Polar routes

[denverpilot]

Interesting video. I never realized how many airlines used to fly through Anchorage.

 

[GRG55]

My first time ever on an airplane was a DC-8 from the west coast to Hong-Kong in November 1964. Landed Anchorage and then Tokyo to refuel, and in those days it was mandatory to deplane for refuelling. No bridges back then, roll up stairs and a long walk across the tarmac to the terminal. I remember looking at all the piles of rubble everywhere as they were still recovering from the massive earthquake earlier in the year.

 

[mscard88]

I remember when I was around 8-9 and my Dad being assigned to the Philippines. We left either SFO or Travis AFB on a Northwest Boeing 337 StratoCruiser and stopped in either ANC or Elmendorf AFB. Like @GRG55 i still remember deplaning and the walk across the ramp.

 

[GRG55]

Years later (1976) when I was an engineering student, our ASME club arranged a tour of one of the maintenance hangars of that same airline. It was a 747 hangar. But there was one of those -8s tucked in the corner behind and sort of underneath the 747. Looked like a toy plane in comparison.

I think by that point the Boeings were flying to Tokyo and Hong Kong non-stop.

 

[iamtheari]

I knew that NWA had built a route network utilizing Minneapolis and Anchorage on the short route to Tokyo. I did not know that European airlines had done the same thing with Anchorage. Very cool history. It makes me even more sad that I haven’t made the trip North to Alaska yet.