Go Back  PPRuNe Forums > Misc. Forums > Spectators Balcony (Spotters Corner)
Reload this Page >

What was considered long-haul in the 70s and what now?

Spectators Balcony (Spotters Corner) If you're not a professional pilot but want to discuss issues about the job, this is the best place to loiter. You won't be moved on by 'security' and there'll be plenty of experts to answer any questions.

What was considered long-haul in the 70s and what now?

Old 9th Jun 2019, 20:16
  #61 (permalink)  
 
Join Date: Jan 2008
Location: Reading, UK
Posts: 15,786
Received 196 Likes on 90 Posts
Originally Posted by BKS Air Transport
Having mentioned it, could someone tell me why the 720B was regarded as being sufficiently different from the 707 so as to have its own designation?
Despite the superficial resemblance between the 707-120 and the 707-020, there were sufficient differences between the two to warrant a separate Type Certificate for the latter and a change in designation to the 720 (suggested by launch customer, United).

DaveReidUK is online now  
Old 10th Jun 2019, 21:03
  #62 (permalink)  
 
Join Date: Nov 2005
Location: Potomac Heights
Posts: 470
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
Originally Posted by ProPax
In all fairness, Airbus didn't exist back then. :-)
In addition to Vickers, there was also this company called Douglas. Think DC-8.
SeenItAll is offline  
Old 13th Jun 2019, 20:51
  #63 (permalink)  
 
Join Date: Nov 2009
Location: Innisfil Ontario Canada
Posts: 17
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
Originally Posted by ZFT
It certainly wasn't the SP. (I don't recall them ever on the LHR route.) The time frame for the Upington stop was just before I left SAA so around 1976 - 1978 so IIRC the 74 Classics had been upgraded to Super B by then. (don't think the Upington tech stop lasted too long as I remember sitting on the ground waiting for the temp to drop to get the last drop of fuel in before setting off north).
1978, BA 747-100 - flew LHR to JNB via Nairobi on the way there and Zurich on the way back. First time up to the flight deck in-flight, remember like it was yesterday. Just don't ask me what I had for dinner last night.

ACA856 is offline  
Old 13th Jun 2019, 21:18
  #64 (permalink)  
 
Join Date: Jun 2010
Location: Newcastle
Posts: 1,059
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
On a side note, the lack of a clear definition of the words 'long-haul' and 'short-haul' offers PR men an opportunity to bend the truth. Newcastle Airport continuously big up the Emirates flight to Dubai as their 'first ever scheduled long haul service', when they had scheduled service to Toronto for years in the 1980's and possibly the 1990's.
jensdad is offline  
Old 13th Jun 2019, 22:19
  #65 (permalink)  
 
Join Date: Jan 2008
Location: Reading, UK
Posts: 15,786
Received 196 Likes on 90 Posts
Originally Posted by jensdad
On a side note, the lack of a clear definition of the words 'long-haul' and 'short-haul' offers PR men an opportunity to bend the truth. Newcastle Airport continuously big up the Emirates flight to Dubai as their 'first ever scheduled long haul service', when they had scheduled service to Toronto for years in the 1980's and possibly the 1990's.
NCL-YYZ is only about 100 nm shorter than NCL-DXB, so I doubt that the airport is differentiating on that basis.

Were the Toronto services (presumably Air Transat) in the OAG? Maybe NCL are treating those as charter rather than scheduled?

DaveReidUK is online now  
Old 14th Jun 2019, 02:07
  #66 (permalink)  
 
Join Date: Jun 2010
Location: Newcastle
Posts: 1,059
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
Hi Dave, the Wardair services (and possibly the Air Transat ones, but I wasn't quite as much of a geek by then ) were regarded as scheduled by the airport (they had them in their old printed timetable; charter / IT services weren't listed). It's more to do with the airport management's 'bigging up' Emirates. I'm on the outside looking in but they seem to be like starstruck teenagers where EK are concerned. BA carry twice as many passengers to LHR, but a 777 looks better on the PR shots than an A319. Just a side issue really, probably better suited to the NCL thread
jensdad is offline  
Old 16th Jun 2019, 14:14
  #67 (permalink)  
 
Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: key biscayne
Age: 61
Posts: 112
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
Originally Posted by Harry Wayfarers
Back in the 70's twins couldn't fly over expanses of water or other terrain where they didn't have a suitable alternate airfield to drop in to PDQ.
.

I'm alarmed that this wasn't said in the first reply because it's the correct answer.


IcePaq is offline  
Old 16th Jun 2019, 17:19
  #68 (permalink)  
 
Join Date: Jan 2008
Location: Reading, UK
Posts: 15,786
Received 196 Likes on 90 Posts
Originally Posted by IcePaq
Back in the 70's twins couldn't fly over expanses of water or other terrain where they didn't have a suitable alternate airfield to drop in to PDQ.
I'm alarmed that this wasn't said in the first reply because it's the correct answer.
It may be an answer, but not to the question posed by the OP

What was considered long-haul in the 70s and what now?
Actually, I'm not convinced (ETOPS notwithstanding) that there has been any material change in the generally accepted demarcation between short-haul and long-haul over the years, apart from possibly the addition of the ultra-long-haul category, which didn't really exist in the 70s.
DaveReidUK is online now  
Old 27th Jun 2019, 21:11
  #69 (permalink)  
Thread Starter
 
Join Date: Mar 2019
Location: Zurich
Posts: 1
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
Originally Posted by Mr Mac
Propax
I was a regular on the BCAL Santiago flight coming back and forth to school in the UK when my father worked there. I used to do it 3 times a year for 4 years from the early 1970,s at first with an “ Auntie “ - retired stewardess and then as I got older on my own. Flight of 19 hours I seem to remember as being some what aspirational, as after travelling to London I always seemed to miss the connection and end up being put up in a hotel before onward flight. As for what the airports were like in that period down route I would have to say they were a lot more primitive. Indeed my parents had a photo of me at Palma circa 1963 besides a Nissan hut with a donkey and hitch rail which was the terminal. We flew in an Ambassador on that occasion. All the aforementioned BCAL flights were on 707 and stops were Freetown, Rio, BA, Santiago I think, and from Gatwick. Flights in UK to Scotland were BCAL 1-11.

Regards
Mr Mac
This must've been amazing. When I was a kid (that was after they replaced huts and dokeys with glass and concrete ), I absolutely loved to travel alone. Alas, by that time planes could fly farther and I never got to connect to another flight. Let alone travelling across three continents on the way to school.
ProPax is offline  
Old 27th Jun 2019, 21:15
  #70 (permalink)  
Thread Starter
 
Join Date: Mar 2019
Location: Zurich
Posts: 1
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
Originally Posted by Bergerie1
ProPax,

But Vickers did, and BOAC did not do Vickers any favours over the VC10. That was when the slogan, the Boeing Only Airline Company, was invented. (It may have been Corporation rather than Company - the brain cells fail me!). But I was flying VC10s.
Was it the VC10 that was certified to use reverse thrust in flight and could lose 30,000ft in 3 minutes? I think I remember one of the pilots saying the FE had to be really quick with adjusting the cabin pressure or the pressure valves could pop on descent. True?
ProPax is offline  
Old 27th Jun 2019, 21:19
  #71 (permalink)  
Thread Starter
 
Join Date: Mar 2019
Location: Zurich
Posts: 1
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
Originally Posted by Quietplease
Original routing from Dec 65 was Sydney Nandi Papeete Acapulco Mexico City Bermuda London. Later Auckland replaced Nandi.

How long did that take for passengers? I can't imagine less than one full day.
Originally Posted by Quietplease
Nothing much between the two so hard work for the nav. Extra oxygen fitted to enable cruise at, I seem to remember, 18000ft if there was decompression at ETP.
Oxygen for the crew or for the pax?
ProPax is offline  
Old 28th Jun 2019, 04:54
  #72 (permalink)  
 
Join Date: Jan 2008
Location: Finland
Age: 77
Posts: 465
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
ProPax

Re post #70.

The VC10, certainly in BOAC and probably generally, was not cleared to use reverse in flight.

I think you may be thinking of the Trident.
finncapt is offline  
Old 28th Jun 2019, 09:46
  #73 (permalink)  
 
Join Date: Apr 2009
Location: A place in the sun
Age: 82
Posts: 1,251
Received 44 Likes on 17 Posts
finncapt is right - it was the Trident.
Bergerie1 is offline  
Old 28th Jun 2019, 12:53
  #74 (permalink)  
Thread Starter
 
Join Date: Mar 2019
Location: Zurich
Posts: 1
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
Originally Posted by finncapt
ProPax

Re post #70.

The VC10, certainly in BOAC and probably generally, was not cleared to use reverse in flight.

I think you may be thinking of the Trident.
Originally Posted by Bergerie1
finncapt is right - it was the Trident.
Trident it was then. Thanks.
ProPax is offline  
Old 29th Jun 2019, 14:23
  #75 (permalink)  
 
Join Date: Jul 2009
Location: West Sussex
Age: 86
Posts: 82
Likes: 0
Received 1 Like on 1 Post
Originally Posted by ProPax
How long did that take for passengers? I can't imagine less than one full day.
Oxygen for the crew or for the pax?
Oxygen for everyone. We were expected to deliver them alive.
Quietplease is offline  
Old 29th Jun 2019, 14:31
  #76 (permalink)  
 
Join Date: Jul 2009
Location: West Sussex
Age: 86
Posts: 82
Likes: 0
Received 1 Like on 1 Post
Originally Posted by ProPax
Trident it was then. Thanks.
DC8 used reverse in flight for emergency descent . Very uncomfortable,Felt as if was shaking itself apart. If you were sitting in the flight engineers seat and applying reverse it was difficult not to finish up in a heap on the centre consol.
Quietplease is offline  
Old 30th Jun 2019, 06:34
  #77 (permalink)  
 
Join Date: Oct 2018
Location: Ferrara
Posts: 8,254
Received 329 Likes on 194 Posts
I can remember flights to/from Singapore that stopped everywhere in the 70's - LHR- Geneva- Abu Dhabi - Colombo - SIN or SIN- Delhi - Oman- Athens - LHR were common and when SQ flew to the USA it was often via Guam and Hawaii

I once took a Pan-Am 747SP direct SF-HK - I think it 16 hours but everyone was comatose - the takeoff at SF seemed to last several days it was so heavy..................
Asturias56 is offline  
Old 9th Jul 2019, 08:23
  #78 (permalink)  
Thread Starter
 
Join Date: Mar 2019
Location: Zurich
Posts: 1
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
Originally Posted by Quietplease

Oxygen for everyone. We were expected to deliver them alive.
You would need A LOT of oxygen for passengers. As far as I know, the canisters in the ceiling only provide oxygen for a few minutes (some say, twelve). To keep hundreds of people alive for an hour or longer would require a HUGE amount of oxygen, especially considering that most of it would be lost through vents in the fuselage. And oxygen tanks are not only heavy but also prone to explode. How was that done?
ProPax is offline  
Old 9th Jul 2019, 08:28
  #79 (permalink)  
Thread Starter
 
Join Date: Mar 2019
Location: Zurich
Posts: 1
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
I'm endlessly grateful for all responses to my questions and all the interesting stories that I read here!!! I know I didn't thank everyone personally but please know I AM grateful!!!

And another questions if you don't mind.

These days a pilot's experience is measured in flight hours. However, I saw quite a few 30-40's documentaries and news reels, especially from Germany and Soviet Union, where pilots' experience was measured in kilometers flown. Was that ever a thing in other countries? Maybe you happen to know when the transition to flight hours occurred?
ProPax is offline  
Old 30th Jul 2019, 09:37
  #80 (permalink)  
 
Join Date: May 2013
Location: UK
Age: 56
Posts: 85
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
Where would Concorde have fitted in? Not long haul if counting aisles, or seats, or weight, and made long haul duration flights in short haul times......
Interested Passenger is offline  

Thread Tools
Search this Thread

Contact Us - Archive - Advertising - Cookie Policy - Privacy Statement - Terms of Service

Copyright © 2024 MH Sub I, LLC dba Internet Brands. All rights reserved. Use of this site indicates your consent to the Terms of Use.