Blast from the Past: Eastwest Airlines
 

I was too young to remember these airline, but scratching the surface makes me want to know more.

I know there are some good 'oldies' out their with wealth of knowledge but fill in the blanks

- Routes?

Sydney - Hamiliton Island, Tasmania hobart?

- Fleet?

BAe 146-300, F27-500 & B727-200 Ansett fleet The good old 'conrad' jupitar

And before the BA146 and B727 they had the mighty F28. As a kid I use to jump on the F27 from Sydney to Grafton to go stay on the farm for the school holidays. :ok:

They were the days!

The Saturday mystery flight, walking out to the Friendship on the Syd ramp shared with the Masling Queen Air's ( think thats what they were..) I lost count on how many mystery flights i did - enjoyed everyone of them!!:)

Ahhh The F28!

Lovely aircraft, well advanced for its age....

Those who are more knowledgeable then me, where did they fly>?

In the days when you used to do the base checks in the actual aircraft.

Up at Tamworth, doing a single engine go-round from dot feet on crackle power !!! scaring the crap out of all the chickens. I understand they still lay square eggs to this day.:ok:

A great airline once Abeles took control of it..... :E


(Ooooh, LocoBloko's gonna berate me for that!):eek:

And you'd deserve it too Buster! :=:D

Anyone know the whereabouts of John Kelly who was my
PPL instructor at Stawell in Victoria circa 1969? ($15 per/hour dual or solo)
He left there for EastWest in the 70's.
I remember the EWA F28's on the SY-Tassie routes but can't recall if they went thru' ML.
Thread drift
DCA's F28's that did the navaid checks were always impressive with their gear up go-rounds from 50' AGL.
DCA also had a weekly training flight to Tassie from EN on Tuesdays, which was good for a cheap holiday down there.

East-West Airlines goes back to the post World War 2 days using Avro Ansons, Lockheed Hudsons, Douglas DC-3'S before moving into Fokker Friendships, Fokker Fellowships and Abeles Curse the BEA-146 and then Ansett's crosshired B727's.

East-West also operated a Twin Bonanza on behalf of the CSIRO for rain making, a Lockheed Hudson on an aerial mapping contract, expressed an interest in manufacturing the Victa aircraft, a DC-3 for survey work and supplied pilots for the NSW Air Ambulance contract up until Ansett purchased them in 1987.

In 1987 East-West serviced the following ports Port Headland, Karrathe, Perth, Ayers Rock, Cairns, Sunshine Coast, Brisbane, Gold Coast, Inverell,
Kempsey, Glennn Innes, Tamworth, Armidale, Grafton, Norfolk Island, Port Macquarie, Taree, Sydney, Canberra, Albury, Melbourne, Wynyard, Devonport and Hobart.

Alomg the line they also started East Coast Commuters with some Piper Chieftains and Titans which then became Eastern Airlines, which is now Qantaslink.

EastWestLoco will correct me if I am wrong but the F-28 used to leave Hobart in the morning go via DPO to Syd then Gold Coast - Brisbane -Cairns and another one would do the reverse run.

Thanks Mr Abeles!

Also owned Skywest at one stage in the 1980's.

Wanted to buy B737-200 QC, but Mr Abeles the PM at that stage disallowed that silly idea.

Used to run flight Sydney-Hobart in the F27's in the 1970's bypassing the cosy two airline duopoly.

The Masling Queen Air's
 

Numbersup:

The Masling Queen Air's were an A65 model VH-MWH and A70 model VH-MWI and MWJ, from memory.

Tmb

The other twinny (JH )retired now? And what of Dave "Sambo" Bastic? (sp)

The first East West F-28s arrived in 1983 when Bryan Grey was there. They had been ordered earlier, but postponed. They were used between Sydney and Albury, and then you could get into an East West F27 and fly Albury-Melbourne, giving you a special offer fare of $120 return between Sydney and Melbourne. This was revolutionary for 1983. The F28s were used to Maroochydore, Gold Coast, Devonport, Hobart and Alice Springs/Ayers Rock. It was at the end of 1983 that Bryan Grey sold East West to the Skywest Group. There was a cheap fare between Perth and Sydney via Ayers Rock, when the F28 was ferried back for checks at Tamworth.

The Ansett competition for the Sydney Albury Melbourne service was an AirNSW F27 service. AirNSW did not have the right to fly Sydney to Albury, so their plane landed at ABX, went to the end of the runway and took off again, without dropping or picking up passengers.

They also placed orders for 2 or 3 F100's:ok:, however when Ansett took control they F100's were sold in Canada and Eastwest ended up with the 146:{

First ever flight in an aircraft was on their F27 going from Port Macquarie to Sydney.

Masling Queen Airs and EW Fockers now that takes me back. I used to catch the Masling flights from Cootamundra (Jack Maslings home town) to Sydney back in the 70's. In those days the run was from Coota to Young then Sydney and was often the case passengers getting on at Young had to be limited due to weight,especially if someone was connecting with a international flight and had 30odd KG's of bags. The poor soul/s that had to miss out then was hurriedly driven to Cowra to catch the East West friendship to Sydney. Those were the days, but we all somehow coped with it without any turmoil.

'Sammy' Bastic was at RFDS Cairns a few years ago, but I believe may now be retired?

Flew Masling's Queen Airs, including VH-CLH (Straight tail) before joining East -West in the air ambulance, which in it those days was possibly one of the best run G.A. operations in Australia. After 3 years of that and a 20db hearing loss jumped to the right seat of an F27, this produced a further 10 db hearing loss over 3 years before the pleasure of R.H.S. on the F28, now that was a fun machine with a great network, East-Coast pilots did SYD-DPO-HBA, SYD-OOL-BNE-CNS,SYD-ROK-MKY,SYD-YLA-SYD, SYD-TMW-BNE etc. nothing better than a CNS overnight, generally with cabin crew who were party animals(Debbie, Margie & Nora) followed the next day with a leisurely early afternoon departure CNS-BNE-OOL-SYD-DPO-HBA for a night in The Wrest Point Casino! Ah, flying used to be such fun.......

Buster hope you are joking!!! Abeles destroyed a great airline.

Who can forget the "champagne flight" Sydney to Coolangatta via Newcastle. Free bubbly and became more well known as the "vomit comet".

They also flew Orange, Bathurst because one microburst put one onto the paddock there. Everyone walked away.