Some old commercial jet aircraft still flying

Buffalo Airways is (was?) flying passenger service with a DC-3. It makes these jets look young by comparison. Granted, it doesn't have the strains of a pressurized aircraft like the jets do.
 
Every time I go to my hangar I drive past relatively new airliners on the scrap line -- A330s, 777s, etc. Just yesterday I watched the scrapper tear into the hulk of an A320, which looked like a rag doll in the teeth of a Doberman.

Here's a video from a couple of years ago, of a 777 getting the treatment. It's in the livery of Orenair, a defunct Russian carrier.

 
Buffalo Air is not flying any scheduled passenger service anymore. TC yanked their license (rightfully so).
 
Cap'n Jack said:
And the de Havilland Comet in 1952...for about a year
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“Commercial jet flight as we know it today” probably excludes the Comet. But I don’t see how it can leave out the 707.
 
I always enjoyed jump seating on the DC-6 cargo flights in Alaska.

Piston, I know, but cool radials....especially when one floods during start up and back fires like a howitzer.!!
 
iamtheari said:
“Commercial jet flight as we know it today” probably excludes the Comet. But I don’t see how it can leave out the 707.
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Why exclude the Comet? Jet-powered, pressurized. After they fixed the problems, the Comet was in commercial service through the 1970's or so.
 
Cap'n Jack said:
Why exclude the Comet? Jet-powered, pressurized. After they fixed the problems, the Comet was in commercial service through the 1970's or so.
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I don’t know what the inside of a Comet was like. So I guess it could have been a similar experience to what we have now. Time to spend the evening looking for Comet videos online.
 
iamtheari said:
“Commercial jet flight as we know it today” probably excludes the Comet. But I don’t see how it can leave out the 707.
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iamtheari said:
I don’t know what the inside of a Comet was like. So I guess it could have been a similar experience to what we have now. Time to spend the evening looking for Comet videos online.
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Cap'n Jack said:
Why exclude the Comet? Jet-powered, pressurized. After they fixed the problems, the Comet was in commercial service through the 1970's or so.
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I don't see how one can leave out the Comet either. As for the inside of a Comet or a 707 (or the DC-8), none is a similar experience to what we have now. They are all tiny and range-bound compared to the cavernous behemoths we use to straddle continents and oceans today.

Stan Cooper said:
Huh? The B-707 entered commercial service on October 26, 1958, and the DC-8 on September 18, 1959. Those are both over sixty years ago.
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My first flight in a jet airplane was 56 years ago this month, in a DC-8 from the west coast to Hong-Kong. Fuel stops in Anchorage and in Tokyo along the way. My kid brother now flies that route non-stop in a 787.
The next year, 1965, I flew across the North Atlantic from London. That DC-8 had to make a stop in Prestwick, Scotland to top up the fuel in order to have the range and reserves to battle the winds to get to Gander.
 
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Groundpounder said:
I guess cargo aircraft aren't "commercial"? Poorly written article.
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He spells out in the article that cargo is of course commercial but that he focused on passenger service.

Poor writing nevertheless.
 
iamtheari said:
I don’t know what the inside of a Comet was like. So I guess it could have been a similar experience to what we have now. Time to spend the evening looking for Comet videos online.
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170px-Museum_of_Flight_DH_Comet_interior.jpg
 
iamtheari said:
I don’t know what the inside of a Comet was like. So I guess it could have been a similar experience to what we have now. Time to spend the evening looking for Comet videos online.
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I took these pictures 9/19 at the restoration center north of Seattle.

20190807_130415.jpg 20190807_130423.jpg 20190807_130649.jpg 20190807_130829.jpg
 
flyingron said:
Buffalo Air is not flying any scheduled passenger service anymore. TC yanked their license (rightfully so).
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So they were as shady as they looked on the TV show? I always wondered why they'd invite cameras in when they were running what appeared to be a bubble gum and duct tape operation.
 
Todd82 said:
So they were as shady as they looked on the TV show? I always wondered why they'd invite cameras in when they were running what appeared to be a bubble gum and duct tape operation.
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Yep, and they've been on and off a few times. This wasn't the first time their certificate was suspended.
 
@GRG55
GRG55 said:
My first flight in a jet airplane was 56 years ago this month, in a DC-8 from the west coast to Hong-Kong. Fuel stops in Anchorage and in Tokyo along the way. My kid brother now flies that route non-stop in a 787.
The next year, 1965, I flew across the North Atlantic from London. That DC-8 had to make a stop in Prestwick, Scotland to top up the fuel in order to have the range and reserves to battle the winds to get to Gander.
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My first jet flight (as a pax) was in 1966. It was a chartered Air France 707, nonstop JFK to London (the plane continued on to Paris Orly). The return was nonstop Paris Orly to JFK.

-Skip
 
Skip Miller said:
@GRG55

My first jet flight (as a pax) was in 1966. It was a chartered Air France 707, nonstop JFK to London (the plane continued on to Paris Orly). The return was nonstop Paris Orly to JFK.

-Skip
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My flight into London in 1965 was on an AF B707. Back then the stewardesses (they weren't yet Flight Attendants) would come around with a tray of hard candies as the plane descended for landing, ostensibly to help passenger's Eustachian tube deal with the cabin pressure change. I still remember AF had the absolute strongest peppermints this kid had ever tasted - almost mouth burning. With all the fuel stops on a longer flight I got to sample lots of them.

Well, if you ever been to Paris and you ever missed a plane
Nothin' much to do but sit around
Drink a little, yawn a couple, laugh at where you come from
Have another glass of Paris Brown...

"Orly", The Guess Who, 1973
 
Stan Cooper said:
Huh? The B-707 entered commercial service on October 26, 1958, and the DC-8 on September 18, 1959. Those are both over sixty years ago.
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I think the article was restricted to specific aircraft that are still flying, not models.

Are there any B-707s still in commercial service?
 
While working on Johnston Atoll in 1967 I became a semi-regular passenger on UAL's "stretch" DC-8-62 flights between Honolulu and Los Angeles. I always booked flights captained by my friend, John "Pete" Billon. Pete made 216 Burma "hump" flights during WW2, and went west in 2001. The DC-8-62 accommodated up to 189 passengers and had a range of 5,200 nm.
 

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PeterNSteinmetz said:
I think the article was restricted to specific aircraft that are still flying, not models.

Are there any B-707s still in commercial service?
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That wasn't clear to me from reading the article, Peter; I must have missed it. I don't believe there are any B-707s still in commercial service, but Iran was using them on domestic scheduled flights as recently as 2013.
 
Cool thread.. however I thought Saha Air in Iran was still flying a B707 around.. maybe they finally retired it?

Stan Cooper said:
I don't believe there are any B-707s still in commercial service, but Iran was using them on domestic scheduled flights as recently as 2013.
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Wow, that long ago.. I thought more recently
 
Tantalum said:
Cool thread.. however I thought Saha Air in Iran was still flying a B707 around.. maybe they finally retired it?


Wow, that long ago.. I thought more recently
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I think Saha crashed it last year.
 
My last B707 story is from circa 1998. I was with the founder and CEO of the company I worked for at the time. We were doing an investor/shareholder tour on the east coast and had our company plane, a Cheyenne IV, parked at Boston Logan overnight. When we arrived late on the Friday afternoon for the flight home we weren't allowed onto the ramp.

Mrs. Clinton was in town giving a speech and the distinctive 707, SAM 27000, was parked in the middle of the guarded ramp, floodlights illuminating the whole airplane. They made everyone trying to get out of there wait in the FBO building, doors locked, until the First Lady was back from the presentation and secure inside the airplane. It was still sitting there when we taxied out.
 
Pilawt said:
Every time I go to my hangar I drive past relatively new airliners on the scrap line -- A330s, 777s, etc. Just yesterday I watched the scrapper tear into the hulk of an A320, which looked like a rag doll in the teeth of a Doberman.

Here's a video from a couple of years ago, of a 777 getting the treatment. It's in the livery of Orenair, a defunct Russian carrier.

Click to expand...

That’s a lot of beer cans! :)
 
Stan Cooper said:
While working on Johnston Atoll in 1967 I became a semi-regular passenger on UAL's "stretch" DC-8-62 flights between Honolulu and Los Angeles. I always booked flights captained by my friend, John "Pete" Billon. Pete made 216 Burma "hump" flights during WW2, and went west in 2001. The DC-8-62 accommodated up to 189 passengers and had a range of 5,200 nm.
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The MAC charters I worked at Ton Son Nhut in 1969 were configured for one class seating with 165 seats on the 707 and 219 on the stretch DC-8.
 
Mason said:
The MAC charters I worked at Ton Son Nhut in 1969 were configured for one class seating with 165 seats on the 707 and 219 on the stretch DC-8.
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Yikes! I can't imagine enough legroom to be comfortable with that many seats.
 
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