[MaureenIrvin]

Can anyone help resolve a family debate. We emigrated to Australia on BOAC flight leaving London on 10 November 1964 to Sydney.
Debate is – did route go Rome Beirut Karachi New Delhi Rangoon Hong Kong Darwin Sydney
Other family believe we did not stop in Rangoon and came thru Singapore.
Any help appreciated.

[millionsofmiles]

CORAL Route.
Dont know the details, but started in AKL and stopped in many South Pacific islands and HNL, before continuing to LAX.

1980: SQ FRA-BAH-CMB-BKK-SIN on a 747-200.
1981: SQ AMS-ORY-BAH-BKK-SIN on a 747-200

[Luxembourger]

MaureenIrvin.
Cannot give defninitive info re LON-SYD in November 1964, but we flew as a family in July 1963 on flight BA 722 LHR-AKL. Routing was as you describe to Karachi. Then Calcutta, Kuala Lumpur, Singapore, Djakarta, Darwin, Sydney, Auckland.
Flight was in a Comet – a magnificent aeroplane then and would still love to fly in one now. Return was on Canadian Pacific – Auckland, Nandi, Honolulu in a Britannia, Comets being the only jet that could land at AKL at the time. Then to Vancouver and straight to Amsterdam in a DC8. Another beautiful plane and much nicer than the 707s. Douglas ‘Palomar’ unitized seating gave you a reading light in the seat behind your shoulder and a fan in the seat in front of you.
All so incredibly much less dreary than the trip is now.

[travelworld]

What a really, really interesting thread- best one for ages. Well done to all contributors. My only offering is that in the aaprtheid days SAA used to stop not only at Ilo do Sal in the Cape Verde islands and Las Palmas but also at Abijan on the Ivory Coast en route to LHR, since that was the only mainland African country which would take them en route to LHR after Angola got its independence.

[dutchyankee]

@MaureenIrvin, Get ready for a very long answer. I can confirm that BOAC flights did call at Rangoon en route to other Asian and Australian destinations but not every flight. In 1964, BA flight 710 Monday with a Comet flew London-Zurich-Tel Aviv-Tehran-Delhi-Rangoon-Singapore-Darwin-Brisbane-Melbourne; BA Flight 700 Monday on a 707 routed London-Frankfurt-Beirut-Karachi-Calcutta-Singapore-Darwin-Sydney; BA 720 Tuesday on a Comet London-Rome-Damascus-Karachi-Calcutta-Rangoon-Singapore-Djakarta-Darwin-Sydney-Auckland; BA 700 Wednesday as on Monday, BA 712 Comet Thursday London-Zurich-Tel Aviv-Tehran-Bombay-Colombo-Singapore-Djakarta-Darwin-Sydney-Melbourne; BA 700 Friday 707 London-Rome-Beirut-Tehran-Delhi-Singapore-Darwin-Sydney; and finally BA 722 Saturday Comet London-Dusseldorf-Beirut-Karachi-Calcutta-Singapore-Djakarta-Darwin-Sydney-Auckland. I hope that helps, it looks like you could both be right. BA did operate flights from Hong Kong to Oz in `64, usually nonstop to Sydney on a 707 taking connecting traffic from Tokyo.

[NameRemoved-18/12/14]

Wonderful!

I remember recommending Beyond The Blue Horizon by Alexander Frater as has Bullfrog (despite the duff copy I received from amazon).

More please!

[dutchyankee]

@Alexpo1, A great book which I ordered right after it was recommended, so right up my alley. I loved it.

[JonathanM8]

Just noticed this thread……some great posts, but why hasnt anyone mentioned Concorde? In a sense a historic route (LHR-JFK) as I dont think I will ever be able to go supersonic between these two cities in my life-time, with all that ‘arrive before you leave’ pzazz. Beats lumbering around the world on an A380, however many showers you are able to take on-board.

[dutchyankee]

@JonathanM8, of course Concorde is truly historic, but as for historic scheduled routes flown by her, these are rather limited to LHR/CDG-JFK, LHR/CDG-IAD, LHR/CDG-IAD-DFW, LHR-IAD-MIA, CDG-DKR-RIO, CDG-CCS, LHR-BAH-SIN. I am not sure of any other schedule routes, but if so, I hope others will fill in any gaps. Without a doubt, Concorde was the Grand Dame of the sky, and I was lucky enough to fly on her 11 times; for me she is sorely missed.

[AMcWhirter]

@ travelworld

Quite correct. In the apartheid era most African countries denied SAA overflying rights so the carrier had to fly to Europe around the “bulge” of Africa.

But SAA did operate some non-stops to Europe.

Boeing made a special long range version of the B747 called the SP (special performance).

It had a shorter fuselage than the normal B747 and was sold to countries who needed a longer range plane than the regular B747s of the day.

[skywards]

Newcastle to Manchester with Gill Air.

[dutchyankee]

@AMcWhirter, absolutely true that SAA did operate the SP, a plane specifically designed on a request of Pan Am for a longer range aircraft. Although, due to over-flight rules against apartheid in RSA SAA still had to fly around the continent putting the SP range at a great disadvantage or reducing the payload. A number of SP routes either stopped in Windhoek, Lisbon, or the normal Sal Island . Cape Town to London was nonstop once a week but frequently needed a tech stop due to payload.

[AMcWhirter]

@dutchyankee

Thanks for the info. Maybe it was JNB’s ‘hot and high’ airfield which restricted take off performance meaning that a technical stop was needed on occasion.

But these B747-SPs certainly had the range because QF used to use its fleet to operate non-stop between Australia and the US West Coast.

[dutchyankee]

Absolutely, as did Pan Am on their flights from SFO to SYD and LAX to both SYD and AKL, and again, very often tech stopped in HNL or PPG. You are right about JNB’s altitude likewise having a major impact which is why outbound flights mostly stopped to enable full loads and were often routed in a circle fashion. Pan Am actually used an SP twice a week on a JFK – ROB- JNB route which didn’t take advantage of the SP range but was a better match for the likely payload versus a 100/200 series.

[Bath_VIP]

Skywards

I can beat yours with the Routing Newcastle-Manchester-Cardiff-Bournemouth on a Dan-Air 748. In those days, they called the route the bus stop route. I flew the route with my brother as UAMs and it was a great adventure for us.

Another one for me was Lympne-Ostend on Dan Air 748. Lympne airport was closed in 1974 with flights moving to Lydd instead.

A historical route that still exists in the same form as 40 years is the Southampton to Alderney route using Aurigny Trislanders. Nothing has changed in that time as far as I can tell!

[Author]

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