what became of the 3 Aer Lingus 747s ?

mikedublin

Anyone know what became of the 3 Aer Lingus 747s ? I know they were phased out in the mid 90's, but just wondering where they ended up.

pclancy

EI-BED

EI-ASI Scrapped 2002 after retiring from Air Kabo


EI-ASJ apparantly still in storage in the US.

Nforce

Pity to see the old birds in that state.............some enterprising soul should have bought them up and did something similar to THIS

kelle

I remember one was named Padraig (The one that brought the pope to Ireland in 1979 according to my father RIP), another Colmcille.
Sad to see the first photo, I thought it was a trick photo at first!

roundymac

Nforce wrote: »

Pity to see the old birds in that state.............some enterprising soul should have bought them up and did something similar to THIS

I flew on this jet fro Cork to Cardiff for the Heineken Cup final in 2002. It's an ex Tower Air machine, it was fairly clapped out, some toilets not working, upholstery in tatters, and generally grotty in appearence. On the return leg the pilot announced as we were taxing that we would shortly be on our way to Shannon. Liz from Dawson travel went running up the plane to a stewardess, we had to make an about turn and return to the terminal. Itseems that they were to do a charter to SNN after us but the flight crew got order mixed up. After an half hour we got airbourne and landed saftly much to the relief of everyone. I hope that hostel is better run than Transjet. I heard some horror stories about them afterwards. They flew a number of charters to Japan for 2002 world cup including one with the WAGS of the Irish team, they had to make an emergency landing at Stockholm on the way( not sure why).:eek:

CaptainSkidmark

roundymac wrote: »

they had to make an emergency landing at Stockholm on the way( not sure why).:eek:

To turn it into a hotel!

roundymac

CaptainSkidmark wrote: »

To turn it into a hotel!

To patch it up to get to japan. It was later in the year when Transjet went bankrupt.:mad:

knockon

kelle wrote: »

I remember one was named Padraig (The one that brought the pope to Ireland in 1979 according to my father RIP), another Colmcille.
Sad to see the first photo, I thought it was a trick photo at first!

EI-ASI (St. Columcille) brought the Pope the Ireland - It was temporarily named St Patrick for the Papal journey (your dad was correct) which was on the hull of EI-ASJ which to the best of my knowlege was out on lease at the time. EI-BED was St. Kieran

Oscar Bravo

Photos of some old birds in here http://irish-airliners.blogspot.com/2009/03/ei-att-dc7-aer-turas.html

David086

Just looking at some of those photos, why were some Aer Lingus aircraft painted all white? Was it quicker to just get the out of the factory?

BuffyBot

Many of the aircraft were leased out to other airlines, so you often see pics of interim liveries on the old EI planes, as sometimes the would be repainted into the other airlines colour scheme,, but not repainted back to the full EI scheme as the plane may have been needed for flights or was due to be released out again.

Oscar Bravo

I dont think I ever recall seeing EI-CAL.Was she leased for long?

Dacian

EI operated in a hugely seasonal market in the 1970-1980s. Thus in winter up to 40% of their fleet could be on lease. Sometimes they leased aircraft for years to Africa,Asia, S.America. It was the only way for them to make money at the time. (Guiness Peat Aviation[GPA] was an early pioneer in aircraft leasing, set up by Tony Ryan, formerly an employee of EI)

So you could have EI aircraft returning and going back into service with white of hybrid liveries evident. There are pics of an EI B767 in Air Aruba colours with a shamrock on the tail. These system of leasing also messed up the naming system. (Which has been in place since July 1946)

Examples:
hybrid B747- http://www.flickr.com/photos/namcys11/4924844608/
White B747- http://www.flickr.com/photos/40086110@N08/4845993477/
B767 in Air Aruba colours- http://www.flickr.com/photos/53277566@N06/5651260222/


Knockon is correct that -ASI was renamed St.Patrick to be ready to carry the Pope for his visit. (First airline other than Alitalia)

Info taken from "Shamrocks from Seattle" (Published by the Irish Air Letter) And airframes.org.

EI-ASI; 1971-79 Colmcille, 79-94 St.Patrick, 1994 Oliver Plunkett
EI-ASJ; 1971-75 Patrick, 81-88 Oliver Plunkett, 1995 Maeve.
EI-BED; 1979-94 Ciaran.
EI-CAL; March 1991-June 1993 (spent a year with Air Aruba during this time)

Am not sure what happened in the gap of 1975-79 with no Patrick in the fleet. As I know that no B707's were named that.

knockon

Dacian wrote: »

Knockon is correct that -ASI was renamed St.Patrick to be ready to carry the Pope for his visit. (First airline other than Alitalia)
.

Not sure Dacian - I remember reading that Avianca brought Pope to Colombia before A.L.

pclancy

What was on the upper deck in those days? Just a crew rest or did they have a lounge/bar area of some kind? 3 windows must mean its too small to have a first class passenger section up there.

knockon

pclancy wrote: »

What was on the upper deck in those days? Just a crew rest or did they have a lounge/bar area of some kind? 3 windows must mean its too small to have a first class passenger section up there.

12 premier class seats and 1 trolley dolly. No crew rest - longest flight then was SNN to ORD AFAIR 3 Flight crew - The 747-100 had a F/E and in the case of Aer Lingus the F/E was a Pilot.

Le_Dieux

Hi

Just discovered this thread, and love it, as one of my passions is travelling, and the civil aviation sector in particular.

Don't know if any of You are aware of this or not, but the current edition of 'Airliner World' has a feature of 75 years of Aer Lingus, and some great photos included from page 44 to 48.

Tenger

Le_Dieux wrote: »

Hi

Just discovered this thread, and love it, as one of my passions is travelling, and the civil aviation sector in particular.

Don't know if any of You are aware of this or not, but the current edition of 'Airliner World' has a feature of 75 years of Aer Lingus, and some great photos included from page 44 to 48.

To be blunt......that's a piece of lazy writting. Reads as if it was written at least 5 years ago and just re-hashed for this issue. The last 2 paragraphs make mention of EI joining OneWorld in 2003, of EI 'currently having a mixed Boeing/Airbus fleet of 38 aircraft', 'that they are 'repositioning themselves as a sort of LCC' and that 'the future looks bright'.

No mention at all of anything from the last 5 years, no mention of leaving O/W, no mention of DUB-DXB, no mention of Mueller, no mention of A350 order, no mention of Non ROI bases, no mention of the UA/EI codeshare or the IAD-MAD joint venture, no mention of Jetblue codeshare, no mention of the move to T2............not even a pic of a EI A330!!!!

Dacian

knockon wrote: »

Not sure Dacian - I remember reading that Avianca brought Pope to Colombia before A.L.

I was incorrect in my previous post. Tradition was that Alitalia carried the pontiff from Italy, then the national airline carried him onwards. SO EI were not the first airline to carry the Pope. However EI were the first airline to carry him from Rome to Dublin and then afterwards onwards SNN-BOS.

Info taken from 'Flight of the Iolar':
It seems Alitalia were furious and got an Archbishop to try to intercede on their behalf 2 weeks before the visit.
EI-ASI was repainted as St.Patrick. EI placed a B707 on standby in Rome in case of a technical problem with -ASI. Inflight it used the callsign 'Aer Lingus 1'.
Sep 29 FCO-DUB, Oct 1 SNN-BOS.


This book also remarks that both -ASI and -ASJ used the names Patrick and Colmcille. -ASJ taking on Colmcille after returning from lease as -ASI had been renamed St.Patrick for the Papal visit.

knockon

Great thread ....brings back memories

1. Going SNN - JFK "upstairs" - 12 people in premier and 9 were non rev's (staff) - stuck out like sore thumbs with suits and ties. The beverage trolley drained of beer. Free "Inisfree" aftershave in the upstairs lav.

2. Opening the Lwr 41 (e & e bay hatch aft of the nose gear) to retrieve all kinds if stuff that guys were sending up and down from DUB-SNN. If you wanted to send mostly work related stuff and did'nt want to go through the hassle of putting it on in cargo or filling out paperwork. One day a guy in M & E (EI Maintenance) called me " the 105 (EI-105) has AOG parts in the Lwr 41". It was his wifes Krups food processor for repair in the Limerick plant.
Imagine that kind of security breaches going on today? The area down there was huge.

3. The skipper on 1 747 trip out of BOS allowing 2 of us to ride in the cockpit jump seats as the flight was full (not all of them were that facilitating).

Great memories of those days of the 747.

Run_to_da_hills

Aer Lingus could have got many more years usage out of these planes only for that stupid unnecessary Shannon stop over. Even with this these planes still had a fewer number of landings and take offs than other 747's at the time. .

knockon

Unfortunately they also had hugely inefficiently power plants. The JT9D-7A's were guzzlers and the '74's could only carry half the LD3's that the a330 can carry. There was a crew in DUB called the BTR crew. Boeing Turn Around - their primary purpose was to keep those 3 a/c flying - that in itself was a prohibitive cost. My point - whether the SNN stop was there or not these 74's were going. This was also the same company that purchased 2 767's for a route that was never going to happen.

Bearcat

knockon wrote: »

Unfortunately they also had hugely inefficiently power plants. The JT9D-7A's were guzzlers.

Just muddying the waters here......EIN had hybrid 7A's......a total bastardization of an engine, with the original N1 fan dimensions but the N2 core was of later models. This hybrid set up was unique to EIN alone I'm aware......any engineers out there willing to give us the full spec?

And yes they guzzled juice.....90 ton-100 ton would'nt be unheard of as a fuel load to JFK form DUB whereas the the 330 with 324 pax, more freight LD3 capacity than the 747-100.....your looking at say 44tons of juice tO jfk......do the maths and it easy to see how over night EIN halved their costs on the Atlantic.......still the 747 will always be queen of the skies in my eyes.....likewise there was no sound like the sound of those 4 JT9's at full chat on a take off roll.....immense roar of those engines....

these are RB211's at full chat but the old P&W's had a similar drone......the memories!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bF-FF6JVBAw

Blue Punto

Tenger wrote: »

To be blunt......that's a piece of lazy writting. Reads as if it was written at least 5 years ago and just re-hashed for this issue. The last 2 paragraphs make mention of EI joining OneWorld in 2003, of EI 'currently having a mixed Boeing/Airbus fleet of 38 aircraft', 'that they are 'repositioning themselves as a sort of LCC' and that 'the future looks bright'.

No mention at all of anything from the last 5 years, no mention of leaving O/W, no mention of DUB-DXB, no mention of Mueller, no mention of A350 order, no mention of Non ROI bases, no mention of the UA/EI codeshare or the IAD-MAD joint venture, no mention of Jetblue codeshare, no mention of the move to T2............not even a pic of a EI A330!!!!

Couldn't have said it better myself

Was very unimpressed

Dacian

knockon wrote: »

Unfortunately they also had hugely inefficiently power plants. The JT9D-7A's were guzzlers and the '74's could only carry half the LD3's that the a330 can carry......

I read (in Shamrocks from Seattle) that on 1 occasion a captain of a max weight B741 declined ATC clearance over the Wicklow Mt after take-off, as he was unsure if the engines would allow him to clear them sufficiently.

Bearcat

I read (in Flight of the Iolar) that on 1 occasion a captain refused ATC clearance over the Wicklow Mt after take-off, as he was unsure if the engines would allow him to clear them sufficiently.

is this an adults or kiddies forum?

Oscar Bravo

Not a 747,but the sound of these engines at Knock were somthing!!(and the smoke) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PO6XitnJnDs

Dacian

Bearcat wrote: »

is this an adults or kiddies forum?

Your point being?
I'm not repeating gossip or urban legend..........I'm referencing a book that was written by a respected source.

I in not way wanted to infer any issue with safety in relation to these aircraft. My post said 'clear them sufficiently', I made no claim of the aircraft being unable to clear them at all. I have full confidence in the EI maintenance/operations record, both current and historic.

kona

Oscar Bravo wrote: »

Not a 747,but the sound of these engines at Knock were somthing!!(and the smoke) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PO6XitnJnDs

All the obvious benefits of modern engines aside, those old skool Low bypass Engines were just fantastic. Im annoyed I never got a flight on a 707, Im fascinated by them for some reason haha

kona

Dacian wrote: »

Your point being?
I'm not repeating gossip or urban legend..........I'm referencing a book that was written by an informed person and approved by EI at the time.

I in not way wanted to infer any issue with safety in relation to these aircraft. My post said 'clear them sufficiently', I made no claim of the aircraft being unable to clear them at all. I have full confidence in the EI maintenance/operations record, both current and historic.

The Iolar was a 1920s design, Im sure they had issues with the fuelling at certain altitudes, not like they could change the jets or needles in the carbs mid flight. Doesnt suprise or concern me that story.

L1011

kona wrote: »

The Iolar was a 1920s design, Im sure they had issues with the fuelling at certain altitudes, not like they could change the jets or needles in the carbs mid flight. Doesnt suprise or concern me that story.

The book he's referring to covers more than just the era they used Iolar; so I'd assume he was referring to a 747...

kona

MYOB wrote: »

The book he's referring to covers more than just the era they used Iolar; so I'd assume he was referring to a 747...

Id be very suprised if that was the case, perhaps there was a technical issue, but Im dam sure 4 P&W Jt-9D would have the power to clear the wicklow mountains.

Dacian

kona wrote: »

Id be very suprised if that was the case, perhaps there was a technical issue, but Im dam sure 4 P&W Jt-9D would have the power to clear the wicklow mountains.

Actually I just checked and the story was from "Shamrocks from Seattle" NOT "Flight of the Iolar". This was a pamphlet published by the Irish Air Letter.

Again I do not want to cast any spurious negativity over the EI B747. The tale refers to a fully laden B741 on take off from Dublin with the captain being cautious. There was no question of them NOT CLEARING the mountains, the captain just wanted to ensure he was completely clear of them. The tale was framed in relation to the EI search for a replacement for the B747 in the early 1990's.

donvito99

Just thought I would bump this with a great video...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QYX3ztYdqkM

McWotever

Very dirty from the business class emergency exit. Is that where they threw out the mop bucket water?

drdeadlift

I cant recall were i read it.An ei 74 was going from Dublin to Beirut carrying troops,they reached fl280 over dover.
Did ei get a good deal purchasing these early 741s as i know Boeing had announced the improved 200 when it was still on the drawing board.

roundymac

Did they buy/lease a 747 from Lufthansa? I know they bought the first 2 new from Boeing, but where did they get the third 747?

Blue Punto

roundymac wrote: »

Did they buy/lease a 747 from Lufthansa? I know they bought the first 2 new from Boeing, but where did they get the third 747?

EI-BED(19748) came from LH being D-ABYC before it was with EI
Jan 79 was when it joined the Aerlingus fleet.
During its career with Aerlingus it also went out on a number of leases to
Air Algeria(who never had their 747's delivered to them) Air Jamaica,Qantas and Lan Chile
Withdrawn from use in Marana in 1995 and broken up in August
In 2008 this is all that was left

http://www.airliners.net/photo/Aer-Lingus/Boeing-747-130/1412609/&sid=542dbdc21ab053d608567d3f58c0caff

A little off subject but just read that LH have flown D-ABVA to FRA to be scrapped.I think this is the first LH 747-400 to meet the axe.
And they have also replaced the ground trainer at FRA Viscount D-ANAF with 737-500 D-ABJI

EchoIndia

Blue Punto wrote: »

A little off subject but just read that LH have flown D-ABVA to FRA to be scrapped.I think this is the first LH 747-400 to meet the axe.
And they have also replaced the ground trainer at FRA Viscount D-ANAF with 737-500 D-ABJI

D-ABVA was last recorded on LH465 MIA-FRA on 31 December.

EchoIndia

drdeadlift wrote: »

I cant recall were i read it.An ei 74 was going from Dublin to Beirut carrying troops,they reached fl280 over dover.

I may have posted that somewhere in the past. He was at FL090 at LIFFY, 190 or so at WAL and estimated making 290 by DVR. I have the notes somewhere that I made at the time.

Blue Punto

EchoIndia wrote: »

D-ABVA was last recorded on LH465 MIA-FRA on 31 December.

Must have been its last flight in service
Just reading a thread about it on airliners.net at the moment also now being reported on skyliner

xflyer

Can't understand why I never read this thread when it was current. Oh wait it was in April, I was permanently in the air that month:(

I can back up the comments about the JT9D-7A, my area of expertise at one point. I can easily believe the story of the 747 over Wicklow. I remember every 747 take off from Dublin was a major event. ATC checked in with everybody in the vicinity. The fully loaded Aer Lingus 747s took a long time to get high and could easily find it mixing itself with C150s near Weston. I lived ten miles from the airport a couple of miles north of the hills but could easily get a good view of it as it clawed it's way to altitude.

I flew on EI-BED back from the USA, I think ASI outbound.

Dacian

xflyer wrote: »

.....I can back up the comments about the JT9D-7A, my area of expertise at one point. I can easily believe the story of the 747 over Wicklow. I remember every 747 take off from Dublin was a major event. ATC checked in with everybody in the vicinity. The fully loaded Aer Lingus 747s took a long time to get high and could easily find it mixing itself with C150s near Weston. .....

Thanks for that confirmation.


As an aside can I ask how many flight hours you would do a year? Does it vary greatly year to year? (I assume you are under the same 900 hrs per year rule of airline pilots)

xflyer

Yes it's the same but realistically you would never reach that. It does vary but in and around 300 to 400 hours is realistic. But there's an additional eight hour daily limit which airline pilots are not subject to. Eight hours in the cockpit amounts to a long old day when you consider duty time, a few days in a row like that and the glamour of aviation wears off very quickly!

Tea 1000

xflyer wrote: »

Can't understand why I never read this thread when it was current. Oh wait it was in April, I was permanently in the air that month:(

I can back up the comments about the JT9D-7A, my area of expertise at one point. I can easily believe the story of the 747 over Wicklow. I remember every 747 take off from Dublin was a major event. ATC checked in with everybody in the vicinity. The fully loaded Aer Lingus 747s took a long time to get high and could easily find it mixing itself with C150s near Weston. I lived ten miles from the airport a couple of miles north of the hills but could easily get a good view of it as it clawed it's way to altitude.

I flew on EI-BED back from the USA, I think ASI outbound.

Why didn't they fill them with fuel in Shannon seeing as they had to do the stop-over anyway?
I flew on them 3 times, but I don't recall the registration. have a pic somewhere, must dig!

Tenger

Tea 1000 wrote: »

Why didn't they fill them with fuel in Shannon seeing as they had to do the stop-over anyway?

They did. But there were a few DUB-USA flights. (SNN-DUB-ORD).

xflyer

Yes there were. I remember asking a colleague who was flying to the States to get me one of those little models they sell on board but at the time you couldn't get elsewhere. The morning he flew out I heard his 747 coming, the distinctive motorcycle sound, and without getting out of bed lifted the curtain and saw it overfly at about 4000 or 5000 thou. I was tickled pink at the idea that the little model he eventually handed to me actually overflew my bedroom.

As I said I lived miles from the airport. BTW he was the JT9D Engineer.

Tea 1000

Tenger wrote: »

They did. But there were a few DUB-USA flights. (SNN-DUB-ORD).

I see.
@xflyer: I had two of those models at one stage! Can't find either now!

Tenger

Tea 1000 wrote: »

I had two of those models at one stage! Can't find either now!

This one?
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Inflight-500-Aer-Lingus-1-500-B747-100-EI-ASI-/320813507453?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item4ab1f9a37d

I have one of these, but want to find a B747 in the older white livery. (Same as the current retro A320)

Tea 1000

Tenger wrote: »

This one?
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Inflight-500-Aer-Lingus-1-500-B747-100-EI-ASI-/320813507453?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item4ab1f9a37d

I have one of these, but want to find a B747 in the older white livery. (Same as the current retro A320)

Actually no, I didn't have that one! It was the same size as that though, but came in a much smaller box, long rectangle box. It had just all grey wings and no undercarriage, but had the holes where the undercarriage would go, but had that gammy plastic stand for it instead.

Edit: - I had the 747 equivelant of this one: http://www.airlinemuseum.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=1957
It was plastic, not die-cast metal like yours. Yours looks a lot better!! Didn't even know they existed!

Irish Steve

Going back a few messages now, the issue with the Wicklow hills wasn't clearing them, it was being still able to clear them in the event of an engine failure on takeoff, which is a requirement on all commercial aircraft, there has to be a plan in place that is automatically carried out in the event of an engine failure, and there are many aircraft, both 2 , 3 and 4 engine types that would have to make an emergency turn out over the Irish Sea if departing from Runway 16 and then suffering an engine failure.

If an engine fails when low, slow and heavy, if at all possible, the only things done in the early stages of the take off are to put the wheels up to reduce the drag, and then maintain very accurately a specific speed, which for the load, the day etc is individually calculated. A few years ago now, a similar 747 had an engine failure due to the strength of the cross wind when departing from Gatwick, and as a result, they were only just able to clear the high ground that's several miles from the end of the runway, and it's nothing like the height of the Wicklow hills. From memory, the stick shaker, which is an indication to the captain that the speed is low, and needs to be increased, was operating for several minutes before they were able to get things back under full control.

The last thing you want to have to do in that case is start any sort of turn unless it's critical, as that reduces either the climb rate or the speed, and if things are already marginal, and the 747 200 was marginal, you don't want to upset it any more.

A report on such an incident in Bogota only recently was a report on a crash, as one engine failed as it rotated, followed a short while later by another, partly due to mishandling of the power, and the loss of 2 engines was enough to prevent it being able to climb away successfully.

Having said that, a long time ago, I was at Shannon for a few days, and one of the Russian heavy lifters took off on a dirty wet day on a trans atlantic trip. When he was cleared to take off, he was told to report passing 1500 Ft. It duly thundered down the runway in a cloud of spray, and eventually lumbered into the air, and very quickly was lost to sight. I was listening on the radio, and after several minutes, I remember thinking, "he's forgotten the 1500 Ft call". He hadn't, in the end, with all the engines working, the performance of the aircraft was such that it took 7 MINUTES to get to 1500 Ft, which is a very long time indeed, and below the ICAO standard for commercial aircraft operations, under normal requirements, an aircraft is supposed to be capable of a minimum climb rate of 500 Ft per minute in normal operation.

The heavy lifters are clearly a special category, and I suspect that was why he was told to report through 1500 Ft, so that ATC knew there was no longer any possibility of conflict with traffic that was under the zone boundary.