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Nice article on the history of the Aer Lingus B747s

«1

Comments

  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,163 ✭✭✭Blut2


    A good short article. They really looked great in the old white livery:

    vAZjcAA.jpg


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 14,498 ✭✭✭✭cson


    Was gonna say, the old livery is mint - though is the flag the wrong way around there?!


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,277 ✭✭✭kevinandrew


    I believe the general rule is that the flag should always be painted to match the direction of travel. Ryanair still paints the flag next to its registration like this but Aer Lingus abandoned the practice years ago.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,015 ✭✭✭Pat Dunne


    I believe the general rule is that the flag should always be painted to match the direction of travel. Ryanair still paints the flag next to its registration like this but Aer Lingus abandoned the practice years ago.

    They should also abandon the ridiculous tradition of naming their planes after obscure religious figures.
    The Saints and Scholars argument doesn’t hold up as they have never named a craft after someone who was just a mere Scholar.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 71,181 ✭✭✭✭L1011


    They'll run out of saints shortly anyway; and that's without any more expansion to shorthaul or regional


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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,907 ✭✭✭Captain_Crash


    Jump seated in the cockpit as a kid on a flight to JFK and the captain let me sit in his seat for a bit during the flight... ahh the good aul days of the late 80's/early 90's. Over the years I flew on three of EI's 747's. I've a deep rooted love for these birds its not even funny!


  • Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 4,216 Mod ✭✭✭✭Locker10a


    Pat Dunne wrote: »
    They should also abandon the ridiculous tradition of naming their planes after obscure religious figures.
    The Saints and Scholars argument doesn’t hold up as they have never named a craft after someone who was just a mere Scholar.

    I think they recycle names, and I think there’s many Irish saints so unless they get an absolutely huge fleet they should have enough


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 36,517 ✭✭✭✭Hotblack Desiato


    Pat Dunne wrote: »
    They should also abandon the ridiculous tradition of naming their planes after obscure religious figures.
    The Saints and Scholars argument doesn’t hold up as they have never named a craft after someone who was just a mere Scholar.

    I think Irish placenames would make a lot more sense, has tourism promotion potential as well.

    In Cavan there was a great fire / Judge McCarthy was sent to inquire / It would be a shame / If the nuns were to blame / So it had to be caused by a wire.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 36,517 ✭✭✭✭Hotblack Desiato


    Comhra wrote: »
    "by"
    Joanna Bailey
    September 3, 2019

    That's pushing it
    Hit the Wikipedia article, grab a few factoids and pics, grab a few more pics off flickr, and some airframe history from airfleets.com and you too can be a "journalist"!

    In Cavan there was a great fire / Judge McCarthy was sent to inquire / It would be a shame / If the nuns were to blame / So it had to be caused by a wire.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,292 ✭✭✭0lddog


    Pat Dunne wrote: »
    They should also abandon the ridiculous tradition of naming their planes after obscure religious figures.
    The Saints and Scholars argument doesn’t hold up as they have never named a craft after someone who was just a mere Scholar.

    Pat, you gave me the idea to do a little search

    First up from the search engine

    https://ifiplayer.ie/radharc-blessing-the-aer-lingus-fleet/

    :)


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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,015 ✭✭✭Pat Dunne


    That's pushing it
    Hit the Wikipedia article, grab a few factoids and pics, grab a few more pics off flickr, and some airframe history from airfleets.com and you too can be a "journalist"!

    You’re spot on, it full of sentence fillers along with copy and paste writing. I'm not going to use the expression “Journalism” for fear of upsetting the few remaining real Journalists out there.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,984 ✭✭✭Stovepipe


    I believe the general rule is that the flag should always be painted to match the direction of travel. Ryanair still paints the flag next to its registration like this but Aer Lingus abandoned the practice years ago.

    A flag painted on an aircraft is always painted in it's correct orientation, in our case, Green first, as if flying from an imaginary flagstaff, regardless of what side of the aircraft it is on. Some countries have been known to reverse the flag on aircraft and even on uniforms. Some countries insist that all aircraft, civil and military, must fly their flag, which is why you often see the emblem on aircraft as small as microlights.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,160 ✭✭✭EchoIndia


    outThere is plenty that could be written about the EI 747s but that would require a lot of research. At different times aircraft were leased to or operated for BA, BCAL, Air Jamaica, Kenya Airways and Air Siam, amongst others. One machine had its livery modified for a movie role. The Alitalia lease was for a short duration to cover for maintenance and should not be counted as operated by Aer Lingus, IMO.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,907 ✭✭✭Captain_Crash


    When BA had EI-ASJ on lease its reg was G-BDPZ and was fondly nicknamed Paddy Zulu lol


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,907 ✭✭✭Comhrá


    When BA had EI-ASJ on lease its reg was G-BDPZ and was fondly nicknamed Paddy Zulu lol

    The story goes there was a note left in the flightdeck for the EI crew collecting PZ at the end of the lease saying "Fly green side up."


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,907 ✭✭✭Captain_Crash


    Comhra wrote: »
    The story goes there was a note left in the flightdeck for the EI crew collecting PZ at the end of the lease saying "Fly green side up."


    Haha yeah that story rings a bell lol


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,292 ✭✭✭goingnowhere


    The 747's date from the early days of the voodoo of Tony Ryan who always able to find someone somewhere to take an aircraft.

    The Air Sian lease is what really started the whole leasing business, became GPA, GECAS and the multi billion $ business it is now.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,488 ✭✭✭Bazzy


    Comhra wrote: »
    The story goes there was a note left in the flightdeck for the EI crew collecting PZ at the end of the lease saying "Fly green side up."

    BRILLIANT


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,984 ✭✭✭Stovepipe


    They also drank fuel, oil and hydraulic fluid like alcoholics, needed constant maintenance and spares and I'll bet the true cost of operating them will never really be known but the flight crews, cabin crews and engineers all held them in high regard. The 330 slashed operating costs dramatically so the 747s were heading for the desert. Good aeroplane, though, and always a head turner.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 10,425 ✭✭✭✭smurfjed


    The movie was called WHITE NIGHTS, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Nights_(1985_film)

    They modified and painted a B707 to look like the B747, the B707 was then crashed, the whole thing was setup by an Aer Lingus maintenance engineer.


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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 36,517 ✭✭✭✭Hotblack Desiato


    In Cavan there was a great fire / Judge McCarthy was sent to inquire / It would be a shame / If the nuns were to blame / So it had to be caused by a wire.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 6,920 ✭✭✭billy few mates


    Stovepipe wrote: »
    They also drank fuel, oil and hydraulic fluid like alcoholics, needed constant maintenance and spares and I'll bet the true cost of operating them will never really be known but the flight crews, cabin crews and engineers all held them in high regard. The 330 slashed operating costs dramatically so the 747s were heading for the desert. Good aeroplane, though, and always a head turner.

    All JT9D engines were oil guzzlers, there was an SB to extend the range of the P&W 747s which was basically a bigger oil tank.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,474 ✭✭✭jippo nolan


    All JT9D engines were oil guzzlers, there was an SB to extend the range of the P&W 747s which was basically a bigger oil tank.

    The main landing gear bay always reeked of skydrol,
    Always guaranteed an eye wash!


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 26,209 ✭✭✭✭Strumms


    I think Irish placenames would make a lot more sense, has tourism promotion potential as well.

    A mixture of place names and or people who have perhaps made big indelible and significant contributions to Irish culture and society. Better then some fûcker who nobody knows if they actually existed or not, 3000 years ago, up a mountain, eating their own shîte and praying to some other fûcker who they have no idea actually existed or not.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 36,517 ✭✭✭✭Hotblack Desiato


    Well 60-odd years ago the prevailing view was that those feckers living in a stone hut on top of a barely hospitable island had made big indelible and significant contributions to Irish culture and society!

    The Radharc documentary linked in post 11 is an eye-opener if you haven't seen it already

    And of course this is the era when it was unthinkable that the shiny, modern, Dublin Airport of the next decade (70s) wouldn't have a fairly large church slap bang in the middle!

    Whatever about the annual blessing of the planes, I thought the prayer leaflet for each passenger a bit much! and kinda introduces a safety angle that the marketing department would probably rather not have the passengers thinking about. Ironically EI had an excellent safety record even in the prop days - maybe blessing the planes worked :pac:

    Does anyone know when they stopped blessing the planes (they did stop, right?)

    In Cavan there was a great fire / Judge McCarthy was sent to inquire / It would be a shame / If the nuns were to blame / So it had to be caused by a wire.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 26,209 ✭✭✭✭Strumms



    Does anyone know when they stopped blessing the planes (they did stop, right?)

    I saw an article that says 3 years ago in 2016 it was still happening...presumably still is.

    https://lovindublin.com/news/pics-a-priest-performed-a-blessing-on-planes-at-dublin-airport-on-christmas-day

    Last thing I’d want there if I was an Airport Police member would to be spending a freezing cold Christmas morning being dragged around the freezing cold and windy ramp by some fella in fancy dress, watching him sprinkling water on every parked aircraft...


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,963 ✭✭✭Van.Bosch


    Strumms wrote: »
    I saw an article that says 3 years ago in 2016 it was still happening...presumably still is.

    https://lovindublin.com/news/pics-a-priest-performed-a-blessing-on-planes-at-dublin-airport-on-christmas-day

    Last thing I’d want there if I was an Airport Police member would to be spending a freezing cold Christmas morning being dragged around the freezing cold and windy ramp by some fella in fancy dress, watching him sprinkling water on every parked aircraft...

    Ah here, if I saw that in father Ted it would be hilarious.

    Wonder do the airlines agree to it?


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 36,517 ✭✭✭✭Hotblack Desiato


    Strumms wrote: »
    Last thing I’d want there if I was an Airport Police member would to be spending a freezing cold Christmas morning being dragged around the freezing cold and windy ramp by some fella in fancy dress, watching him sprinkling water on every parked aircraft...

    If temps were that low, hope he was using holy de-icing fluid :)
    Probable Cause

    The probable cause of the accident was the inability to rotate the aircraft once Vr had been achieved, this in turn was caused by the accretion of water in the hinge of the left-hand elevator shortly before pushback which froze in the prevailing meteorological conditions during the extended taxi to the threshold of Runway 10.

    As the aircraft was unflyable, the crew then attempted to abort the takeoff at a speed substantially above Vr. In spite of maximum braking and reverse thrust, insufficient runway distance was available and the aircraft overran the runway, deviated to the left and impacted structures in the airport's cargo terminal.

    :eek:

    In Cavan there was a great fire / Judge McCarthy was sent to inquire / It would be a shame / If the nuns were to blame / So it had to be caused by a wire.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 26,209 ✭✭✭✭Strumms


    If temps were that low, hope he was using holy de-icing fluid :)



    :eek:

    Be more practical too, bless the four trucks and back inside for a fry.


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  • Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 3,315 ✭✭✭nthclare


    Pat Dunne wrote: »
    They should also abandon the ridiculous tradition of naming their planes after obscure religious figures.
    The Saints and Scholars argument doesn’t hold up as they have never named a craft after someone who was just a mere Scholar.

    Name the next one after Michael Nugent :)


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 26,209 ✭✭✭✭Strumms


    nthclare wrote: »
    Name the next one after Michael Nugent :)

    The St Michael Nugent


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,749 ✭✭✭Smiles35


    I like all the little stories people have put in the comments section.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,086 ✭✭✭Nijmegen


    The comments thread in that article is full of gold. No wonder they couldn’t make money on the things cycling them to LHR and Shannon! Although I guess the fares were nicer back in the day, the utilisation didn’t seem all that efficient. A different era.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,663 ✭✭✭john boye


    I see a comment in it from someone who flew on an EI B747 to the Canaries and I've seen pics of them in the past in Tenerife, Did EI often operate them on short-haul sun routes?


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,292 ✭✭✭0lddog


    ( not an answer ) many operators used 747s for runs to the canaries. The infamous accident ( mid 1970s ) at TFN involved two 747s. ( IIRC TFS did not exist at that time )


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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,181 ✭✭✭Davidth88


    Nijmegen wrote: »
    The comments thread in that article is full of gold. No wonder they couldn’t make money on the things cycling them to LHR and Shannon! Although I guess the fares were nicer back in the day, the utilisation didn’t seem all that efficient. A different era.

    Hmm Being a spotter from LHR back in the late 70s and 80s I don't recall seeing the 747 except just before Christmas when T1 would have more EI aircraft than you could shake a big stick at.

    EI BAC 111 , and 737-200 were the norm the former disappeared of course.

    Later you had the odd Shorts SD ( flying bread boxes as we called them )


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,454 ✭✭✭tc20


    0lddog wrote: »
    Pat, you gave me the idea to do a little search

    First up from the search engine

    https://ifiplayer.ie/radharc-blessing-the-aer-lingus-fleet/

    :)

    @ 0lddog, many thanks for posting this -my dad worked in AL (Tech Stores) from '46 to the early 80s. I thought I might even have spotted him in the Radharc doc but he mustn't have been on that day. Seeing the maintenance boys n their white boiler suits brings me back - I recall my dad having a few of them and the heavy white shop coats.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,474 ✭✭✭jippo nolan


    tc20 wrote: »
    @ 0lddog, many thanks for posting this -my dad worked in AL (Tech Stores) from '46 to the early 80s. I thought I might even have spotted him in the Radharc doc but he mustn't have been on that day. Seeing the maintenance boys n their white boiler suits brings me back - I recall my dad having a few of them and the heavy white shop coats.

    If he worked in tech stores, I probably knew him!


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,454 ✭✭✭tc20


    If he worked in tech stores, I probably knew him!

    PM sent


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,907 ✭✭✭Captain_Crash


    tc20 wrote: »
    Seeing the maintenance boys n their white boiler suits brings me back.


    Haha blast from the past!! I remember being a kid and running a round in one of my dads ones, a whole 6yo me could prob have fit into the arm of one of those bad boys!! Wouldn't surprise me if he still had a couple of them in his garage


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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,292 ✭✭✭0lddog


    tc20 wrote: »
    ...my dad worked in AL (Tech Stores) from '46 to the early 80s.....
    If he worked in tech stores, I probably knew him!


    Thanks to Samantha Doyle's work, I stumbled across

    while looking for a YT clip so thought I'd tag onto the end of this rather old thread ( seeing as its AL in the past )

    ( it is part 1 of 4 parts on YT )


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 392 ✭✭Skyknight


    john boye wrote: »
    I see a comment in it from someone who flew on an EI B747 to the Canaries and I've seen pics of them in the past in Tenerife, Did EI often operate them on short-haul sun routes?




    EI-BED was leased to Air Jamaica from November '86 to April '87
    tc20 wrote: »
    @ 0lddog, many thanks for posting this -my dad worked in AL (Tech Stores) from '46 to the early 80s. I thought I might even have spotted him in the Radharc doc but he mustn't have been on that day. Seeing the maintenance boys n their white boiler suits brings me back - I recall my dad having a few of them and the heavy white shop coats.

    I think the boiler suits came in Blue as well?;) :D


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,160 ✭✭✭EchoIndia


    I can recall IT Flights by the 747s to Las Palmas and Faro and to places like Lourdes on occasion too. If you search for images on-line they did appear at other European airports from time to time.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 150 ✭✭Astral Nav


    Fond memories, my first ever flight to SNN on one and my first ever transatlantic flight some years later. Towards their last few years they got quite busy in the Summer and all three would arrive in DUB an hour or so apart.
    The Simple flying article is a bit... too simple. ASJ and ASI both ended up in Roswell NM (yes, that Roswell), at least one was apparently used as a static special forces/police trainer and then it seems both went to soft drinks cans. Sad that a cockpit couldn’t have been preserved.

    They had the original JT9D engines, never upgraded. Very limited on a hot day. Noise compliance was achieved by gliding over the known noise measurement sites and having to descend in order to accelerate to flap retraction speed was not unknown.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 907 ✭✭✭HTCOne


    Astral Nav wrote: »

    They had the original JT9D engines, never upgraded. Very limited on a hot day. Noise compliance was achieved by gliding over the known noise measurement sites and having to descend in order to accelerate to flap retraction speed was not unknown.

    I'm told if their NAT track started at one of the Oceanic points nearest to Shannon they would often have hold prior to entering Oceanic airspace in order to climb to their assigned cruising level. Notoriously underpowered.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,160 ✭✭✭EchoIndia


    HTCOne wrote: »
    I'm told if their NAT track started at one of the Oceanic points nearest to Shannon they would often have hold prior to entering Oceanic airspace in order to climb to their assigned cruising level. Notoriously underpowered.


    Never heard that happen but maybe it did occur. At the other end of the scale I did hear an Aer Lingus 747 at FL410 at the end of its eastbound oceanic crossing. I also flew on a Virgin -100 from LGW to Orlando which was up at FL390 as it flew down the US East Coast.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,907 ✭✭✭Comhrá


    An atc neighbour of mine once told me the EI 747s out of Shannon would often struggle to make FL 330 by 53n 15w and they would sometimes request a dog-leg to make their assigned level at the oceanic entry point.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 907 ✭✭✭HTCOne


    There's a story I read elsewhere from a former Swanwick controller of having one in his sector bringing troops from Dublin to Lebannon. It was struggling through FL280 as he handed it off to the French.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,160 ✭✭✭EchoIndia


    HTCOne wrote: »
    There's a story I read elsewhere from a former Swanwick controller of having one in his sector bringing troops from Dublin to Lebannon. It was struggling through FL280 as he handed it off to the French.


    That rings a bell. I have my notes of that somewhere, flight number might have been EI4941 and IIRC on climbout from Dublin they estimated to make about FL190 by WAL and 290 by Dover. Pre-Swanwick, LATCC was at West Drayton, of course.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,846 ✭✭✭NickNickleby


    Not sure how relevant to the thread this is, but the thread title immediately triggered a memory...


    I somehow learned that Aer Lingus were taking delivery of a 747, so on the appointed day I cycled out to the airport, abandoned my wreck of a bicycle somewhere and went up on the roof of one of the buildings to watch it come in. I was a young teenager at the time, but cannot say what year it was. But I was thrilled to bits. Many years later, I got the opportunity to explore one in the hangar when all the seats were out. It felt like being in a football stadium.

    despite the above, I'm in no way an aviation buff. Just got lucky twice , :)


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