Nice article on the history of the Aer Lingus B747s

Comhrá · 03-09-2019 8:49pm #1

What Happened To Aer Lingus’ Boeing 747 Fleet?

by
Joanna Bailey
September 3, 2019

https://simpleflying.com/aer-lingus-boeing-747/

Blut2 · 03-09-2019 11:20pm

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

cson · 03-09-2019 11:23pm

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

kevinandrew · 03-09-2019 11:42pm

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.

Pat Dunne · 04-09-2019 9:15am

kevinandrew wrote: »

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.

L1011 · 04-09-2019 9:21am

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

Captain_Crash · 04-09-2019 9:33am

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!

Locker10a · 04-09-2019 9:37am

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

Hotblack Desiato · 04-09-2019 10:18am

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.

Hotblack Desiato · 04-09-2019 10:32am

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"!

0lddog · 04-09-2019 11:06am

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/

Pat Dunne · 04-09-2019 1:51pm

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

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.

Stovepipe · 04-09-2019 7:13pm

kevinandrew wrote: »

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.

EchoIndia · 05-09-2019 10:16am

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.

Captain_Crash · 05-09-2019 10:21am

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

Comhrá · 05-09-2019 11:05am

Captain_Crash wrote: »

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."

Captain_Crash · 05-09-2019 11:09am

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

goingnowhere · 05-09-2019 12:40pm

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.

Bazzy · 05-09-2019 2:11pm

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

Stovepipe · 05-09-2019 2:21pm

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.

smurfjed · 05-09-2019 3:18pm

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.

Hotblack Desiato · 05-09-2019 5:32pm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PquLUhy6i8U

billy few mates · 05-09-2019 6:51pm

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.

jippo nolan · 05-09-2019 8:47pm

billy few mates wrote: »

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!

Strumms · 06-09-2019 10:41pm

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

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.

Hotblack Desiato · 06-09-2019 11:02pm

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?)

Strumms · 06-09-2019 11:20pm

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

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...

Van.Bosch · 06-09-2019 11:26pm

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?

Hotblack Desiato · 07-09-2019 12:41am

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:

Strumms · 07-09-2019 1:05am

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

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.

nthclare · 07-09-2019 1:17am

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

Strumms · 07-09-2019 1:27am

nthclare wrote: »

Name the next one after Michael Nugent

The St Michael Nugent

Smiles35 · 07-09-2019 2:17pm

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

Nijmegen · 07-09-2019 6:35pm

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.

john boye · 07-09-2019 8:45pm

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?

0lddog · 07-09-2019 10:10pm

( 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 )

Davidth88 · 09-09-2019 3:12pm

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 )

tc20 · 17-09-2019 3:19pm

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.

jippo nolan · 17-09-2019 4:49pm

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!

tc20 · 17-09-2019 4:56pm

jippo nolan wrote: »

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

PM sent

Captain_Crash · 17-09-2019 5:13pm

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

0lddog · 18-04-2021 6:02pm

tc20 wrote: »

...my dad worked in AL (Tech Stores) from '46 to the early 80s.....

jippo nolan wrote: »

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 )

Skyknight · 20-04-2021 12:57pm

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?;)

EchoIndia · 20-04-2021 8:43pm

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.

Astral Nav · 24-04-2021 6:41pm

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.

HTCOne · 24-04-2021 9:19pm

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.

EchoIndia · 24-04-2021 9:26pm

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.

Comhrá · 24-04-2021 9:49pm

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.

HTCOne · 24-04-2021 10:04pm

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.

EchoIndia · 25-04-2021 12:12am

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.

NickNickleby · 25-04-2021 12:40am

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 ,

Nice article on the history of the Aer Lingus B747s

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