OK, here's a weird one

I had a dream last night where I was watching traffic at Heathrow airport in what appeared to be the late 1950's. Now I was only born in '57 and have never been to London, so that's weird enough alone. Anyway, 2 Vickers Vikings collided mid-air and brought down what I thought to be a Boeing C-97. I looked it up and that's exactly what it was. (At least I got my plane recognition right on both counts.) Now I don't recall a 3-way crash like that ever happening, but there you go. And I've only ever seen pictures of Vickers Vikings, so why I thought of that aircraft I don't know. The same goes for the C-97, which is of course a Boeing cargo version of the Stratocruiser.

The rest of the dream involved family and friends, none of whom were of the correct age for the period, but then again it was a dream so anything is possible. But one of the characters in the dream is English and could have been either a 10 year old plane spotter or possibly lived near Heathrow at the time. I haven't seen him for 20 years and can't check.

What else could I do, I had to search for this crash. I found the crash stats for Vickers Vikings (24% survival, not bad; 54 hull losses, which sounds a lot). I also found Madden's excellent Air Transport Safety Resources, with 3 mentions of the Viking:

• Cunard-Eagle Viking 3B Aug. 9, 1961 (G-AHPM) Sola, Norway
• Independent Air Travel England Vickers Viking Sept. 2, 1958 (G-AIJE) London, England
• Airnautic Viking Sept. 12, 1963 (F-BJER) near Perignan

Interesting that it was an "Airnautic" Viking as one of the characters in my little dream ran an operation called "Aironautica". Hmmm. Still, no exact matches, and no C-97s nearby at all. But if nothing else it gave me something more to search on. So I did.

• I enjoyed browsing the Aircrew BB rumour and news archives but didn't find what I wanted
• I found the Heathrow runway layout as it was in 1955 and must say I've seen this shot before
  
• I also found out how rich the Heathrow site is in archaeological terms: "An archaeological dig at the site of the new Terminal 5 building at Heathrow Airport in west London has provided a unique insight into 8,000 years of human history, excavation leaders have said. About 80,000 objects have been unearthed at the 250-acre site, including pottery and flint.".

If that wasn't interesting enough, the Longford Residents Association tells the tale of the Vulcan bomber - the very first - coming back from what must have been a simply wonderful trip to Australia, with the Air Vice Marshall so keen to greet the dignitaries awaiting the craft at Heathrow that he had (a) displaced the co-pilot from his seat and (b) over-ruled warnings not to land in a thunderstorm... you can guess what happened (it includes Brussel sprouts, btw) or read it all here: On 1st October 1956, the first Avro Vulcan bomber taken on charge by the RAF, returning from a successful flight to Australia and New Zealand, crashed on approach to Heathrow Airport (then called London Airport).

According to the aforementioned LRA Heathrow's history as an airport is in itself quite alarming: The British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC) was party to the whole plot but complained about the unsuitability of the proposed layout of runways for their civil aviation requirements. To maintain the ruse, a runway was built which was totally unsuitable for civil purposes and which was subsequently abandoned without ever having been used... ...The airport was formally opened on 31st May 1946. According to that reference Stage 1 was a military use, but it didn't happen. And Stage 2 didn't happen either, btw. So the lucky residents got a wonderful set of long concrete strips and massive traffic jams instead.

In short, no luck so far on the search but some interesting research there... well I'm interested, anyway!

Not about airliners, but anyway

But anyway, here it is. The US Defence Dept has bought a planeload of jets from a consortium that includes both US and Euro planemakers. Big deal? Well apparently it's caused a stink: they should've bought the all-American Boeing plane. Yeah, right. As this B-NET blogger points out, Boeing ain't so pure 100% U S of A as you'd imagine, not when it sub-contracts work all over the globe... (mind you, it's still a US corporation, not a consortium). Gets my vote as non-issue of the week.

Marshall Airways Electra at Bankstown, 1976

Airport security at Bankstown airport was even looser than at Sydney. To get this close to a Lockheed Electra (the twin-tailed piston-engined original, not the turbo-prop L188 I just showed you) involves stepping over a similar-to-Sydney low white fence.

Airport security in the 70s... a different world

Here's a nice shot of airport security at Sydney in around 1975. You can see the openly accessible Ansett supply division to the left and all that separates me - a callow youth of 17 armed with a 35mm camera - from that Ansett L188 Electra is an unimposing wooden fence. Indeed that is barely a fence at all, rather it's an indicator of where the airside access road is, so watch out for baggage trucks! If I took off at a run I'd certainly get to the Electra, if not to the old control tower/fire station visible in the shot, before being spotted and rounded up. To the right, out of shot, is the Ansett passenger terminal, long gone now (like the Electra and Ansett itself). When you think about it , there's not much between me and that tower, let alone the taxying 727 in the distance. Of course it's an active airfield with a main runway between me and the 727, so I'd get squished or blow-dried by a passing 747 , but it does illustrate a lovely, relaxed feel about society in the 1970s (and earlier). It's something sorely missing these days.

A380 lands in Sydney, Dreamliner still just words

Journalists have it tough. They must report factually (never easy when truth can be so dull). They must separate fact from opinion (which requires both insight and time-consuming research). They must meet their deadlines (don’t we all?). And they must write appealing prose that targets their readership or audience. In other words they are horribly compromised by eternal conflicts of interest and can never be trusted. If you’ve ever been involved with putting stories together with journalists you’ll know that your words are often accepted holus-bolus (which is great if you want to get your spiel out there) as that’s the easiest (ie laziest) approach for them. However if your story is too insipid, or if they want to prove a point of some kind then don’t expect much of your story to get ‘out there’. Instead it will vary from ‘enhanced’ to ‘total fabrication’. You can’t blame ‘em really. Anyway, today’s brave words are from news.com.au: MORE than 50 of the world’s airlines can’t be wrong in their choice of Boeing’s hi-tech Dreamliner ahead of the A380 “big bird” from Airbus. Wow, that many airlines can’t be wrong, eh? Airlines are never wrong, never make mistakes when choosing one aircraft over another, no. Never. Funny how this gushing story also coincides with the arrival of the first commercial flight of the A380 into Australia. The article continues to enthuse with:The moulded carbon-fibre “plastic fantastic” has yet to fly but is already the most successful new airliner in aviation history. Yes, the fastest selling commercial airliner yet to be seen… and indeed it hasn’t been seen in the air, either. But gee that A380 already has its wings… can’t let Airbus get any leverage out of that, can we? Anyone got the original Boeing press release handy?

East-West Airlines F27 VH-EWJ at Sydney, 1976 (runway 25)

An ANZ DC-10 at Sydney, 1977: ZK-NZG

Some interesting airliner links...

• The World Airline Historical Society... interesting meeting place for airliner anoraks/nerds/enthusiasts
• Craig's Aviation Collectibles... for the "wow" factor, if you collect airliner postcards (as I must admit I once did and probably still do, given the box of cards at my feet)
  
• Apparently Kaysellscards, in packs, too. Playing cards, one imagines... of airliners and trains??
• If you have the time, look behind the Green Door
• And check out Mike Charlton's Airline Postcard site, too
• Visit the Aviation Postcard Club (which looks a bit expensive and uses the dreaded .PDF file (aaaargh! why do people do this, why not use HTML and CSS unless you really, really need to preserve absolute, exact formatting online?)
• And last but not least, don't miss Bill Demarest's wonderful collection.

SydneyAirport, 1975... an Adastra Electra potters past me

Well I like these dusty, moody shots from 1975, anyway...

One more for today... Vickers Viscount at Sydney

More pics... this time it's a Vickers Viscount at Sydney, circa 1975...



As always, more here.

A is still for Air India 707s at Sydney

More AI 707s at Sydney, on runway 34 this time...







More here, too.

A is for Air India 707s at Sydney

And why not? These are shot from the "Adastra Hangar" corner, near runway 07/25...







Plenty more Airliners at Sydney here...

Boeing's blended wing

Flying wings - no bodies, no tailplane, just a wing - are hardly new, but this interesting Boeing/NASA concept blends wing and fuselage with multiple control surfaces - and may actually lead somewhere. Or not, as the case may be ;-)

It's lift-off for Ansett 727 RMV

Ansett 727 Romeo Mike Victor lifts off from rwy 16 at Sydney... circa 1973.

Ansett L188 Electra at Sydney

Well almost at Sydney... lights ablaze, it's Romeo Mike Delta on approach to Sydney's rwy 16, circa 1976. These Lockheed Electras were originally Ansett's mainline pre-jet era fleet, and in effect an insurance policy in case the 727s couldn't cut the mustard. But they did, so the L188s were gradually pushed onto out-of-peak services, and finally onto late night cargo duties. Being turbo-props they evaded Sydney's night jet-curfew.

Military pics too

Yes, we even have a few military aircraft in the gallery, like these... an ex-RAAF Mustang, flame-throwing F111s and some RAN A4 Skyhawks.

Sometimes even Fokkers crash - EWA F27

Yes folks, like the sharemarket, planes can crash. This is what was left of the fuselage of East West F27 VH-PWM after it struck the ground on approach near Bathurst, NSW. (Pic taken at Bankstown airport months later, circa 1977. (Someone look that up please.) Basically it slid wheels-up and flattened the bottom. Not the worst crash but one of the more common. Still it's safer - far safer - than driving on public roads.

Air India Boeings at Sydney

Again - still dealing with the letter A - we have many Air India shots, also at Sydney. Both 707s and 747s, individual and in sequence (as in taxying, more taxying, taking off and disappearing...). Samples include this 747 disappearing behind a house (actually my house at the time!) on approach to Sydney's runway 16 and a 707 taking off in a cloud of smoke from the same runway.

Images from Sydney and Bankstown airports: 1975 and 76

Folks, I have updated the galleries... airliner, military, historical and light/executive. Here's a sample...

From 1975 we have a series of images of an Air New Zealand DC10 taxying at Sydney Airport... and from 1976 a shot of ZK-NZG in the air on approach to Sydney. Both images are shot with a Pentax K2 or KX loaded with Kodak Tri-X, 1/125th sec .

Skycontrol news link

Looks like a useful aviation news aggregator, if you don't already get enough news...

Back to the 70s - a TAA DC9 at Sydney

Here's a shot a TAA DC9 lining up for Runway 25 at Sydney, sometime in 1974...I'm hanging off that rusty fence near the Adastra hangar, or maybe sitting on a shipping container...

Aircraft spotting via Google Earth

Yes, I do it too. There's a DC3 at the southern end of Warnervale strip, Wyong NSW Australia for example. And here's an interesting crash site (no fatalities, if it's the crash people think it was). Personally I just like looking at the airports and their facilities and seeing what's there. And sometimes tilting the view and pretending to land. Hey, some people like Flight Simulator, too ;-)

Things have gone strange

OK, I haven't fixed everything... since moving to the beta Blogger platform the design of the page has gone south with the Google ads and background being first casualties. I'll see what's happed and fix it up. I'm still scanning away and hope to have plenty of new pics from the 70's up in the gallery soon.

Cheers, Rob.

The links are fixed - and more pics uploaded

Yes, I moved things around on the server and we have gone to the beta Blogger platform as well, so some sym links didn't, umm, link. They are fixed.

Check out the new (ie old) black and white aviation pics, growing almost daily.

Here's a sample: The Red Baron and his Fokker TriPlane replica fly again (Schofields Air Show, Sept 1976)...

Airport maps and info on the web

Here's a cool tool. Lots of airport maps (just the US it appears to me, but I could be wrong)with plenty of info and links to other sites. Useful and absorbing if you have some time to surf.