Boeing 707 at the end of its life

At STN, we sometimes played host to TAAT, DC8s as well, Nile Safaris, DAS, and Okada, also their 747 and Caravelle on separate occasions. The worst airline and crews that I ever had to deal with!

What a lovely set of 707s – thanks for posting them. 🙂

some more 707’s to this party

Pax to:

rgds
EC

LIFE magazine’s Peter Stackpole’s photo essay on Stewardesses also involved a prototype?707
http://images.google.com/hosted/life/l?q=airline+stewardess+essay+source:life&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dairline%2Bstewardess%2Bessay%2Bsource:life%26hl%3Den%26biw%3D1436%26bih%3D713%26tbm%3Disch&imgurl=af618de14deea501
http://images.google.com/hosted/life/l?q=airline+stewardess+essay+source:life&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dairline%2Bstewardess%2Bessay%2Bsource:life%26hl%3Den%26biw%3D1436%26bih%3D713%26tbm%3Disch&imgurl=1c2ad31c95b1dc67
http://images.google.com/hosted/life/f?q=airline+stewardess+essay+source:life&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dairline%2Bstewardess%2Bessay%2Bsource:life%26hl%3Den%26biw%3D1436%26bih%3D713%26tbm%3Disch&imgurl=22502a431567736f

plus a couple of the 367-80 prototype
http://images.google.com/hosted/life/l?q=farbman+707+source:life&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dfarbman%2B707%2Bsource:life%26hl%3Den%26biw%3D1436%26bih%3D713%26tbm%3Disch0,215&imgurl=40356ffea7597084

http://images.google.com/hosted/life/l?imgurl=011e116509c0c08a&q=farbman%20707%20source:life&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dfarbman%2B707%2Bsource:life%26hl%3Den%26biw%3D1436%26bih%3D713%26tbm%3Disch0,215
http://images.google.com/hosted/life/l?imgurl=3272e5b129a4c097&q=boeing%20jet%20flight%20source:life&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dboeing%2Bjet%2Bflight%2Bsource:life%26hl%3Den%26biw%3D1436%26bih%3D713%26tbm%3Disch

Good afternoon,

One addition to the Boeing 707 thread. It is a scan of N402PA, a Boeing 707-321 of American Eagle, a short-lived airline. The aircraft was seen at Frankfurt on May 24th, 1980.

Kind regards,

Peter

This is an attractive livery for this old girl. Thanks for sharing it, Peter. 🙂

I think I took this Aero Caribbean Britannia being serviced in the Monarch Hanger at Luton in 1983. Remember it?

I certainly do, and I can remember being at LTN on a night shift, covering some diverted mail flights from STN, the night that a Cubana example diverted in, en route from Prague to Shannon, then on to Havana. A major engine problem soon sorted out by the very capable guys at Monarch engineering. The Redcoat Brits looked damn fine too, as did their CL44. Alas, we’ll never see their like again.:(

Good afternoon,

One addition to the Boeing 707 thread. It is a scan of N402PA, a Boeing 707-321 of American Eagle, a short-lived airline. The aircraft was seen at Frankfurt on May 24th, 1980.

Kind regards,

Peter

Thanks for those great pics Sarah. Aviation has been, and always will be, a very big part of my life. Working in it was like being paid a good salary to go out to play every day, in fact, I think I would have paid my employer to employ me;) I forgot to mention in my work history in my previous post that I did 9 months for Monarch in ’83, based at LGW, it was great to have been in with the introduction into service of the black and yellow 757s, I think we, along with Air Europe both got our 757s into service before BA, but I could be wrong on that…was a long time ago. I did a year with Aeroflot at LHR in ’93. I often think back to those glorious days on the Queens Building, and I genuinely feel sorry for the younger generation of LHR photographers who were too late to experience that. BTW, I forgot to mention it, that TAP 707 at the top of the page looks great, I can still remember seeing their 727-100s at LHR…….oh here I go again….enough:)

I think I took this Aero Caribbean Britannia being serviced in the Monarch Hanger at Luton in 1983. Remember it?

Thanks for those great pics Sarah. Aviation has been, and always will be, a very big part of my life. Working in it was like being paid a good salary to go out to play every day, in fact, I think I would have paid my employer to employ me;) I forgot to mention in my work history in my previous post that I did 9 months for Monarch in ’83, based at LGW, it was great to have been in with the introduction into service of the black and yellow 757s, I think we, along with Air Europe both got our 757s into service before BA, but I could be wrong on that…was a long time ago. I did a year with Aeroflot at LHR in ’93. I often think back to those glorious days on the Queens Building, and I genuinely feel sorry for the younger generation of LHR photographers who were too late to experience that. BTW, I forgot to mention it, that TAP 707 at the top of the page looks great, I can still remember seeing their 727-100s at LHR…….oh here I go again….enough:)

Thanks, VeeOne…it was a strategic error shooting black&white though 🙂 Did you use transparency or colour neg? A close one with the TWA 747 then …a bit of JT9D throttle and you could have flipped over

I started using Tri-X (black and white) because it was cheap to take lots of pics and develop and print them myself. But then I went to transparencies which were difficult as I had to under expose an aeroplane shot by 1/2 stop because of the white body of the airliner. If I got it wrong the slide film had very limited exposure tolerance and a picture could be too burned out or too dark.

I seem to have lost many of my old photos from my flying days. I was looking for photos I took of a Trident inside and out at BEA Base but no, they’re gone, like my figure!

I like your shot of the BKS Trident after takeoff from 10R with the viewing area on T2 behind it. Oh, think how it would have looked in colour! I notice you also tried colour in some of your photos.

Do you remember a website in the late 1990s called the Airline History Website? Well that was me. I am sure I must have contacted you for permission to use some of your photos on the site. I contacted just about everyone on Airliners Net who posted such photos from the golden era. Pity we cannot post some of these pictures that others have taken back then. There are some truly good photographs of Tridents, Vanguards, etc from the time you were at lhr. I still have some of them from the history website days in a folder.

Miliray 707s – the start and end of the story

The 707 started life as the KC-135 and after airline use has finished it continues its life as re-engined KC tankers. And E3 Sentry AWACS. Good to see the USAF are keeping this lovely shape in our skies (even with the dish on top).

Here’s a photo for you. Taken from a Aztec. We were awaiting at block 79 for 10R departure in really messy weather and very low cloud and rain. A TWA 747-200 squeezed past on the right and its wing passed overhead our twin. An Iceair 727 is rolling. The other side of the runway was VIP and BA cargo. I am sure you know that though. 😉

Thanks, VeeOne…it was a strategic error shooting black&white though 🙂 Did you use transparency or colour neg? A close one with the TWA 747 then …a bit of JT9D throttle and you could have flipped over

Great thread VeeOne, and wonderful pics too. They do bring back so many nice memories of that era thats sadly gone now. God, the times, I as a 14yr old in the early 70’s with pals caught the coach from Southampton to Hatton or the Travellers rest for a days spotting, bus to the Queens building and pure bliss, what great days. As you say each aircraft was so easily recognisable then. and the noise!!! thats probably has something to do with me being a bit mutton jeff now, but would never have missed it for the world.
May I ask what you used to fly?

Keep em coming Sarah

Easty

Wow! You travelled all that way for a day at LAP? That’s dedication. 🙂 I never got beyond General Aviation flying. I agree, our ears are more delicate in childhood and a 707 crossing the hedge 200 feet above would hurt. that pain must have indicated sound well over 120 db, so yes, what with P&W engines and discos ears probably were damaged. When I went for a medical at British Airways they found I had a diminished hearing ability at the high end of the sound spectrum. JT-9 engines for sure (and discos)! 🙂

Well I suspect you had slightly more access than most but I agree that it was a whole lot easier in the 70s and with a bit of local knowledge even photographers who didn’t have an airport job could do OK. I worked behind Field’s hangar in the early 70s so had good access to LHR South

Ah! So you are the Mick who took all those wonderful b&w photos from PanAm Maintenance area! I love these photos of Heathrow at (arguably) its best! That two-tier wooden fence that surrounded the airport boundary was just great! Pity by the mid 1970s security had started its creep over the airport. Big fence then covered big fence to stop car accidents. Then huge blast walls or whatever they are. I wish I had photos of that era but I only have a handful.
I think the end of the great Heathrow days was about the time we lost BEA and BOAC, and the little wooden fence came down. I noticed there is still part of that boundary fence surrounding the ILS localiser array on 9R (within the main fence area). Thanks for posting your excellent ‘LAP’ nostalgia.

Here’s a photo for you. Taken from a Aztec. We were awaiting at block 79 for 10R departure in really messy weather and very low cloud and rain. A TWA 747-200 squeezed past on the right and its wing passed overhead our twin. An Iceair 727 is rolling. The other side of the runway was VIP and BA cargo. I am sure you know that though. 😉

Well I suspect you had slightly more access than most but I agree that it was a whole lot easier in the 70s and with a bit of local knowledge even photographers who didn’t have an airport job could do OK. I worked behind Field’s hangar in the early 70s so had good access to LHR South
http://www.airliners.net/photo/Pan-American-World/Boeing-707-321B/0933825/L/&sid=ce73d95e20e6970d3b5ca73dcb0716af

http://www.airliners.net/search/photo.search?album=5381
The top of the Air India earthmound was a good perch but you were lucky to get half-an-hour before being chased off!
http://www.airliners.net/photo/Air-India/Boeing-747-237B/0775444/L/&sid=aaffd420564f89229b2ab1974cb317ed
http://www.airliners.net/photo/Pan-American-World/Boeing-747-121/1866744/L/&sid=ce73d95e20e6970d3b5ca73dcb0716af

and the perimeter road was minimally fenced and semi-accessible Southside
http://www.airliners.net/photo/Libya—Air/Lockheed-C-130H-Hercules/0731452/L/&sid=3550638990796cef83246ed994fa6727

Well in the 1970s and early 1980s Heathrow wasn’t such a security monster. There were many places to go and photograph around the outside and you could still take photos from the Queen’s Building and the top of the Car Parks. Also you could go into the cargo area, down the end by the BAA admin and see cargo aeroplanes taxying up to take off on 10R. Photographing interesting aeroplanes at LAP was fun back then and I was mostly interested in the airlines’ liveries (although I was a civil pilot myself).

My partner and I went to LAP a while back to try out a camera and I was dismayed to see how few places we could stop and take photos. He liked it because he was new to the airport and its constant activity but I saddened me that what was once a superb place to spend a sunny afternoon with a camera has become more secure than a military airbase.

I wonder if the new batch of airliner photographers at LAP know what they missed?

Sarah

Great thread VeeOne, and wonderful pics too. They do bring back so many nice memories of that era thats sadly gone now. God, the times, I as a 14yr old in the early 70’s with pals caught the coach from Southampton to Hatton or the Travellers rest for a days spotting, bus to the Queens building and pure bliss, what great days. As you say each aircraft was so easily recognisable then. and the noise!!! thats probably has something to do with me being a bit mutton jeff now, but would never have missed it for the world.
May I ask what you used to fly?

Keep em coming Sarah

Easty

So nice to see all those shots from a time when I never even bothered that much in looking toward the sky,”but wish I had” and better still done what you did and taken some lovely shots like these..cheers..JB:) Although I’m no expert on civil airliners I think the comet along with the 707 are such icon’s from there time most of the public know what they are.:)

Hi JB, I agree. I think the 747 and the DC-10 were the last airliners the public could recognise. (Everyone knew the ‘jumbo jet’ and the unfortunate accidents with the DC-10 made that well known).

Frankly I find it hard to tell the difference between the 737 series and the Airbus 318-320 series. Airliners had so much more character back then and you could even recognise them by their noise (I lived near Heathrow as a child). The VC-10 was the noisiest at climbout (until Concorde came along) but the 707 used to hurt my ears when it screamed over low with the engines at flight idle on finals. And the Convair 990 left a long black trail of engine exhaust after it on takeoff.

Well, sort of. I worked at STN for Servisair from 1982 until 1989 and then Gatwick Handling, but I was employed at STN. Initially, I didn’t know why we weren’t called Stansted Handling, turned out that someone local already owned the name. I finished at GH in 2001. At Servisair we used to handle many of the aircraft arriving at STN for maintenance work at what was then ATEL. Most were 707s including th blue tail Biman that I mentioned. Happy (and interesting) days;)

What an interesting life! I only visited Stansted a couple of times and recall 707s and DC8s. I flew in once before it became too expensive to land there, and noticed the THY 707 fleet on the north of the airport.

Here are some memories for you!

British Cargo Airlines DC-8-50F at Stansted 1983

Intercontiniental DC8-50 at Stansted 1983

Southern international Cargo viscount at Stansted 1983

TAAT Trans Arabian Air Transport DC8-50 at Stansted 1980’s

How did you get such good access at Heathrow, Vee-one?

Well in the 1970s and early 1980s Heathrow wasn’t such a security monster. There were many places to go and photograph around the outside and you could still take photos from the Queen’s Building and the top of the Car Parks. Also you could go into the cargo area, down the end by the BAA admin and see cargo aeroplanes taxying up to take off on 10R. Photographing interesting aeroplanes at LAP was fun back then and I was mostly interested in the airlines’ liveries (although I was a civil pilot myself).

My partner and I went to LAP a while back to try out a camera and I was dismayed to see how few places we could stop and take photos. He liked it because he was new to the airport and its constant activity but I saddened me that what was once a superb place to spend a sunny afternoon with a camera has become more secure than a military airbase.

I wonder if the new batch of airliner photographers at LAP know what they missed?

Sarah

How did you get such good access at Heathrow, Vee-one?