Neil's Nostalgia
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• S T A T E S I D E 6 6 • A selection from my travels - 196 flights in 21 days - $150. Neil Aird © 1966 |
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| As we were landing at La Guardia, N16060 (1902) Douglas DC-3A-191 Dakota, a 1936 vintage still active with Northeast ,was taking off. A pleasant moment to savour. Iit was later to make the final Northeast DC-3 flight in 1968. |
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I was the only passenger to deplane at Wall Street from that New York Airways flight. Boy, did I feel special! N6676D (6) a Boeing Vertol 107 continued on across the river to Newark Airport - KEWR. Flight times on 25 August 1966. JFK off 11:03 - La Guardia on 11:08 - LGA off 11:13 - Wall Street on 11:18. Later in the day I returned from Newark on N108PA (108/4009) EWR off 17:56 - JFK on 18:06. this particular machine was supplied to Kawasaki as a kit in 1962 and built as a KV-107II-2. It is still active in 2011 as P2-CHE. N6676D met a terrible fate on 14 Ooctober 1982 when it broke up in flight while maneuvering during logging operations near Cascade, Idaho. It suffered rotor synchronization shaft failure and crashed to ground, 2 crew fatalities.
More images of my great summer trail-blazing adventure as a 21 year old to follow . . . |
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Here is N8444H Convair 440-42 (327A) of North Central Airlines awaiting my presence at Cleveland - Hopkins -KCLE, Ohio. 0n 27 August 1966 I flew on her operating as flight "NC806" for the twenty-nine minute journey to Detroit - Metropolitan. This aircraft was rebuilt from c/n 96 a Convair 340-42A. Her career started in 1953 heading to Philipppine Airlines as PI-C342, but ended as N8420H still a Convair 340 on 20 October 1955 at Shereveport, Louisiana where she was damaged by fire. Rebuilt as a Covair 440 she served as N8444H; was converted to a Convair 580 (PAC166) 01 May 1969 then after service with Republic Airlines went to TG-MYM before returning to the US and N8444H until she whent to C-FCIB then on to ZK-CIB with Air Transport (Chatham Islands) on 10 June 1996. Lo and behold, when I was in New Zealand on 30 October 2010 at Auckland, forty-four years later, our paths crossed yet again.
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| I spent a lot of time in Convair 580 Aircraft on this adventure. Here are a few at Denver's Stapleton Airport on 29 August 1966. In the background are a Central Convair 600 and a Douglas DC-3, both of which I got to ride in later.. |
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My bumpy ride through the Rockies from Riverton to Rock Springs (43 minutes) and on to Salt Lake City (64 minutes) was N75028 Douglas DC-3 Dakota (6053) Frontier "Flight 3".
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| On arrival, seeing what was on the other side of the runway, I decided to rent a car to get there and make a trip to the Salt Flats. More on this later . . . . |
