DC-8 over London
 

Were my eyes playing tricks with me today (9th feb) ? Around 13.00hrs i looked up and thought that i saw a white DC-8 with grey/silver undersides descending in a south-easterly direction towards Manston or Ostend (assuming that it wouldn't be allowed land anywhere else).

The engines seemed to be too long for it to have been an A340 and it was too thin to have been a B747. Perhaps one of the rare African species that still ply their trade ?

Put me out of my misery please :)


SHJ

DC-8 Over London
 

Suspect may well have been either 9G-AXA or 9G-AXB of Air Charter Express out of Lyneham about that time as I was having lunch.

These aircraft appear almost daily (it seems) and have the original cigar shape engines fit...

Really good to see them compared to the very regular, but colourful, Turkish A-300's

Hope this helps

ENJOY for just a little longer. Ahhhhhhhhh the nostalgia................. (giving away my age!) :p

BEST
Rod.

That would fit very nicely into the flightpath that i observed. It wasn't very high, wasn't in any normal approach path to LHR,LGW,LTN,STN,LCY and i thought that perhaps it was coming out of Lynham/Brize/Lasham and seemed to be heading toward Manston or Ostend, to perhaps change crews. However as these planes are as rare as hens teeth (except for your daily dose :) ) i didn't really accept that which my eyes were seeing :)

It's a shame that they will be gone soon, but nostalgia isn't always profitable and when niche cargo flights can't survive with them then it's "good night and thanks for coming!"

My last flight in one was with Icelandair from JFK to Reykyavik in winter and it needed all the runway length to get up, causing a few sweaty palms in my seat row. I also remember that the carts/trolleys were all from different airlines (SAS, JAL, PAL,KLM,DELTA etc ) so even then they were using every trick to keep the old girls in the air. :sad:

Thanks for the reply, PPRune power!


SHJ

My last DC8 flight was back in the mid-80s from Atlanta to Miami. Took about an hour and they served a full steak dinner.

I recall the TCA DC8 going off the end of 28R at Heathrow... and a Seaboard one which landed in the middle of the night with half a main bogie damaged.

Oh yes... the DHL one in the Heathrow 50th anniversary fly-past.

Those were the days..

There are basically 2 main DC-8 operators flying out of the UK most weeks.

AIN do the occasional military charter, and use MSE more often than not.

But if it was a DC-8 you saw, chances are that it was 9G-AXA/B that are chartered for the UK Military and do almost daily runs out of Lyneham via Ostend to Iraq or other hotspots.

Other occasional DC-8 visitors to the UK are N-reg machines on equine or miltary charters and often just passing through. Most use "Northern" or Irish airports, so you are unlikely to see these in the South.

There are also a couple of VIP pax DC-8s knocking around - one VP-reg machine being a visitor to Lasham every now and again, so don't count those out.

Thanks for all replies!

Having checked the photos of the Air Charter Express planes, i would say that it was undoubtedly one of these, as it flew almost directly above (slightly to the side) of my home where i was sitting happily on the sofa in the conservatory and i looked up and voila :ooh:

I think that it was the sight of the 'old school' engine form that threw me and it was just luck that the sky was blue and i was there to see it. The last time i saw one of these types regularly was in CDG, belonging to the French AirForce. Imagine sitting next to the engines all the way to the middle of the Pacific! Was that the longest regular flight by a DC-8 ? Anyone know ?

Regards


SHJ

9G-AXB was picked up by my SBS-1 at the time you mentioned. It was flying at FL190.

SFS

Still talking down DC8s regularly here at Base. Three regular airframes.

Wow!
 

Last and only time I flew on a DC8 was with United from JFK to LAX, 1968 when I was 7 yrs old!!
Wonderful flight, had the pleasure of 3 flight deck visits one of which lasted more than an hour, guess that's when the bug bit!!
From memory, it was a lovely aircraft, roomy and quiet. In comparison the Pan Am flt to Prestwick on the 707 was horrible from start to finish, the Douglas product had that little bit of "polish" that seemed to make the difference.
Neither, however, was a patch on the BOAC "super" from bumpy Prestwick to JFK, the push in the back unforgetable' but that's another tale!!

rgds

Glad Rag.

Had a few interesting DC-8 rides.
First Atlantic crossing PIK/SNN/YUL in 1962,TCA in first class.
JAL ORY/LHR 1969.The stewardesses in kimonos served a full meal in 45 minutes.
Eastern JFK/MIA 1972.Should have been a Tristar.

The only times I flew in a DC8 were PIK-YHZ and YHZ-PIK over Xmas / New Year 1981/82. I remember the take off from YHZ on a cold winter's night as being rather scary. I had an aisle seat and after what seemed like a very long ground roll I felt the a/c sink. How can it sink when we're still on the ground I thought. There had been no appreciable change of noise level and no appreciable change of attitude but we were apparently airborne. The take-off performance of that fully loaded DC8-61 (or maybe a -63?) was less than impressive.

Back in 1977 I flew LHR to AMS and back on KLM DC8s. As I have always found with KLM, the pilots still thought they were in the airforce and gave us some great tight turns after shooting up very fast on takeoff. Landings were fun, they just seemed to dive from a great height to the perimeter, flatten out and gently touch down.
The last DC8 I flew on was the last UAL LAX-EWR service using one of these great birds, in the summer of 1989 I think it was. Such a lot of room in it in Y. The captain was keen to chat a great deal thru-out the flight telling us it was the last time he was to fly the aircraft since it was off to a cargo line. We then had nearly an hours delay before landing at Newark due to a storm, so I really got my moneys worth that day. It was a lovely aircraft to fly on I must say.
A guy I know in Tennessee has one of the very early production DC8's, no 3 I think, which he lives in!

Well, there's obviously a few fans of the Douglas product out there! I would imagine that the longer versions of the '8' were getting to the limits of the powerplants available and therefore longer take-off rolls were experienced. They did look incredibly long, like a sausage dog with wings :}

Speaking of length, i remember being aware in the cruise of a pronounced gentle roll and pitch (oscillation) in clearl air conditions. Might this have been a characteristic of the long frame gently flexing ? Perhaps someone in the know would care to comment.

Did anyone come up with a longer regular route for the DC-8 than those of the French Air Force ??? CDG to NOU was around 16,500kms with stops in LAX and/or PPT. I thought perhaps an old JAL route, but have no info to corroborate.


Regards


SHJ

Dutch roll is it not? I'm afraid I'm not sufficiently knowledgeable to explain why this occurs, so I won't attempt to - I'm sure another poster can elaborate. Seem to recall it was also a 'feature' of the 707.

UT1564 used to fly Paris (LBG) to Los Angeles the long way round, with an eastern routing via Singapore/Noumea. Not that commercial traffic would have flown the whole route, but the aeroplane did.

probably African International, cargo airline that uses Manston frequently
one is usually parked up at MSE each week if you want to go see.
also parked up and in a poor state of repair is another '8' by the fire station in MK livery, this apparently was the first DC8 owned by KLM, who have been trying to rescue it for some years to put in their museum

Pan Am in the early 1960s had equally-sized fleets of DC8s and 707s, until they sold off the DC8s in the late 1960s and replaced them with more 707s. Unfortunately all their timetables of the period just state 707/DC8 for everything so not apparent which type was used for their longstanding PA1/2 round-the-world flights. Due to the need to slip crews along the way they presumably kept to one type. Certainly through London in the 1960s they seem to have used half-and-half of each type.

This is the only real chance of catching up with the UTA route Paris-Singapore-Noumea-LAX, which was 3/4 way round the world (the remainder was covered by Air France).

Regading Japan Air Lines, they served London at the time the classic way through Asia, and also over the pole through Anchorage. But the schedules show the aircraft always returned from Europe the same way that they came. There was a JAL route from Tokyo to Rio de Janeiro through Los Angeles which was notably longer but only 12,000 miles, nothing like the UTA oeration.

Incidentally the UTA aircraft were based in Paris, of course, but often operated the "long way" out to Tahiti, then did a couple of round trips to LAX, Sydney, etc before returning home, often being away from base for nearly a week. It must have been a real scheduling nuisance to handle the tourist traffic to Tahiti from the US and Australia this way.

Ostend 09th Feb
 

I was walking along the promenade at Ostend that afternoon and spotted an unmarked DC8 around 1-2 miles off the coast flying east along the channel. I'm sure it was a bit later than that, around 1530. Any takers?

I watched for a good 5 minutes until it turned and blended with distant clouds. Spotted it again on final decent. Wish I had been nearer to the airport.

Then again, I passed the airport the following morning and there were 2 (Very sad looking) "Dirty" White DC8'S parked up near the Static 727..

Could have been one of those I guess? I say I guess due to them looking less than airworthy, but I'm no expert in that regard so maybe the dirt and old age warrants basic opinion?

Did not catch the Reg'os.

Punch:ouch:

There are only pretty much 2 x DC-8s doing regular flights in the EU at the moment.

African International pick up various business, including flights from Germany, France, Ireland and the UK. I would guess that they move some military cargo towards the middle east, along with oil parts through Libya, horses through Ireland and maybe general cargo from France down to various African nations.

Air Charter Express (2 x 9G-aircraft) seem to have picked up a contract or regular flights from UK military bases through Ostend and on to a couple of areas of "heat" in the middle east or one of the "Stans".

There are also the regular TC-registered A300s flying from the UK through Turkey and onto these "hot" areas. - Though I don't know if these run instead of or alongside the DC-8s.

The frequency of the 9G-reg aircraft flying from the UK means that these are probably the aircraft spotted. White fuselage with written titles and a slightly darker belly.

Thanks for the replies! I had forgotten all about UTA........serving the colonies for mother France! It just goes to show that my memory is fading as i've travelled on this extinct carrier enough times in the past. I hadn't reckoned on their round the world routing like Pan Am. Imagine the MX issues at some of the remote out-stations in the pacific (or Africa for that matter) if these fine old aircraft were utilised in such a continuous manner :eek: Either the DC-8's and their powerplants were very reliable or UTA had a laconic attitude to take it all as it came, c'est la vie.

At least the French Air Force drivers had an opening in the civvi-world to continue plying their trade after de-mobbing :)

Will these 2 9G- aircraft still operate outside the EU after 2008, or is it curtains for them ? Lets hope that it's the former.

Regards


SHJ