They (TWA) did 727 feeder services from LHR - same as Pan Am did, but not just to/from Germany IIRC.

Pan Am certainly flew holiday flights from TXL - saw 2 on the ramp together at Palma. Never saw TWA 727 in the Med except ATH and BCN.

The TWA 727s had a long history of being based in Southern Europe, one ran Tel Aviv-Athens-Rome as a 747 feeder for many years. Alex Frater, in his classic book about old air travel "Beyond the Blue Horizon" rode in it from Rome to Athens in 1984, and described it in detail. Both flight deck and cabin crew were from the US, the latter revolving with 747 Transatlantic duties. TWA later moved in to Berlin as a competitor on the internal German routes, just a year or two before the wall came down so a wasted investment.

Pan Am at Berlin likewise had US flight deck, they were on 3-month assignment at a time from Miami base. It was a 4-powers agreement that the crews had to be nationals of one of the Allies, but cabin crew were locally recruited. They had to have additional training to repeat all necessary commands from the flight deck in English to the pax in German. A distinctive feature of the Pan Am internal German service ("IGS") was the very short turnrounds, down to 25 minutes, and the heavy usage, 10 sectors a day or even more.

The GDR controllers on the corridor routes were apparently very adept at picking up accents of pilots who might not be US/British/French, especially on charters and biz-jets. THey could even distinguish Canadian from American.

I doubt it will ever happen but I've wondered if it would have been feasible/practicable/doable to reconfigure the 727 cockpit to a two-crew layout. Airbus managed it with the A300, thereby dispensing with the Flight Engineer.

Don't I know it! I was "dispensed with".

Too bad but one of many similar victims, I fear. Which airline ?

2012 with EAT. (DHL).
I had 20 years in the middle seat which was more than I expected when I started on the Electra with Channex.

Did most of the Flight Engineers convert to pilot, or was it a case of do something different on the ground ? I realise you're not the oracle of information, but a generalised answer would be interesting.

At Channex a couple of F/Es went Pilot but at their own cost. At EAT there were at least two pilots who were ex F/E. I think UPS paid for their F/Es to become pilots.
I think FEDEX did something similar when they converted their DC-10s to MD-10s.
I returned to maintenance engineering as I had kept my licence current.

Thanks! It seems to have been a matter of cost somehow, with the large carriers happy to swallow the cost to keep their valued staff at full potential.

I think it may have been more to do with powerful unions.

rog747, next time you find yourself at 18E/30S, please pm me. I'd love to buy you a glass or two of the lekker local vino and take you for a spin out of Stellenbosch Flying Club! Now back those wonderfully elegant 727's

With regards to Dan Air charter operations from NCL, my first flight was NCL-MAH in September 1991. All I know apart from the above,( I was six years old at the time) is that we boarded via the ventral air stairs. Can anyone confirm whether this would have been a 727 or a 1-11? I believe both were based at Newcastle in 1991.

Both did indeed run from there. 727 seating is 3+3; One-Eleven is 2+3. Can you remember any 2-across seating ?

I’m pretty certain it would have been a 727-200 in 1991.

DA Bac 1-11 holiday flights from NCL to the med may have ended by then - they’d mainly been for Intasun (went bust early 91) and Airtours who would have used the based 737-400’s and 727-200 in 91.

I think I still Air North mags from the time if you have some dates could find regs of aircraft.

Sounds like a 727 in that case. Thank you for your help!

I guess with enough money and patience it would probably be possible, after all many of the systems on the B727 are very similar to the B737-200, just three of everything instead of two.
UPS, who spent an absolute fortune upgrading their -100s by re-engining them with RR Tays, fitting a glass cockpit and a HUD kept the flight engineer (the cockpit resembled a B737CL but with a flight engineers panel) so I would assume getting rid of the FE was either too expensive or involved too much paperwork.

Thankyou Webby.

Now that is some offer!

We were due to be in CPT last year end of March - April 2020 staying the last week at the Mount Nelson and jumping on the Cunard QM2 to sail home to SOU but sadly the world fell apart and all was cancelled.
The QM2 has been sitting out here in Weymouth Bay or over at Torbay now for over a year.
We have rebooked the same trip with Cunard for April 2023 - So fingers crossed then it would be a pleasure to see you then, thank you!

My sister wants to do a Safari before CPT, and I want to see VIC Falls and stay at the famous old hotel.
So Plan A is fly LON to NBO and 3-4 nights in the Masai Mara then fly to VF for 2 nights, then on to CPT.
I know there are parks in the Kruger but I do love Kenya.
Unless you have any Kruger tips?

The BA58/59 Ahhhhhh 747 heaven.

rog, we are in danger of creating our own travel vlog here, so just a quick diversion:

In the Mara stay at Ol Seki. Save the wonderful landscape and wildlife, if you do your transfers from Wilson with Air Kenya, you are likely to get a ride on both the DHC-7 and DHC-6!

Kruger - go to North Kruger, fly into Hoedspruit with Air Link and stay at Rockfig....simply wonderful. As an aside, not only was Hoedspruit AFB the main forward air base for one of those secret SA border wars, but it was also an emergency Space Shuttle landing strip.

.....now back to Seven Two's

The Summer 1991 ATUK book shows the only Dan-Air flight between Newcastle and Mahon was a Thursday operation for Airtours Holidays on a 727-200. DA2158 outbound, aircraft flew a W pattern to Glasgow and returned late Thursday evening as DA2159. Unless there were late season changes (always possible) then you’d have been on a 727-200.

NCL base was a 727 and a 734 in 1991. No sign of any 1-11 charter flying in the plan.