August 1969 I took the Mohawk Airlines cargo shuttle from Boston to Detroit.

[Asher]

That plane (N121PB) was a PBA C-402 and is still flying for Cape Air today.

Good plane.

 

[BlackDiamond]

Trans Texas Airlines, aka Tree Top Airlines, and Texas International which morphed into Continential , used to fly DC-3s that serviced several really Small Towns such as Alpine, Texarkana, College Station,San Angelo,Harlingen,Del Rio etc.

I once flew on a Joy Ride Trip between Austin and Houston on a Bargain Ticket that flew to San Antonio, Del Rio,Alpine,Midland-Odessa,San Angelo,Ft Worth,Dallas,College Staion and finally Houston.

Long Day but for $29 I thought it was Worth the Money!

Yes I remember flying TIA on the route from DAL (Love Field) to ABQ to get to Clovis NM where I was stationed. Stopped at some small places besides Clovis such as Witchita Fslls and Midland/Odessa. Clovis didn't even have a tower, nearby Cannon AFB handled Approach Control although no real navigational aids at the airport itself.

 

[lstone19]

That plane (N121PB) was a PBA C-402 and is still flying for Cape Air today.

Ah, Cape Air. Unknown to many, between 2004 and 2018, Cape Air flew as United Express between Guam, Rota, and Saipan. Quite a distance from Cape Cod. Two planes there to support a schedule needing just one which became a problem when one was down for scheduled maintenance and then the other broke. Reporting on that mess when it happened was part of my airline job.

In other interesting airline route tidbits, when I moved to the Bay Area in 1981, I found United had a milk run flight (a predecessor to today's Essential Air Service) running SFO-Reno-Elko-Ely-SLC-DEN and reverse.

 

[PVD]

A lot of that is utilization flying meaning the plane flies in a market that doesn't really need it or it doesn't fly at all for those hours.

A good example of what causes this is mid-morning departures. As a very simplified example, let's say you want a transcontinental capable plane departing LAX at 9am heading to JFK and returning back to LAX. Typical times for that would be depart LAX at 9am, arrive JFK at 5pm, depart JFK at 6pm, arrive LAX at 9pm. And that's all you get out of the plane that day unless you send it on short missions at the beginning and end of the day. So instead of overnight at LAX, maybe you send it to SMF (Sacramento) departing LAX at 10pm and arriving SMF at 11:30pm. In the morning, depart SMF at 6:30am and into LAX at 8am and ready to go to JFK.

PVD didn't say where he flew to BUF from but I'm guessing it might have been LGA in which case if it was an evening flight, it might have been merely to get the plane out of LGA due to limited space to park planes overnight.

It was lga, but it was a 7 am flight, that was what surprised me.

 

[basketmaker]

Ah, Cape Air. Unknown to many, between 2004 and 2018, Cape Air flew as United Express between Guam, Rota, and Saipan. Quite a distance from Cape Cod. Two planes there to support a schedule needing just one which became a problem when one was down for scheduled maintenance and then the other broke. Reporting on that mess when it happened was part of my airline job.

In other interesting airline route tidbits, when I moved to the Bay Area in 1981, I found United had a milk run flight (a predecessor to today's Essential Air Service) running SFO-Reno-Elko-Ely-SLC-DEN and reverse.

Yeah Cape is scattered all over. Up in New England mainly. Down in Puerto Rico. Out of Nashville. Up in Montana I think. A couple of planes and crews in each region. They are still flying several of the old PBA C-402s. They are upgrading their fleet with new Tecnam PC12s.

 

[Willbridge]

Ah, Cape Air. ....................

In other interesting airline route tidbits, when I moved to the Bay Area in 1981, I found United had a milk run flight (a predecessor to today's Essential Air Service) running SFO-Reno-Elko-Ely-SLC-DEN and reverse.

A friend of mine had to come near to arm-wrestling the United agent in SLC to fly on that milk run to SFO. She kept explaining to him that they had a faster flight that lapped that one. She couldn't understand that anyone would want to make that trip. It was a favorite of United's applications to the CAB to discontinue the service.

Of course, there were a lot of things like that before deregulation. North Platte (first field in the U.S. to have a lighted runway) has a concrete runway to handle old Frontier Airlines 737's. Western Airlines service to Cut Bank relied on a military field, and so forth. And then there were the Canadian lines - the only through flight from Edmonton to Seattle in 1977 made a few stops, but it had the lowest fare and was the only single carrier service. We made the Edmonton <> Seattle part of this and for $5 stopped over a day in Victoria.

 

[Fenway]

The only plane that I was fearful of flying was this back in 1981.

 

[lstone19]

It was lga, but it was a 7 am flight, that was what surprised me.

Well, that is kind of odd. Could be driven by maintenance needs (needed it at LGA overnight - perhaps LGA was one of the stations that did weekly and monthly checks on the DC-10).

In what no doubt seemed odd scheduling, United had bought two 747-222Bs which were used on JFK-NRT. JFK was their maintenance home port (the schedule had a short turn at NRT and an overnight at JFK). Once United had enough 747-400s, JFK-NRT was changed to the -400s and the -222Bs moved over to fly EWR-NRT. But JFK was still the maintenance home for the 222Bs so two days a week (Tue/Wed arrivals IIRC) the 222Bs went to JFK while the 400s went to EWR. So every 6th or 8th night, each 222B was at JFK overnight.

I did get to fly on a -222B. Once a year, they both went to SFO for a month for their annual check. While one was in the hangar, the other flew a daily SFO-ORD-SFO round-trip which kept the schedule balanced (the 747-400 was a different type plane for the pilots than the 747-100/200 was and a pilot was only qualified in one type at a time).

 

[west point]

BAC=111s. UGH, It was being on a teeter totter. Jump seat to back seat all the same. Only airplane that almost got airsick on.
Mohawk might have used martin 404s. EAL was able to drop the upper NY routes when Mohawk agreed to take the routes over. Was told that Mohawk got several 404s from EAL but cannot confirm that. Just know all EAL 404s were gone by late 1965. EAL settled on using their 40 Convair 440s for other short distance routes.

As I recall the first Convair 440s were not converted to CV580s until 1957 - 1968 due to shortage of Allison 501D-13 turbo props engines that went on new Lockheed L-188 Electra's, air force C-130s & Navy P-3s. 580s - 4000HP MAX TO each engine on take off as compared to 440's recip's R2800 - 2400 HP.

C-130s built today have better than 6000HP each engine. That the reason for the different props with more blades on those C-130 air craft.

 

[PVD]

Well, that is kind of odd. Could be driven by maintenance needs (needed it at LGA overnight - perhaps LGA was one of the stations that did weekly and monthly checks on the DC-10).

In what no doubt seemed odd scheduling, United had bought two 747-222Bs which were used on JFK-NRT. JFK was their maintenance home port (the schedule had a short turn at NRT and an overnight at JFK). Once United had enough 747-400s, JFK-NRT was changed to the -400s and the -222Bs moved over to fly EWR-NRT. But JFK was still the maintenance home for the 222Bs so two days a week (Tue/Wed arrivals IIRC) the 222Bs went to JFK while the 400s went to EWR. So every 6th or 8th night, each 222B was at JFK overnight.

I did get to fly on a -222B. Once a year, they both went to SFO for a month for their annual check. While one was in the hangar, the other flew a daily SFO-ORD-SFO round-trip which kept the schedule balanced (the 747-400 was a different type plane for the pilots than the 747-100/200 was and a pilot was only qualified in one type at a time).

I never quite figured it out, AA did lots of maintenance at JFK, but did have some indoor maint space at LGA but not for something the size of a DC-10 It was in the mid 70s, and I did not really think about things like that at the time But flying student standby at a cheap price, having a big plane like that meant I was guaranteed to get there.

 

[Willbridge]

While stationed in Berlin I flew on BAC-111's and Super-111's and don't recall them as being any worse than any other small jet. Of course, being restricted to flying through the weather at 10,000 feet made for a rough ride, but that was true in Pan Am's 727 fleet on the air corridors, too. Those puffy clouds were tougher than they looked.


Soviet tank training range from an air corridor flight.

 

[west point]

I never quite figured it out, AA did lots of maintenance at JFK, but did have some indoor maint space at LGA but not for something the size of a DC-10

Forgot about those hangers at LGA. There were 3 or 4 identical built like a quonset hut but of concrete, EAL had at least 1 also AA had at least one. They were built where DC-6s, DC-7s and constellations (L-1040. L1069) and could be hangered especially winter. Just remembered TWA also. Pan Am not sure by my time The 7 and Connies flew from LGA to UK competing with EWR. required climb gradients for those recips much less than todays jets. I would have been terrified when taking off RW 31 towards 4 stacks electric generating plant.

 

[BlackDiamond]

Forgot about those hangers at LGA. There were 3 or 4 identical built like a quonset hut but of concrete, EAL had at least 1 also AA had at least one. They were built where DC-6s, DC-7s and constellations (L-1040. L1069) and could be hangered especially winter. Just remembered TWA also. Pan Am not sure by my time The 7 and Connies flew from LGA to UK competing with EWR. required climb gradients for those recips much less than todays jets. I would have been terrified when taking off RW 31 towards 4 stacks electric generating plant.

I remember flying out of EWR in November 1967 on the EAL shuttle to BOS they normally used Lockheed Electras but this was Thanksgiving Eve and they were using anything that could fly, in this case we got a Connie. Last time I ever flew a commercial recip plane, although later got to fly a number of them in the USAF such as C118's.

 

[railiner]

https://worldairlinenews.com/2012/07/14/prop-it-up-mohawks-incredible-weekends-unlimited/