken on 5th July 1969.http://i1380.photobucket.com/albums/...g?t=1430586243

Rousseau Aviation also used Nord 262's. My first ever flight was on one out from Luton to Morlaix in 1972 (May, I think) and back on a HS-748. I still remember the boiled sweets solemnly issued to all passengers to help with the ear popping.
At the time as a Heathrow spotter, Luton was my first 'other' airport and was full of new colour-schemes and numbers. It became a firm favourite of mine once I'd discovered the 727 Green-line bus.:ok:

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

Rousseau Aviation 748

http://i29.photobucket.com/albums/c2...psd0ivmfi3.jpg

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

Crawley was the final destination for the 727. IIRC it took around 3 hours to get from LTN to LGW in the pre M25 days! (not far off what it can take at certain times today using the M25 without all the stops!)

A few more memories
 

Aviaco operated a DC-9 in their own colours on a Saturday tea-time to Palma I think for Owners Abroad in the late 1960s. Air Malta utilising Eagle Air B720s (Iceland) in the late 1970s. Royal Air Maroc for one season in the mid-1980s with a Boeing 727 and Midle East Airlines with a B720 operating charter flights t/f Italy with the famous Scibe Air Boeing 707 known locally as the ´´roach coach´´ again t/f Italy and last but not least Austrian on Sunday evenings in the early 1980s t/f Vienna for Pegasus Holidays with a DC-9.

757 lineup taken in 2002.

http://i29.photobucket.com/albums/c2...psaorvbaq4.jpg

I think the Monarch and BA '757s' are of the A320 family.

Certainly Britannia ran troopers all through my time. (80-94). Usually as a double, so 4 sectors instead of our usual out and back. Gave rise to the riddle
" What's got 4 legs and F*cks the cabin crew? A double trooper. "
They were later linked to a Belfast schedule, as level bust says, but I am sure that was not until the early 90's.
The Belfast schedules were always full, and it seemed to me that Brit missed a golden opportunity to expand on that. In 93/94 they got rid of their 737's at knockdown prices and paid a lot of money to a lot of pilots (me included) to accept redundancy.
With the ecomonies of scale they had, if they had used those pilots and aircraft to expand into lo-co schedule Ryanair would not have grown as it did, and Easyjet probably would never have started. As it was, Easy started with two ex Brit leased in 732's, and Ryanair had the 6 newest of the Britannia fleet.

Not only did they sell the aircraft of cheap, some numpty decided to sell of all the parts and funnily enough Boeing aircraft use the same fasteners on 737, 757, 767's. So back to the company they were flogged to and pay a shed load of money to get them back.

G-AVRN can't find the photo, but Boeing had a banner made up saying the the first 737 built out America. A wee momento from the aircraft.

http://i.imgur.com/A1CsxrJ.jpg

Not easy to be sure from that angle but the bogie undercarriages visible below the BY machine's tail must belong to either the BA or MON machines. AFAIK such a set up was available as an option on the A321 but only taken up by an Indian company operating onto low LCN runwys.

So at least one is a 757.

Where are the proper spotters?
B757, B757, A320, A320, B757, B757.
Look at the angle of the fin trailing edge.

apart from air spain dc-8's at LTN Aviaco also operated the -50 series in their own colours (brown) usually sat lunchtimes (sometimes an iberia a/c
subb'ed)
usually seen on the ramp same time as air spain which had a large weekend schedule from LTN that never ran to time as the -21's were always going tech

the britannia 737-204's first started ops in summer 1968 fitted for 117 pax
G-AVRL dd 7/7/68 first 737-200 in service in Europe Sir Ernest Shackleton
then G-AVRM/N/O and G-AWSY plus G-AXNA/B/C
G-AZNZ was obtained s/hand from United

G-BOSL and G-OSLA were owned by a villa holiday company OSL
but were operated within the BY fleet
both a/c were ordered by Britannia on OSL's behalf and given the
order no. 737-2U4 rather than 737-204

the early 737-204's only had hat racks (of course) and a single galley fitted at the front with 2 toilets aft which was changed on later models to 2 galleys and loo's fwd and aft
the newer fleet starting with G-BADP onwards had more powerful engines JT8-15A's
130 seats were fitted into all a/c (eventually with wide-look interiors)

Assuming that the noses are roughly in line, the BA and Monarch tails are more likely to belong to A321s.

Looking again the 'bogie' undercarriage is actually an illusion of juxtaposed elements of single axle sets so yes Monarch at least is Airbus series. Still not sure about the BA though.

Blimey.....The MON and BA are 100% Airbus!:rolleyes:

line up photo
 

the BA ship is def an airbus product