We flew LGW / CND on a Tarom 154, but returned, much to my delight, two weeks later on an IL62, my only ever flight on one (I never got to fly on its cousin, or was it aunt, the VC10!). Obviously I can't make a comparison between the '62 and VC10 but I recall the IL62 being very smooth in flight, and had surprisingly pleasant interior décor which was in good nick. A much better machine from a passenger perspective than the TU154.

Apologies for thread drift!!

According to G-INFO, BADR had the 9A engines, whereas BADP had one 15 and one 15A. Does anyone know if it was possible to uprate the removed 9As to type 15 or 17, or even vice versa ? I know with at least the 737-300, the CFM56 can be altered from B1 to B2, which I think might be a reprogramming job rather than a mechanical one. But I'm no engineer so I'm probably wrong.

I never knew Tarom flew IL62s. The Boeing 707 was their long-haul ship.

Yes, you could upgrade engines. The initial four Britannia 737-200s were delivered with -9 engines and G-AVRN - the one which served for the longest with Britannia - was upgraded to -9A through time. If I remember rightly, one Dan-Air 737-200 flew for several years with a -15 engine on one side and a -17 on the other, although I'd imagine they would have had to treat that as a -15 aircraft for performance calculations.

For the range and capability, bear in mind that there have been many changes over years to standard passenger weights, the level of reserve fuel required to be carried and airfield performance safety margins. The regs still permit IT charter standard passenger weights to be differentiated from scheduled ones, but both sets of figures have gone up quite substantially in the last two decades. If you took yesterday's aircraft and applied today's performance rules to them, a lot of things that used to take place would either be impractical with a viable payload today or just wouldn't happen at all.

They had five, pretty sure I saw them at Heathrow on occasion.

Tarom, strangely, bought 3 new 707s, 2 secondhand ones from Pan Am, and three original IL-62, all at the same time in 1973-75. Just a couple of years later when the substantially revised IL-62Mneo (:)) came along they got 2 of those as well. A surprisingly eclectic purchasing policy. Maybe their fleet planning director later went to Thai Airways. All of these lasted until after the fall of the socialist regime in the early 1990s. It was common for some to be leased out, as they seemed to have far too many for their needs. However, for this thread, they never got any 737-200s.

Tarom used almost anything on their IT charters IL-18, 1-11, IL-62, TU-154, and 707's to LGW, MAN, BHX, and LTN...Rather like JAT Charters used 707, 727, DC-9 etc

On the scheds into LHR again one saw many of Tarom types used over the years including 707's.

My last 737-200 flights were all from Mykonos to LGW I think, and they all stopped at ATH to fuel up and even cater - Caledonian and GB Airways Leisure flights,
plus a Britannia 732 on a 4 day jolly out to IBZ - was on an old one - single galley at front and a great Hot breakfast.
All of these were in the early 1990's.

Most memorable 737-200 flight -
Air Lanka 1980 CMB-Maldives-CMB on their then new once weekly flight to a tiny white coral strip now known as Male Velana International Airport (or the Heathrow of the Indian Ocean)
Flying low over the stunning blue atolls and tiny islands was amazing - Skipper was an Ozzie and let me sit in the flight deck for landing to this beautiful paradise.
Had 3 magical weeks on a tiny desert island in a thatched hut for USD15 Full Board per day...
Booked my flight with the lovely CMB town office manager lady for who had worked for BOAC & Air Ceylon (just changing to Air Lanka) and she gave me an ID50 firm staff travel to stay a week - I ended up staying 3...
Sitting on the beach one day I was startled by an LTU Tristar flying past the lagoon at around 500 feet buzzing the islands after take off going back to Germany.
Seems this was a favourite jaunt of LTU's to show off the islands to the passengers.
The LTU crew all stayed on Bandos where I visited for a day boat trip from my island.

On reflection I think my last one was on Ryanair.

Remember a Prestwick-Stansted sector with them, very high frequency in the 1990s but now lost completely, with a Yugoslav skipper, who hand flew a hold in IMC approaching Stansted so precisely that 2 minutes later we banged through what I think was our own turbulence.

Performance was limited on the early Britannia 732s (Basic airframe, -9 engines). For example LTN-CFU-LTN was often a 4-leg day (tech stopping VCE both ways). Two of these aircraft were convertible passenger/freight config. The strengthened floor and cargo door gubbins added an extra tonne to the empty weight so payload capability was inferior to the rest of the fleet. If memory serves:

Typical empty wt: 29T, convertibles (GAXNA & 'NB) 30T
Typical landing wt: 42T (130 pax)
Basic –9 max T/O wt: 49.4T (GAVRL & 'RM) or 53.0T, but sometimes reduced by factors such as runway length, air temp and barometric pressure

Max T/O wt for later Advanced -15 732s was 55.1T, greatly increasing range.

Yes your memory serves you right. I got landed with taking one of the B737 freighters the night of the hurricane that Michel Fish mentioned from EMA to AGP. And looking at charts a 80 it headwind meant we had stop for fuel.I elected to stop at LGW for a quick refuel as we had engineers there. Could not believe but they over fueled by 800 kgs so we had a huge delay and had to offload catering and bars.
Whilst all this was going on wind increased,temperature rise significantly pressure dropped like a stone and eventually we set off with a very tough turbulent flight.
On way back to EMA weather there 40kts down runway but LGW was unbelievable around 80kts from around 230degrees I seem to remember.

I wrote all this down on voyage report and could not believe later on Fleet Captain asking why the catering and bars were left off.!!!
I referred him to my report.

I used to go to Faro every summer from 1994-2001. Latter trips on (T) AP from LHR, one in Air Macao colours earlier on a variety of charters including Ambassador and Sabre . Having come back from 3 years in Stockholm, with lots of travel on pristine Scandi MD80s, the 737-200s from Gatwick were very shabby looking. On one trip- Sabre I think we sat by the wing leading edge, no slat extension before leaving gate, same during taxi, down to the country end of LGW same during holding point wait , same as we started taxying onto runway and I was getting really rather anxious when at last they appeared. I often wondered if it was an SOP with them , can't think why. or they just forgot. I felt very anxious as wife and children with me and was really close to sticking my hand up and saying -ER Miss...... I think this was actually my first trip on a real independent charter airline

Of all the parties liseted on thes eposts I recall BA Airtours 707 400 LHR-FAro out , shuttle configured Trident 3 back.
Out and back LHR-faro on BA Tristar
LGW_FAO Sabre/Ambassador out Monarch 757 back
LGW Montpellier Dan air Comet
ARN- Faro DC10 Sunair (SAS spin off)
LGW-Athens Laker BAC1-11 , along way on one of those .

Other than Faro I never went to any classic sunshine destination although some of these flights were certainly 'unsocial' hours and in the end we decided that a few extra pounds for LHR-Faro on AP at a decent time of day was worth the extra .

European Aviation Air Charter Bournemouth had the 737 200 , perhaps late 90's / early 2000's.

Mainly, if not wholly, ex-Sabena and Sobelair aircraft.

Were they the ones with a white fuselage and a red tail with white writing ? If so, I used to see them all around back then, no doubt doing ad-hoc substitution flights for other scheduled airlines.

Did a few holiday charters with BA 737-200 at LGW. The most memorable was a sub charter for Britannia. First flight of the ski season to Toulouse so a quick turnaround with round trip fuel and empty back to LGW .
Britannia station manager brings me the loadsheet and says we are all set to go .
Uneventful flight back. As we are heading away in the crew transport I looked back to see the loaders hard at work off loading lots of bags and skis. One could only guess at what went on at Toulouse as a 100 plus skiers waited in vain for their baggage.