Mystery 737 at BCAL maintenance base…

It was most likely a newly acquired second-hand 737 for Airways International Cymru, based at Cardiff. The tail number is seen in this ‘ahead-of-the-stabilator’ location in the BCAL photo and the Cymru photo.

Also the 737 at the BCAL base has the same red cheatline at the top of the main cheat and both Cymru and Airtours liveries have this red line on top of the dark blue cheat.

My guess is that Cymru replaced their BAC One-Elevens with old British Airtours 737s (after Airtours ceased ops) and Cymru kept the basic BA livery but extended the dark blue down the fin and added a second thin red cheat to disguise the original livery. (The Cymru BACs were painted differently.)
Cymru 737 ‘zu’ at Gatwick in 1985

So I think it is a British Airtours jet being painted?

Longshot, here is a ‘sunny day’ Iberia 747 landing at Gatwick. I rather liked the livery of Iberia on the jumbo jet.

I don’t see why females should pay the same as young males. Young males have twice the accidents that anyone else has. Often in single car crashes.

I think males should be banned from driving until they are a lot older than the current minumum age for drivers, say 21 or more. Younger than this age and males can be killers in cars. In my area we have had a number of deaths caused by young males driving beyond their abilities and killing families in on-coming cars after a stupid-ass overtake, or simply killing all their passenger teens after driving into a big tree when they couldn’t hold the road in a fast corner maneuver. Not to mention tail-gaiting others dangerously and driving like the immature plonkers that most of them are.

Young drivers should have limitations on their licence, for the first year they should be forced to drive 600cc cars or disallowed to carry passengers. I also think that if they are found to be driving dangerously in the first year they have to resit an extended driving test. And any youth convicted of killing someone with his car should be banned from driving and then fed to allegators, head first. No, feet first, or it would be over too quickly.

Banupa

Love the Fairey Surveys C-47 photo. I have been in the right seat of the far Dak whiskey Charlie at White Waltham.

g-alwc remained in use by Clyde Surveys until the start of the 1980s but g-amca was gone by the late 1970s, replaced by a queen air. There was a third C-47 that Fairey had in the mid to late 1960s which had a long pointed nose cone.

Any other photos from White Waltham on that day?

Sarah

A few DC-6s as promised, 4W-ABP at Shannon, F-BHVA at Dublin, OO-RVG just airborne from Southend, MM61965 at Northolt, MM61923 at Gatwick, TF-ISC at Heathrow and PJ-DPB at Amsterdam. Quality of scans a bit patchy but hope you like them.

The KLM Antillies aircraft has diagonal KLM tail stripes. Was this normal KLM colours or brown and blue stripes? Were any of their DC7c aircraft painted in this way?

I think we will eventually find that all life is more significant as far as self-awareness than our current flat-earth anthropocentric view holds to be the case.
The way we humans treat other life forms is abhorrent to me. You only have to have a cat, dog or horse to know that other life forms can be self-aware. It is only science that demands such a high level of proof before it accepts the obvious.

I imagine that consciousness is the basis of all life everywhere, and not some (as yet unproven) bio-chemical genetic drive to evolve. It is consciousness (which implies self awareness) that causes evolution.

Therefore we should probably treat all life of as value because it exists, and not of value because it is a usable resource for us to consume.

Were we ever to come across a more advanced non-human race of beings we would fervently hope they’d take the same approach to us. 🙂

Stirling operated transatlantic flights with the Caravelle’ quite some time before the arrival of the 727. They also operated the Caravelle to Sri Lanka, and set up a subsidiary in the Phillipines flying Caravelles with the stylised S on the fin replaced by the letter F

Wow! Caravelles across the oggin? That is a feat of faith in two little 1950s jet engines! I flew in a Caravelle once and it was a bit rickitty, the seats would have not looked out of place in an Auster (very similar, in fact, alluminium poles and leather).

Sterling airways photos from 1984 I think

I took this Boeing 727 photo at Stansted Airport

This Boeing 727 was landing at Palma in 1983 – the bright sun and dry air makes for nice photos.

This DC-8 was just touching down at Stansted Airport

This Corvette executive jet at Gatwick was probably a crew training toy but looked pretty in Sterling Livery

Hi Teddymax

Those old photos are wonderful. Such great sharpness for that era. You must have used a decent SLR camera. I am sure the images could be improved to bring back the original depth and colour to them too.

We have been posting old civil airline photos over at the commercial aviation sub-forum (currently in the ‘A couple of old uns’ thread) and we’d love to see more of the same from you there! At least until we get a historic commercial subforum going.

Thank you for taking the time to share so many. Hoping to see more from you.

Sarah

I am enjoying these photographs, guys. But I wonder how long this thread will go on before it reaches some limit in the website?

The other thing that occurred to me was that Longshot’s Gatwick photos would be 100 times more excellent if they were in colour. Especially the CP Air DC8 which would have been so colourful if it were in colour (if you see what I mean?).

I have seen a photo of all of the Wardair fleet at Gatwick at the same time about circa 1969. That’s the 2 707 and single 727 jets all at the same place. I guess they made a business out of those special holiday flights to the UK.

This was taken in July 1972 (28Left).