Aviation Nostalgia Forum | the good old days

i was a semi pro plane spotter (ok a very bad amateur) during the 60s i do think that there was more interesting types of planes than we seem to have now. In those days we had aircraft like the tupolev TU124/114/134. the old days of the soviet union. trident !/2/3 VC10 boeing B707/727/720 coronado CV880/990 and still saw such things as DC6 and DC7 on inclusive tour flights. Now just seems to be The airbus and Boeing 767/777/787. which to me lack any soul. haveing been a trainspotter before. i stopped train spotting when steam was taken off the rails by BR
Think my favourite airport abroad was the one in majorca i spent two great weeks there. during the week there was a lot of military flights mainly spanish airforce and USN. also there was huge amount of internal spanish flights from Aviaco and iberia. Some of the super or standard DC8 s from iberia ,which never came to the uk. then on firday to sunday. there was a huge amount of IT flights from germany scandinavia and uk. that year was 1968.
In the uk i toured to many us military airfields from 62/68 and civil aerodromes. Biggin hill being my favourite aerodrome. During the summer i would spend all my sats/sundays school hols at gatwick/southend. and the winter at heathrow. I just got bored and old for plane spotting by 1969 and found other hobbies. motorcycle raceing and later marriage to my ex.
During the late eighties i became a union rep and health and safety rep for my union/job and ended up twice a month flying from heathrow and stansted to scotland. to say it was an anticlimax to fly out of heathrow was a understatement. But i always thinking of the good old days !

Seventies were when I really started going at it with a vengeance. For some reason (must have been the water) at my school in Wythenshawe plane spotting was considered a cool hobby.

Some of the stuff was amazing at Manchester, Nor-Fly Convair 440s and LOT Il-18s coming in on charters as well as Air Malta B720 and Aviogenex TU-134 flights. I remember seeing Pacific Western B707F freighters at the old cargo centre where T3 is now and plenty of CP Air metal on the other side. Seems like today everything has just lost that bit of variety and colour.

An A380 is nice but I'd trade ten diverted SQ and QF ones for just one more visit by an airworthy BAC 1-11. You miss them when they are gone....

Nostalgia lane again.We all(especially those like me of a certain age) remember when we first started spotting,& the types which were around then which no longer grace our airports.However,time stands still for no-one,so we have to get used to B767/777/787 Airbus 330/340/380 et al.Don't get me wrong,i'm still fond of things like B707/720's but time moves on.RB.

The oldest plane i had the pleasure to travel on was a RAM 727 even the crew were so laid back that they spent most of the flight sat at the back of the plane smoking and chatting lol, great flight.

I'm too young too have flown in any older aircraft like that but I would have loved to fly in a RAM 727 was it a good journey Pete, and where did you depart/arrive?

Thanks
DD

Don't recollect the Pacific Western 707Fs but what remains in my mind is the sight and sound of Kar-Air's DC6 swingtail clattering over Parrs Wood on departure from MAN from 1979 to 1981. Plus seeing HS748s in and around Dan-air Engineering (saw a few Bouraq Indonesia examples being worked on!).

The other thing that's very noticeable now is that airlines are now more prepared to hold for long periods in times of dodgy weather due to improvements in aircraft capability in reduced visibility - gone are the times when all ATC had to say "mist at LHR/LGW, what are your intentions?" and aircraft would divert.

British Eagle Britannia to Hanover From Heathrow G-AOVK to Hannover 1966 12 pounds 50
Nice to see Pan Am DC-6's at Hannover

Cheers
JDSD

Hello Deckzo, the flight was from Manchester to Agadir think thats how its spelt lol. About 1984

I started spotting in mid 80s. There were some great suff still knocking about. The 757/767 were quite new only EIS just 4 years before.
I remember MAN was full of

1-11s
727s
A300s
DC-10s
L1011s
747-100s
737-200s
i also remember the odd 707,DC-8 and Il-62 dropping in.

Nothing wrong with a bit of nostalgia. The smartest looking jets of the 70s for me were the Aviogenex TU-134s that came in regularly, as well as JAT with the classic livery on a variety of planes.

I missed the Vanguard era on domestic flights, but do recall tridents being a bit thin on the ground. Shuttles always seemed to be done on the 1-11 fleet based at Manchester. The smaller Tridents were also better performers than the gutless Trident 3 fleet.

Saturday nights always seemed to draw the exotic stuff, but after dark and when the piers were closed. Mornings saw all the Canada and USA flights, including CP Air with the DC8-63 which was beautiful.

Thanks pete, got to ask where is Agadir? haha

Morocco.

Started in 1977, remember the Kar-Air DC-6 and the Aviogenex TU-134's. We got a decent selection of Russian stuff back then and into the 80's, LOT 134's, Balkan 154's, Tarom 154's and IL-62's, but the foreign scheduled stuff and widebodies were really thin on the ground in'77.

It took us 2 hours on the buses to get to MAN and the earliest we could get there for was 0900, if we were lucky we would see the SWR DC9, AFR Caravelle and KLM DC9. We would then stay till 1600 for the Lufty B737. Yep that was it, ONE AFR/SWR/DLH/KLM per day!
You got four widebodies a week, one BA B747 on Saturday and three on Sunday's, BA, Wardair and CP Air - for those who have never seen CP Air, take a look on hairnet, the DC-10's were something else!

In 1978 Tridents started to replace the 1-11's on the shuttles, you saw Laker DC-10's once in a while and we even had a TWA B707 service for a few months but for me 1979 was the start of things for MAN, KLM doubled up, we had three of the four Air Malta B720's in at once on a Thursday morning in summer, Wardair DC-10's, TAP B707's and B727's, Trans International DC-10's, Air Europe, and the big one for me, in October Northwest Cargo started a B747F service.

Whilst I miss the schemes and the aircraft types from back then you cannot deny MAN now is a different animal, the amount of movements is in a totally different league and if you like the big stuff well there is no comparison really. You can see more widebodies in one full day at MAN than in a week in the 70's.

we had to use 3 trains and buses. took us long time. does anyone remember the Wardair Canada 741?

CF-FUN and CF-DJC were the Wardairs. They got re-registered to C-FFUN and C-FDJC

Later they got C-GXRA and C-GXRD (742 with GE engines) and C-GXRB and C-GXRC which were DC10s

(this from memory only, corrections welcomed)

all this old planes is too much for my young generation brain full of 747/757 and Airbus etc. haha

DD

Whitehatter,you are correct all round.The only other"ten" that Wardair had was C-GFHX which was ex 9V-SDA.Info from one of the old faithful "bibles" World Airline Fleets 1986/7.RB>

seems to me wardair of cananda is getting a nostalgic lookin ! by the way what airline used gatwick for airfreight in the late mid 60s was it canadian pacific or was it air canada. by the way i am a newbee. okay it shows

Yes,Wardair was one of my favorite small Canadian airlines,Think it wasCP air that flew the freights out of Gitwok,sorry Gatwick,but i'm sure some1 will correct me if i'm wrong.

Pacific Western were the main cargo carrier IIRC. CP Air merged with them later to become Canadian.

They had some 707F freighters and occasionally a Hercules in their colours would come over this far. Freight was still exotic in those days as all sorts of startups would be around with 707s and DC8s that had been displaced from major carriers.

Pacific Western did passenger ops as well but their freighters are the ones I remember most. Air Canada Cargo and CP Air did have DC8 freighters so I'd expect those would have called in at LGW. CP Air especially.

Remember Pacific Western but never saw any, along with Seaboard World who are my most missed never seen airline.

I do remember G-BPAT the Pelican Air Cargo B707 calling in at Manchester.

Keeping on the freight side, also remember Flying Tigers very well though only got to see them at LHR which was great for freight stuff. Have seen Varig Cargo B707's and the Air Afrique B747F in there too.

Great memories.

After reading all these comments on the older planes and airlines i wish that ide started in this hobby much sooner than i did but i realise that iam just on the very edge of it.

I wasfortunate to combine civil with military spotting.Sunday at Mildenhall always produced a Fed Ex DC10,or Emery DC8,Southern Air Tpt C130 amongst others.Clocked lots of BAe146's at Marshalls at Cambridge Airport(Teversham),nearly always stateside bound,but occasionally other exotics.RB.

Marshalls has always been a good place for special aircraft movements, right up to Alitalia having their brand new 777s delivered there from Seattle for some post-delivery rework on crew rest facilities.

Canadian charters used to be brilliant at MAN,LGW and the rest for turning up stuff like stretch DC8s. The old traffic rules were also good to Scottish spotters as transatlantic operations frequently had to go via Prestwick. However it is the daily thunder of four Conways that was the high point of the day with BA's daily MAN-Toronto flight. I would have loved to take that trip, although in those days it was bloody expensive. Adjusting for changes in the value of the pound, today it would probably be something like a couple of grand to buy a seat in Economy as in the 80s it was something like £400 or more return.

Only the charter companies and Wardair/CP did it cheaper and even then it would be pound for pound a lot dearer than today.

Yep everything went up to Prestwick, as a kid we used to live north of MAN so got everything flying over, apart from the heavies the CP DC-8's and BA VC-10's were really memorable. Even the 1-11's on the shuttles to Scotland came over - what a noise! Anyone remember the Ontario Worldair B707's?

One of the holding points was over us too, remember the NW B747F's on hold on occasion as was a BMA B707 once with it's undercarriage down. Took some photo's of it and when I looked close up at the negs with a magnifying glass managed to get the reg!