Here's a couple more.

Late July 1982 Sabena leased OO-SJL (707-329C) to American operator Jet24 , who immediately sublease it to Sunrise Airlines (afaik) a UK operator.
It's ferried to STN and operated a charter to Orlando.
And that was pretty much it with Sunrise AL.

BEA Airtours flew various ex BOAC B707-436, but it's recorded that they also leased (briefly) a B707-131 (OO-TED) from TEA of Belgium in 1978

What about Air Arctic Icelandic? Did they ever operate in their own right, or did they just fly for other airlines?

I am flattered ... :)

That's jogged a memory cell. I used to see the TEA 707/720's regularly back in the day. Which UK airport did they fly into, STN ? LGW ?

Apart from the Beatours one (of which I was unaware) TEA used to operate mostly adhocs to UK I believe. BHX used to see them on and off operating day trips for visitors to exhibitions at the NEC in the first few years after it opened, and at a time when BHX wasn't exactly well served with scheduled services from much of Europe.

Those NEC charters declined significantly as the likes of Lufthansa, Air France, Sabena and their ilk started operating multi daily services into BHX.

Fabulous recollections, thank you very much.
I gather QF ended 707-138B operations in 1968 - two of the fleet only 4 years old,
VH-EBH - EBM all being built as a 138B from new.

As well as Wardair, have Worldways and Ontario World Air had a mention?

Yep - and Quebecair, PWA, and Transair who all did 707 charters to the UK and Europe.

From the States there were early 707 charters to LGW by World AW, Pan and TWA.

Saturn Airways had cancelled their 707C orders, but a 707C would remain on option for AFA until they also switched sides and both airlines ordered the DC-8-63 in late 1968.

Airlift International's own 707C was seen occasionally and Executive Jet Aviation's 707C was immediately leased to Airlift International, then returning to Executive Jet.
The following month it was leased to International Air Bahama for a year, then off to Caledonian AW.

In 1970 for example it did once a week on Sundays Noumea-Sydney and return. On the Saturday it had done Auckland.

Page 5 here :

ut70.pdf (timetableimages.com)

Air Afrique bought separately a couple of late-model Caravelles as well, might have even been part of the same order, the two companies were notably intertwined and quite a proportion of the Air Afrique ops and flight deck staff were UTA personnel on secondment, along with loaning of substitute aircraft. Air Afrique heavy maintenance was all done in Paris. There was interlocking minority ownership by UTA (and Air France) in Air Afrique, the same as both had part ownership of French internal airline Air Inter as well. It was very much an "old boys" closed shop, French style, said to be co-ordinated behind the scenes by the longstanding No 1 customer of UTA, the French Foreign Affairs ministry's ex-Colonial department at Quai d'Orsay in Paris.

https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....ecb2689c12.jpg
I believe this is C-FPWV B707-138B at Gatwick 1978
https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....e5352bcc31.jpg
Gatwick 1979. Foreground Dan-Air's B707-321 G-AYSL operated by British Airtours. Background Air Malta B707-123? G-TJAB.

G-AYSL. Sierra Lima, or as it was apparently universally known at BA/Airtours, "Spread Legs". An early onetime Pan Am aircraft, Dan-Air got it secondhand in 1971 and ran it themselves, but leased it to BA mainline in 1978 (when they seemed very short of aircraft, and were also using as much spare Airtours capacity on mainline routes as they were able) and to Airtours in 1979. When done at the end of the 1979 season it seems to have languished at Lasham for years, for sale without success, until finally broken up there.

The 707-123B behind it, ex-American Airlines, belonged to Transasian, which despite the name operated from Gatwick, but this was the second summer season it was leased to Air Malta. The following year, 1980, it was with Monarch, but that was its last duty.

The Caravelle in the foreground is, by most amazing coincidence, one of those two UTA Caravelle 10Rs discussed in the post above, which had been sold on in 1972 to Swiss charter operator SATA, later CTA. It did about 15 years with them and was a quite regular Gatwick visitor over the years, particularly on student charters.

May as well do the rest, in the background is a BA One-Eleven, not normally associated with Gatwick, but at the time for a few years they had a couple based there which did a small handful of European destinations in an attempt to stimulate Gatwick scheduled services for BA. Knowing how licensing worked then, it was likely an attempt to prevent B Cal getting such Gatwick routes.

Thanks WHBM, great information. I was working at Gatwick at the time and took these photos. Funny how what seemed to be routine at the time turns out to br
e great memories for some..

Thanks for that information. Yes, the whole French commercial (airline) aviation industry back then had a very closed circuit feel to it. I flew regularly on just about all the offerings and the cross-pollination of companies was noticeable, all supported with government aid financed by the taxes of the French people (and me at the time). Certainly domestically you could fly to an amazing array of places that today are only available by TGV. As you say, UTA was basically an extension of the French Foreign Affairs ministry. Air France was caught out bugging First Class passengers conversations to gain commercial advantages in the 90's!

This made me think of the handful of 707/720 aircraft that languished at the Aer Lingus Mx apron in DUB for many years. Does anyone know their story ? I'm assuming that they were scrapped in situ at some point.

I would guess that there is just one B707 type rating as I got one from flying the KC-135 which was very different from the B707-320 that I flew later.

On the Holiday Jets wide body discussion WHBM and I had a little discussion about the BOAC/BA tag on trip they used to do with one of the lHR-JFK 747s doing a quick two hour out and back from JFK to Bermuda BDA which was often pretty popular , Bermuda being then and still is a colony BA were presumably the 'national carrier'.

Reflecting on this -I spend 11 years of my life on the island , I remembered that BOAC/ BA also did something similar with VC10s from JFK running down to the Caribbean Islands, Inf act my second ever trip was JFK to Barbados with a stop in Antigua and , as they say, continuing service to Port of Spain. (my first trip was LHR-JFK on the same day)_. Very popular with US tourists as VC10 was lovely to fly on , smooth, nice seats and legroom and nice longhaul BOAC service hence its sort of qualification for this thread .

However while the out and back to Bermuda took only five hours and therefore a BA747 from London arriving JFK early afternoon could easily return to JFK to operate one of the later JFK-LHR overnights the trip down the islands was far far longer. JFK-POS is at least five hours and adding in the time lost with two intermediate stops and minimum one hour on the ground at ANU and BGI that's 16-17 hour round trip . So does any one know how they managed this trip, I flew it bothways , once as described and another time a year later when it was a BGi-JFK direct .

The crew must have slipped somewhere nice -probably BGI so I expect it was a popular bid , Rather like the wonderful Jo burg Mauritius Seychelles Colombo Hong Kong Tokyo VC10 trip which had to be the worlds most exotic flight from a crew perspective. Like many trips back then it didnt operate every day which used to make those old BOAC schedules so interesting like LHR-Tokyo-different day different route

When you say different, apart from fuselage size, do you mean handling and performance, or the beautiful hosties in comparison to your previous comrades in the USAF ? ;)

There's a poster here who used to work in BOAC schedules department and did this working-out.

The BOAC VC-10 from JFK on to the Eastern Caribbean was often the through aircraft from Manchester and Prestwick. The crew slipped at JFK, and departing at 16.30 (in 1971) through Antigua, Barbados, Trinidad and Georgetown in Guyana was some 8 hours overall, arriving after midnight. Although not every day of the week, on the days it did operate there was another flight from London, either direct London to Barbados or stopping at Bermuda, which presumably slipped along the way, arriving at Georgetown early evening, several hours before the JFK flight. Next morning the JFK flight left at 08.00, and the direct London at 12 noon. I presume the two overnighting crews at Georgetown exchanged between the duties.

WHBM

Many thanks, I forgot about the Manchester Prestwick JFK flights , makes perfect sense.
I knew the actual islands stopped at from day to day and as you sai some stopped at BDA as well.
I flew LHR-Barbados on a SVC10 it ledft LHR alte mornign and would have been able to do BGI -JFK evening trip.

I think the crews stayed swapped in Barbados as Trindidad wasnt the best place back then and Georgetown totally scary and cannot imagine BA overnighted there .

I love to look back on those old 1970s BOAC timetables, so incredible complicated and a world (almost 50 years !! ) away from todays almost totally out and back trips . I feel myself lucky to have done a few of them tiring as they were ina way they were a great experience two of my favourites being LHR-Nicosia, Khartoum , Addis Ababa Seychelles SV10 or HKG-Rangoon -Calcutta -Bahrain -Rome-LHR 747-136

Thinking back to meeting relatives at LHR T3 in the early eighties the arrival boards would show airline/flight number, origin and 'last stop'.

I used to stand transfixed in front of those clickety-clackety Solari arrival boards watching the flaps do their dance. I wish some creative airport would bring one back as a retro design feature. I don't really care for the present day boards I have to admit.

Having looked at those very same boards in T3 in that time period, I'm ashamed to say I never noticed the 'last stop', no doubt hiding in plain sight :8

So....A 707, possible 720 mystery to solve. On chatting with my lovely ex-neighbour who at 97 is sharp as a tack mentally, they mentioned Silver City Airways from Lydd back in the 50's and then the conversation veered onto a flight from New York Idlewild to Detroit in 1964. There was an announcement as the doors closed that they were the first passengers on this inaugural flight (of the aircraft) and the aircraft with only 5 passengers went up like a rocket, no doubt due to it's light weight shortish sector. The aircraft was 'a 707', it was silver or metallic outside, so I thought possibly American Airlines, but also possibly Northwest Orient or several others. Apparently it wasn't one of Juan Trippe's stable.

Any ideas whose it might have been and if 707 or 720 ?

SHJ - I thought AA too - how about a CV990A ?

1964 was a bit late for any inaugurals I can think of...
except Northwest had new 707-351C's from 1964 and they flew that route in 1964 too
but they had white tops then and polished lowers...

Thanks rog747, the announcement said that they were the first passengers on the plane as it had just been delivered and that it was a Boeing. The recollection of silver on the fueselage could well have been the lower part as they'd have boarded by steps from the ground and (for them) the 707 would be huge after the prop job they flew over the Atlantic (via Prestwick). I suggested Northwest, but couldn't remember if they had much red in their livery back then.

You are correct that American and Northwest were the two carriers operating on New York to Detroit in 1964, both with 707/720s. If the recollection was of a notably silver aircraft I would definitely think of American first, with their classic all-over unpainted polished skin and orange lightning-flash. This was apparently significantly buffed up to shine, at some considerable ongoing cost to American, so on a brand-new aircraft would really stand out in memory. There was a sad "heritage" reincarnation of the livery done on an American 737-800 a few years ago, with dull grey paint (not even silver), and missing several of the orange flash details.

Boeing_707-123B_American_Airlines_JP6855539.jpg (1024×696) (thisdayinaviation.com)

Northwest always had the all-red tailfin, but the rest was a dark blue cheatline and conventional white, just unpainted on the lower belly.

First flight of the aircraft ? American had their HQ in New York then, it was only later they moved over to Dallas, so a likely delivery point. Northwest was always centred on Minneapolis, HQ and maintenance, so less likely to have an aircraft first flight starting at New York. Both carriers were getting new aircraft that year.

Thanks for your knowledge WHBM. It was their first flight on a Jet aircraft, so VERY memorable, both the 97 yr old and their 77yr old son's eyes shone as they recounted their experience. By the sounds of it, it was an American Airlines 707, it must have looked and felt like a spaceship to them coming from dreary London back then. They mentioned the new smell inside the huge cabin.

The fact that it was 'a delivery flight' as they described it would suggest it came from Seattle to NY to be officially received by AA HQ and then put into revenue service, which they had the pleasure of being on.

Slght thread drift, does anyone know how many 707's that TWA flew and how many at one time?

TWA 707's
 

TWA purchased and flew -

707-131 and 3 707-124 bought from Continental AL.
707-131B first delivered in 1962, last 4 in 1968
707-331 six of these were NTU and in 1959 were sold by Boeing as new to Pan Am
707-331B TWA got very early build models in 1962 still with a large ventral fin, small engine inlet doors, and no nose gear doors. Last orders 1969.
707-331C first 2 in 1963, new 707-373C's due for World Airways but NTU. TWA's own order first in 1964. Last 2 in 1970.
TWA did order some 707-331C as ‘pure’ freighters.

They also flew 4 new 720-051B in 1961, but these soon went to Northwest.
In June 1961, TWA and Boeing announced a deal for 30 new aircraft, of which 26 would be 707s and the remaining four, 720Bs;
NW had these 4 aircraft on order, but had decided to delay delivery.
TWA was particularly interested in the latest turbofan engines, its then fleet consisting only of turbojet 707-131s and Intercontinental 707-331's (called SuperJet)
The 720B's would provide TWA with extra capacity for the 1962 summer season.
The aircraft were delivered at MSP, with two in July and two in August '61, also known as Boeing SuperJet
all four with 40F and 71Y, no forward lounge.

TWA’s first 707s were configured with no less than 46 first-class seats, with a Lounge, and 65Y.
Eventually the International 707's would fly with around 20F and 120Y, 16F/135Y, or 184Y.

TWA started getting its own new turbofan 707B's in March 1962 with 14 in service by the time the 720's were handed back in September 1962.
They were called Star Stream 707 with DyanFan Jet Power stickers on the nacelles, and Built by Boeing on the tail.

During the summer of 1967, two of TWA’s domestic 707-131Bs were converted for use on the North Atlantic, mainly to London and Paris from New York and Boston.
The 707-331's, and some -131's were now also called Star Stream 707.
TWA trademarked all of these advertising service titles.

TWA was first to light up its 707 aircraft tails in 1969, and allowed other airlines to copy the idea in the name of safety, providing more aircraft exposure at night.

The TWA 707 and 720 fleet history is fairly accurate on RZjets so have a look through at fleet numbers and dates.
https://rzjets.net/aircraft/?parenti...=42&frstatus=3
They state that TWA operated 130 707's in their time.

TWA then really was a worldwide airline, flying 707's from the USA to many points in Europe, the Azores, Casablanca, then on to Athens, Tel Aviv, Cairo, and the Middle East, Nairobi, India, Ceylon, BKK, HKG, Okinawa, Taipei, and Manila, Guam and HNL.
International cabin crew bases were located in London, Paris, Rome, Hong Kong, and, at one time, Cairo.

TWA was 'the' airline for the big Hollywood Stars of the day, huge celebrities would only fly TWA as their airline of choice.
Frank Sinatra, Danny Kaye, Ray Charles, Judy Garland, Joan Crawford, Maureen O'Hara, Jayne Mansfield, Elizabeth Taylor, The Beatles, Pat Boone, Joe Allen, Shelly Winters, Julie Andrews, Rita Hayworth to name a few.
The TWA First Class Ambassador service was sublime.
My best friend David was VIP Concierge at LHR for TWA for many years from the 1960's until closure. He met them all !


TWA had 9 707 Hull losses
https://rzjets.net/aircraft/?parenti...=42&frstatus=5

Including -
N8715T Boeing 707-331B TWA Trans World Airlines del 1965, W/O 9/13/70 Dawsons Field Amman Jordan
blown up during hijack together with BOAC Super VC10 G-ASGN and Swissair DC-8 53 HB-IDD, and a Pan Am 747 on Flight 93, N752PA “Clipper Fortune” at Cairo.
Plus,
Del to TWA in 1968 as N28727 707-331B, then as N7231T Independent Air.
W/O 2/8/89 Santa Maria, Azores, crashed into high terrain on approach. 144 killed. Holiday Charter flight, Bergamo Italy to Punta Cana Dominican Republic.


A TWA 707-131 on flight TW85 from LAX in 1969 ended up being the longest length hijack in history.
A young Vietnam war veteran Marine Raffaele Minichiello had just returned home suffering from what we know now as PTSD.
In 1967, the 17 year old left his home in Seattle, to where he and his family had moved after the 1962 earthquake in their Italian homeland had destroyed their village.
He travelled to San Diego to enlist in the Marine Corps, and for those who knew him - a little stubborn, handsome, a little gung-ho - this did not come as a surprise.
But he was proud of his adopted country, and was willing to fight for it in the hope it would make him a naturalised American citizen.
But then, in October 1969 the now soon to be 20 year old stepped on to a TWA plane, a $15.50 ticket from Los Angeles to San Francisco in his hand.
He then overtook the flight with a rifle after take off from Los Angeles, and demanded to be taken to Naples, Italy to see his family.
A big change in what back then was normally 'Take me to Cuba'
LAX had been the last stop on flight 85's journey across the US, which had started several hours earlier in Baltimore before calling at St Louis and Kansas City.
The rogue 707 was now routed via Denver, New York, Bangor, Shannon and finally headed to Rome.

Minichiello's father - who was by then suffering from terminal cancer and had returned to Italy - knew immediately what had caused his son to hijack the plane. "The war must have provoked a state of shock in his mind," Luigi Minichiello said. "Before that, he was always sane."
Against the odds, Minichiello became a folk hero in Italy, where he was portrayed not as a troubled gunman who had threatened a planeload of passengers, but as a fresh-faced Italian boy who would do anything to return to the Motherland. He faced trial in Italy - the authorities there insisted on this within hours of his arrest - and would not face extradition to the US, where he could have faced the death penalty. At his trial, his lawyer Giuseppe Sotgiu portrayed Minichiello as the poor victim - the poor Italian victim - of an unconscionable foreign war. "I am sure that Italian judges will understand and forgive an act born from a civilisation of aircraft and war violence, a civilisation which overwhelmed this uncultured peasant boy."
He was prosecuted in Italy only for crimes committed in Italian airspace, and sentenced to seven-and-a-half years in prison. That sentence was quickly reduced on appeal, and he was released on 1 May 1971.
He then settled in Rome, returning to the US in 1999 to meet up with the TWA crew, and some of the passengers to apologise. He was finally diagnosed as suffering from PTSD in 2008.
The whole story is here -
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-48069272

I forgot that both Donaldson and Lloyd International also used their 707's on holiday charter flights to the Med and Canary Islands.

rog747

thanks for your little addendum -lead me to re read a really nice nostalgia thread
PB

I believe that Donaldson based a 707 at Glasgow around 1971, which operated a full summer holiday flight series from there to the Med. as they had done with Britannias previously. But the bulk of their 707 work, like Lloyd, was transatlantic charters in the summer, and whatever they could pick up in the winter.

Donaldson also did some winter sun charters from GLA to Tunisia etc and also used their 707s as freighters in the winter (I think they had to bulk load through the passenger doors). Does anyone here know how the likes of Donaldson, Lloyd etc financed these 707s? It seems unlikely that they had the cash to buy them outright so did they lease them from PanAm or a financial intermediary?
Other than “spread legs” and her sister 321, Dan Air’s 320Cs don’t get much of a mention in this thread. Dan Air used them in the summer for I.T., ABC etc and in the winter leased them to IAS Cargo Airlines as freighters which worked well for both carriers. Sadly one of the aircraft was lost while operating for IAS when landing at Lusaka (or was it Ndola?) due to structural failure.

Donaldson had two of their 707s converted by Pan Am before lease to 707-321F with a cargo door, so first choice for their freight operations.

Regarding financing, they appear to have been leased from Pan Am, most likely just by the flying hour (although doubtless initially offered for sale at 'no reasonable offer refused'), as when the various downmarket operators went under, Pan Am got them back and had to go through remarketing them again. In asset value (not necessarily Pan Am's book value in their accounts) a turbojet 707 by 1971 was worth little more than scrap, although they did carry on through a range of operators - some into the 1990s. I think Pan Am even painted them up for their lessees as part of getting rid of them.

The Dan Air Boeing 707 crash happened as the aircraft was on approach to Lusaka Airport, Zambia. The incident occurred on the 14 May 1977.

Boeing 707-321C G-BEBP owned by Dan Air and ooperated by IAS which had been subcontracted by Zambia Airways to operate a weekly scheduled cargo service between Lusaka and London Heathrow via Athens and Nairobi.

Donaldson and Lloyd International as we know, used their 707's on holiday charter flights to the Med and Canary Islands, along with the Affinity Group Charters across the pond to Canada and the USA but also flew charters to Africa and the Far East.

Lloyd had a Hong Kong interest, Far East Aviation Co Ltd, a holding company which owned Lloyd International Airways (Hong Kong) Ltd,
The Hong Kong company had on order three DC-8-63CFs which were to be leased to Lloyd International on delivery (August 1968 and May 1969 respectively). They were NTU.
G- DC‑8‑63CF 46062 05/08/1969 Lloyd Int'l AW -- Acquisition cancelled To (Airlift International N6163A)
G- DC‑8‑63CF 46061 03/07/1969 Lloyd Int'l AW -- Acquisition cancelled To (Airlift International N6162A)
G- DC‑8‑63CF 45969 20/08/1968 Lloyd Int'l AW -- Acquisition cancelled To (Airlift International N6161A)

Lloyd went on to obtain 707's from 1970.
G-AYAG B.707‑321 18085 built 07/06/1961 Lloyd Int'l AW ex N759PA Pan Am
G-AYRZ B.707‑321 18084 built 18/05/1961 Lloyd Int'l AW ex N758PA Pan Am
G-AZJM B.707‑324C 18886 built 11/06/1965 Lloyd Int'l AW ex N17323 Continental AL. (To British Caledonian)
Lloyd International ceased operations in June 1972, and the 707-321's went back to GATX Leasing who passed them to Bahamas World.

Both Lloyd and Donaldson flew many of the flights from Uganda to the UK for the 30,000 expelled East African Asians who had UK passports.
President Idi Amin began moves to wanting them all out from 1971, and then in 1972 gave them all just 90 days to leave.
At the time, the Asians who ran many of the local businesses, accounted for 90% of the Uganda's Tax Revenue; with their removal, Amin's administration lost a large chunk of government revenue. The economy then all but collapsed.

Donaldson from 1970, had obtained 4 old 707-321's leased from Pan Am (Lloyd, BMA, and DA all took a pair) and three of these for Donaldson had a main deck Cargo door added for bulk freight but not pallets.
I don't think they ever got much cargo work for this conversion as you rarely saw the Cargo doors open at LGW !
Glasgow's Mercury Holidays had a large share in Donaldson.

The 707's were possessed 08/1974 by Pan Am when Donaldson International Airways went under.
BMA British Midland quickly leased all of the ex Donaldson 707's to equip its ''Instant Airline'' Leasing arm, giving BD a total of six 707-321's.

Do I recall it correctly as having a basic Dan-Air scheme with a white IAS fin? DA can't have had it for very long when it was lost.

The aircraft lost to corrosion at Lusaka was fairly mid-life, built 1963 for Pan Am, sold 1976 to a secondary leasing company, later to Dan-Air, lost 1977. Didn't say a lot for Pan Am's maintenance that it had degenerated, and Dan-Air were usually pretty good with older airframes - they had plenty of them.

This was something of a peak for cargo charters to Africa, consolidators like IAS had some aircraft of their own and chartered extra capacity as required. Overland transport from the African ports had degenerated due to multiple issues - railways fell into disrepair, bureaucracy by officials, handling damage, levels of theft, border difficulties, etc, and it was preferable for anything worthwhile to be airfreighted, much originating in Europe, direct to destination. Still carries on, but nowadays principally in the bellies of widebodied scheduled flights. It was always difficult finding any backload for returning freighters, and this led in part to developments such as flowers, grown in East Africa and airfreighted overnight to Europe at marginal rates.

I can't recall ever seeing a holiday flight series by Dan-Air using a 707, but did see them in brochures at the very start of Transatlantic ABC charters.

To be fair to Pan Am and Dan Air, IIRC the corrosion was in the tail area and it had not been realised by any of the airworthiness authorities or operators that this was a weak spot. I can't remember whether the aircraft had IAS on the tail or the fuselage and I worked for IAS! I was in the office the morning BP crashed (we were notified by telex and I can still remember the scream from the telex operator as she read it).

Here's a pic of G-BEBP with the IAS fin! It was registered to Dan-Air in October '76

https://media.abpic.co.uk/pictures/f...8180-large.jpg

Excuse the thread drift, but just to add that the Dan Air 707 crews would arrive at the BA cabin crew hotel in Nairobi with their Dan Air issued pounds sterling to be exchanged for BA issued Kenyan shillings at a mutually favourable rate. Later, and after some first class derived booze, there might have been other exchanges…

Oh, I didn't know Dan-Air had First Class ... :)