Your first ever flight
Discussion
Dr Jekyll said:
Eric Mc said:
If it had two engines at the rear, it could also have been a Fokker F-28 - but that had split air brakes in the tail cone (like a Buccaneer).
Four engines under the wing could also be a Convair 880 or 990. 880s were rare in Europe but 990s were used by Swissair and Spantax. Noisy, smokey things they were too.
There was also the Boeing 720 - which was related to the 707, but had some substantial differences.
Must admit I'd forgotten about the F28, but I always counted a 720 (usually Monarch airlines) as a 707, just as now I don't feel guilty about mistaking an A318 or 319 for a 320. Four engines under the wing could also be a Convair 880 or 990. 880s were rare in Europe but 990s were used by Swissair and Spantax. Noisy, smokey things they were too.
There was also the Boeing 720 - which was related to the 707, but had some substantial differences.
I'm pretty sure I would have identified a Convair 990 from the things sticking out of the trailing edge of the wings, but I never saw one.
Dr Jekyll said:
Must admit I'd forgotten about the F28, but I always counted a 720 (usually Monarch airlines) as a 707, just as now I don't feel guilty about mistaking an A318 or 319 for a 320.
I'm pretty sure I would have identified a Convair 990 from the things sticking out of the trailing edge of the wings, but I never saw one.
Superficially, the 720 did look like a 707 - especially the short fuselage 707-138s used by Qantas. But structurally, it was quite a bit different and it had a very different wing shape to the early 707s. It also had smaller wheels.I'm pretty sure I would have identified a Convair 990 from the things sticking out of the trailing edge of the wings, but I never saw one.
Boeing were originally going to call it the 707-020 but decided it was different enough to warrant its own separate designation.
Last time I was at Palma airport in Majorca, there was an abandoned ex-Spantax 990 sitting rather forlornly.
mikeswagon said:
Those of you quoting the exact model of plane, from a flight when you were very young, did your folks work in the industry? Just curious....
Yes, my dad was an apprentice at Vickers Armstrong at Brooklands during the war. He went on to be an aeronautical engineer. He was interested in cars, boats, railway locomotives and especially aeroplanes. A weekend family excursion was often to stand on the Queens Building at Heathrow to watch the planes coming and going. A neighbour was an Air Traffic Controller at Heathrow and we were invited once to visit him in the Control Tower. Very exciting for little lads.BA 737 from LHR to Gothenburg, probably 1980, but could have been a year either side of.
On the return flight got to go up to cockpit; as I remember seeing London at night clearly very late in the flight; thinking now an odd time to visit flight deck as they must have been rather busy preparing for finals into LHR.
Re earlier poster about knowing different types of aircraft; mine came from living in Windsor, so busy sky with Heathrow traffic, so many different configurations back in the 70s & 80s; nowadays they're all rather homogeneous looking
On the return flight got to go up to cockpit; as I remember seeing London at night clearly very late in the flight; thinking now an odd time to visit flight deck as they must have been rather busy preparing for finals into LHR.
Re earlier poster about knowing different types of aircraft; mine came from living in Windsor, so busy sky with Heathrow traffic, so many different configurations back in the 70s & 80s; nowadays they're all rather homogeneous looking
On a slightly different tack, my first (and thank goodness, last) trip in a Lockheed C130 military aircraft was somewhere in Argentina, in 1978, between time controls in following the Round South America Marathon rally as a press man. The organisers were paying, there were no seats but mattresses on the floor of the freight carrying area- and it was not pressurised ....
Never again !
Never again !
DickyC said:
mikeswagon said:
Those of you quoting the exact model of plane, from a flight when you were very young, did your folks work in the industry? Just curious....
Yes, my dad was an apprentice at Vickers Armstrong at Brooklands during the war. He went on to be an aeronautical engineer. He was interested in cars, boats, railway locomotives and especially aeroplanes. A weekend family excursion was often to stand on the Queens Building at Heathrow to watch the planes coming and going. A neighbour was an Air Traffic Controller at Heathrow and we were invited once to visit him in the Control Tower. Very exciting for little lads.louiechevy said:
First flight was when I was working at Edgely Aircraft in the 80's and was in the prototype E.A 7 Optica, All employees where aloud a flight in it and the chief test pilot who took me up knew I had just joined the companies flying club so I got to fly it for about ten minutes!
You’re in an highly exclusive club as an Optica passenger! I remember when they were being used (trialled) in Northern Ireland, flying over Belfast, very visible but very slowly, silently and innocuously, like an albino Lough Neagh midge louiechevy said:
First flight was when I was working at Edgely Aircraft in the 80's and was in the prototype E.A 7 Optica, All employees where aloud a flight in it and the chief test pilot who took me up knew I had just joined the companies flying club so I got to fly it for about ten minutes!
One of them spun into the New Forest - killing a policeman passenger. I always think that this was the death knell for the aircraft.My first flight was the inaugral Easyjet flight from Luton to Madrid, back in the late 90s/early 00s. Long enough ago that it was a giant phone number on the side of the plane instead of the web address.
It was back in the era that Airline was being filmed on Easyjet and as this was a first flight, not only was there a film crew onboard for the TV program, but Stelios was also onboard. He gave a short speech, and then said he'd buy everyone onboard a drink.
During the flight he walked around the cabin asking people about their trips (to find good stories for the film crew to add into the episode). He wasn't at all interested in my brother and I flying out for our cousin's wedding.
On the plus side though, some of the crew featured in the progam were going on holiday and were sat in the row in front. That made me realise that I could easily continue to ask for more free Stelios drinks and get them so as it not to look bad on camera.
This was also the first (and almost last) flight I ever got any free stuff out of Easyjet.
TL;DR: You can see a young version of me getting drunk for free in the background of an episode of Airline
It was back in the era that Airline was being filmed on Easyjet and as this was a first flight, not only was there a film crew onboard for the TV program, but Stelios was also onboard. He gave a short speech, and then said he'd buy everyone onboard a drink.
During the flight he walked around the cabin asking people about their trips (to find good stories for the film crew to add into the episode). He wasn't at all interested in my brother and I flying out for our cousin's wedding.
On the plus side though, some of the crew featured in the progam were going on holiday and were sat in the row in front. That made me realise that I could easily continue to ask for more free Stelios drinks and get them so as it not to look bad on camera.
This was also the first (and almost last) flight I ever got any free stuff out of Easyjet.
TL;DR: You can see a young version of me getting drunk for free in the background of an episode of Airline
First flight was mid / late 80's worked for an international freight forwarder at Heathrow and was given a freebie from Lufthansa to visit Frankfurt to visit their state of the art Cargo facility.
Flew initially to Dusseldorf, then picked up the high speed rail link to Frankfurt for the tour.
Remember having an hour or lecture in a classroom, which I spent staring out of the window across the airfiield to see the US Military cargo aircraft parked up (C141 Starlifters IIRC).
Flew out on a 727, and back on a 737
Flew initially to Dusseldorf, then picked up the high speed rail link to Frankfurt for the tour.
Remember having an hour or lecture in a classroom, which I spent staring out of the window across the airfiield to see the US Military cargo aircraft parked up (C141 Starlifters IIRC).
Flew out on a 727, and back on a 737
Eric Mc said:
louiechevy said:
First flight was when I was working at Edgely Aircraft in the 80's and was in the prototype E.A 7 Optica, All employees where aloud a flight in it and the chief test pilot who took me up knew I had just joined the companies flying club so I got to fly it for about ten minutes!
One of them spun into the New Forest - killing a policeman passenger. I always think that this was the death knell for the aircraft.Dr Jekyll said:
mikeswagon said:
Those of you quoting the exact model of plane, from a flight when you were very young, did your folks work in the industry? Just curious....
It my case it was simply that I was interested in aircraft. Also back in the 70s aircraft were designed in different configurations to assist plane mad schoolboys who wanted to identify them.The one I flew on had two engines at the back, it didn't have tailplanes half way up the tail like a Caravelle, and it didn't look weirdly skinny like a DC9, so clearly a BAC111.
If it had three engines at the back then it would have been a 727 unless the nosewheel was off centre, in which case Trident, or an Eastern bloc colour scheme, in which case TU154.
Four engines at the back then either a VC10 or IL62, the cockpit area looked different but the colour scheme was sufficient to tell since only the Eastern bloc used the IL62.
Four engines hanging off the wings. then if it was huge with a hump it was a 747, otherwise a 707 or a DC8 if it looked skinny and elongated.
Four engines buried in the wings, Comet.
One engine on each wing, 737. Could have been an obscure French thing of which only 10 were made but you never saw those anyway.
Four engines in pairs at the rear and looked like a paper dart, Concorde unless it was in brief a film clip at an Air Training Corps recognition competition in which case the fact that the pairs of engines were close together showed some of us
it was a TU144.Now that practically everything has one engine on each wing, and even the 737 has engines that only stick out in front of the wing like every other twin instead of in front and behind. It's a lot more tricky.
DickyC said:
Yes, my dad was an apprentice at Vickers Armstrong at Brooklands during the war. He went on to be an aeronautical engineer. He was interested in cars, boats, railway locomotives and especially aeroplanes. A weekend family excursion was often to stand on the Queens Building at Heathrow to watch the planes coming and going. A neighbour was an Air Traffic Controller at Heathrow and we were invited once to visit him in the Control Tower. Very exciting for little lads.
That does sound exciting.... I need to get my 2 to an airshow... easier said than done from NE Scotland.Riley Blue said:
In my case it was having a Dad who, though a civilian, was posted to RAF bases all over the UK and in Germany and the Middle East between the '50s and '70s. By the time I was five I could identify more aircraft than cars.
See my comment above regarding tractors. 
A couple of years in Lincolnshire at RAF Strubby and I soon knew a Field Marshall from a Fordson Major 
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