In another life (the early 80's) I was able to get inside Vh-CZA ( I think it was that rego) & was amazed at how 'modern' the flight deck looked, weird now I guess.
Now this could be totally wrong & probably is but I recall taking a photo of what i thought was a flight engineers station? Did these early B737's have such? I know the B737 was modeled on the B727 cockpit so it's possible. I also know the B767's did & we ( as in Ansett) where the only ones to have them ( I think) but just wanted clarification on the B737 from the boffins in here:}
I can recall also the first Airbus A300 Vh -TAA that did a low level fly by down rwy 27 at Tulla ( I think)....sad really, sad I'm that old!:sad:

Ah the good 'ole days where security was leaving yr push bike with the man on the gate to go wondering around the light planes, well 'twas so at EN anyway:ok:


Wmk2

"Sir" has been bought more often than earned - use it accordingly:mad:

VH-CZA was a great aircraft, as a DC9. :ok:

Later was a B737-300, but from memory the B737-200s were from VH-CZM upwards.

Definitely NO F/Es station on the 737s, I flew on them a lot including one trip to Vanuatu from Brisbane in the jump seat.

I was at Boeing when the Ansett 767s were being built, other Airlines had ordered the F/Es station but cancelled, the Ansett 767s were built with it then went straight back into the factory and were altered to convertible between 2 and 3 man Crew.

IF you mean me? I could NOT stand the man, however it is a fact he was knighted, so it is common courtesy (something often lacking on PPRuNe) to use it. :ok:

Okay tnxs 'AS' . Was a while ago & come to think of it now you mentioned it VH-CZM was the rego of the B737.
Perhaps it was the A300 F/E station that I recall, back in those early days I used to sneak up into the cockpit of many a plane just to sit & drool:-) Now I see the A/C refuelers (what I once did) making more money than most pilots at the intermediate level, oh how the remuneration of flying has changed.


Wmk2

NO worries. :ok:

It was indeed a long time ago, from memory the DC9s were still in service (some anyway) when the 737-200 was introduced, thus they were registered from VH-CZM and up, but the 737-300s were VH-CZA and upwards again as obviously the DC9 were retired by then. :ok:

Question three….
Many of us were dragged off the Nine onto Fat Albert kicking and screaming. I certainly did.
The nine was a sexy lady while Fat Albert was like one of those dopey, sleepy, slobby youths you see sloping about with half an acre of underpants showing above his beltline and only able to communicate in grunts.
The Nine was a revelation when she arrived on the scene, specially for blokes flogging around in the Viscount.
The Viscount cockpit was a chaotic collection of instruments, knobs, brackets and controls bunged where there was enough room to fit and surrounded by unlined airframe skin.
The Nine’s cockpit was reportedly designed by pilots and the engineering notes were a thing of beauty with easily understood, photographic renditions of the systems and control panels.
You strapped a Nine onto your backside. She was like a beauty queen and an athlete.
A pretty thing on the ground and in the air and… could she go!
Slats with a very high extension speed and flapless at a beaut slow speed meant we could scream away clean in the climb and leave the 72 for dead as well as whacking out the slats and speed brake at high speed, pulling up on a zack. (That was the slang for a sixpence … five cent piece for you post decimalisation)
The 72 caught us up because of her M.84 cruise compared to our M.76 but we always could kill ‘em in the first and last twenty miles.
By the time ‘the fatman’ decided we were ‘going Boeing’ the Nine was a mature lady.
Still sexy, beautiful, unabashed, and receiving our great respect and admiration.
Her instruments were all steam driven and that magnificent annunciator panel was a mess of lights compared with the sensible Boeing philosophy of having the warning light near the switch or control, but the 737-200s had steam driven instruments as well.
Yes the Ansett Nines were CZA to L and the 737s started at CZM to Z.
Once the 300s arrived they started at CZA again.
Some time towards the ‘Going Boeing’, Omega was fitted to the Nines to aid us with not requiring a Navigator on the Vanuatu flights.
We were given a short school in the Omega and set loose.
My captain and I did a Brisbane Sydney leg for it’s first use the next day and brought our notes with us as we were pretty full of trepidation because our next leg was Sydney Vanuatu.
Of course Murphy’s law got us on the first leg out of Sydney, when the kindly controllers gave us a short cut out to 150 miles and the dreaded fence popped up on the screen.
You couldn’t get past that line till you did something to get rid of it. Mad reading of notes and button punching did nothing it stayed there not even blinking.
Once we got to 150 miles we were beggared as we couldn’t think how to get to the next waypoint so would have to go DR.
We had an Omega each and at about 130 DME by different methods the fence disappeared an we could track on the Omega again.
The fence was one of those Boogeymen everyone feared for no other reason than our peers said it was scary.
Can’t remember now how we got past it but it was easy.
We flew air Van flights each week end and CZF was painted in Air Vanuatu colours to jolly up the Island government.
That used to cause a fair bit of concern amongst the Aussie Passengers with Ansett tickets when we were operating her on the Ansett flights during the week.
One racially discriminating bloke busted into the cockpit at Canberra on entering the aircraft and asked us if we were Aussies. Many boarders dropped their bags as they wandered over the tarmac to get the camera out and get a couple of photos from different angles.
No red carpets and fences to keep them under control then while boarding.
From memory the term ‘Diesel nine’ came from the TAA blokes after Ansett were all Boeing apart from ‘the Mouse’.
Question 4... The transition?
The Ansett blokes mostly went to New Zealand to do the Simulator and wow! What a great old time that was.
Many of us moaned that it wasn’t like a nine and remembered things about her that probably weren’t as true as we said.
Never really liked the 73, or the Mouse.
Me I loved the DC-3 and DC-9.

Some people say I’m mad.

Quote:
Ansett ordered The 737-200 as part of a bulk order of aircraft in the early eighties, they were intended to be a temporary type until the 737-300 became available, the first 767's were ordered at that time as well as the last of the 727's (200LR)
Yes it was a big deal at the time, very well publicised both here and in the US.




The 732's were end of the line birds so rumour is they were cheap. Around this time TAA was getting the A300 so a lot of Ansett merketing was about WE'RE GOING BOEING................. or YOU CAN JUST GET ON A BUS

and what was "the Mouse"?

The Mouse was the Fokker Friendship

Sixties, loved the Air Van-9-Omega story. Air Pacific would have been using BAC 111 with just a Doppler Driftmeter in those areas then. Only ever used the cheap Collins LRN-70 myself west of Vanuatu. Used dual installation of something I forget now, Honeywell probably, east of there.

Yes I know this topic is about 737s, but my all time favourites are the DC9 and the F27. :ok:

Long time ago now
Didn't like the 737 much, busy bugger of a thing.
What was there to like about the the F27?

The only good thing about The F27 was the cabin door to get out of the thing, suffered 1,800 hours in that noisy beast!! Probably accounts for a lot of my high frequency hearing loss now!

I started with Ansett on the 146, then transitioned to the 737-300 until the end. Never liked the 737.
Still stuck on it. :(

Before Ansett got their first 737's they were trained by Air Nauru pilots on Central Pacific runs. I think there was a requirement to have at least 50 hours on type and so the Ansett pilots flew left seat ICUS.

Drags out musty smelling old log book and notes I did the 737 ground course at NAC Christchurch in July 1977 including simulator. And on 1st August 1977 I underwent my first dual on the real aircraft B737 ZP-NAJ at Christchurch. It was a NAC aircraft. Three more dual flights followed all under a Captain Hutchinson I recall. I could have sworn that was a 737-100. I clearly recall the reverse thrust levers were so badly maintained that it took a super human pull to get the levers to move. The Air Nauru 737-200's which I then flew were well maintained and a pleasure to fly. But that old NAC 737 was a bit of a bomb..

Didn Virgin operate a Ansett 737 after the collapse?

Nice post sixtiesrelic.

You must have a few more stories to share with the Pprune comminity.

Dog one - yup they did VH-CZQ one of the AWAS ex British Midlands machines

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A380 - yup they had a white 300QC - VH-NJE

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