Flight of a British Airtours 707

British Airtours
Created with MAGIX Video deluxe 2015 Plus

[@johnchallen4454]

What a wonderful walk down memory lane. This flight was 17 Jul 1975. The Captain was Peter McKeown, FO Ken Hays and yours truly with the 70's sideburns! In the cabin was Terry Cooper, looking like "Magnum, PI" and the lady giving the oxygen demo was Jan Vice. The ground engineer was "Pincher" Martin". As I remember, this was from a CAA training film called "Fit to fly" - I have not seen the finished article until now - 43 years later! Sadly, Peter and "Pincher" are no longer with us and I have lost touch with Ken but I imagine he is still around. As co-piots in BEA. later British Airtours, we were licensed to sit in both the right hand seat and the FE's station, for which we had a Flt Engineer's licence. Fun days.

[@iloveanimals1662]

John Challen Aahhh that's lovely xx

[@torgeirbrandsnes1916]

What aircraft did you fly after the 707? Why is the F/E the Autothorttle? Can not the PM take care of that? I see that on all aircraft with a F/E he bends over like an eal to set the power. Favorite aircraft? Did you only fly for airtours or did you also fly on BAs network? I am from Norway and Scanair was the charter airline for SAS. If they flew SAS aircraft the used SAS pilots and their own AH. Stay safe, and be safe!

[@johnchallen4454]

@@torgeirbrandsnes1916 Hi Torgeir, The B707 on the British register was licensed for two pilots and a Flt Engineer. As BEA Airtours, our previous aircraft was the Comet 4B which although it had a full engineer’s station only required three pilots. Consequently Airtours copilots had to hold Flt engineer’s licence as well as a pilot licence. So, as you rightly surmise, as copilot, or P2 or PM, you handled the throttles for a Captain’s take off. I flew BEA Airtours, subsequently British Airtours until its demise on 31st March 1988. After the B707/436, ex BOAC aircraft, we received two brand new L1011 Lockheed TriStar -200 series with 393 seat charter config. I joined BEA in December 1967 and flew Vickers Vanguard before transiting to Comet 4B with BEA Airtours based at LGW. I flew LGW B737-236 for my command then back to my favourite, the L1011. After 1st April 1988, the L1011s were painted in the New Caledonian Airways colours. I then flew DC10-30 aircraft before returning to LHR and mainline on B747-436. But by then the B744 was being flown from LGW so I volunteered for LGW based operations. In my nearly 35 year career, compulsory retirement at 55, I spent 25 at LGW. Bye for now. John

[@feargaloleary8883]

I forgot all about B. Airtours. What a lovely old kite...... In 1979 I flew LGW to Rhodes on this Captained by a Mr Sean Rossiter, who let me onto the flight deck once at cruising altitude. Little did I know at the time that i'd soon be working on B707's 737-200's DC8's and BAC1-11's as a hangar mech apprentice. Happy days!

[@johnchallen4454]

@@feargaloleary8883 Hi Feargal, lovely to hear your recollections. I have searched my logbook from 1972 To 1981 when I flew the B707-436s with BEA Airtours and British Airtours but can find no mention of Capt Rossiter. It is possible that the aircraft and crew were chartered in from Monarch, BCal or even BA. Common practice to plug the gap if an aircraft was out for maintenance. Did you do your mechanics at LGW? I eventually got my command on B737-236 at LGW in 1983. We may have met! Take care. Kind regards, John

[@richardschindler8822]

Great video. Brings me back to my flying days as a corporate pilot. How I loved those noisy, smokey 707’s. They were the best.

[@johnchallen4454]

Hi Julian, Yes indeed. Ken and I would be teamed up together. My last flight with Ken was 20/21 Feb 1976. Ken was doing observation. The flight was to Palma with an enforced night stop. Inbound to Palma, our standby horizon failed. This was a “no go” item on B707. Iberia stepped up to the plate with a pool spare but our airplane was not standard Boeing. The instrument was supplied by Ferranti, , a British company and had different connectors. Consequently, we had to nightstop and await a spare from our engineering stores. Our B707-436s were ex BOAC, in this case reg number G-APFI. Thanks for the recall.

[@fanofjets]

I love the Boeing 707! Nice to see this footage of the earlier -400 series. My last two Boeing 707 flights were on -336C, G-AVPB, and -336B, G-AXXY. The attention of the crew (along with a free mini-bottle of wine) on those charter flights more than made up for the lack of in-flight entertainment. Very fond memories!

[@cesarioj.f.g.7959]

Absolutely Charming

[@ronparrish6666]

I flew on a Donaldson airlines to Toronto in the early 70,s I'm pretty sure I saw some British airtours 707 and BOAC vc10,s there they must have been doing some charters remember people on the 707 clapping when the 707 got off the runway not when landing

[@wokeupandsmellthecoffee214]

I worked for BA aged 16 in 1977 and around 1978 I flew LPL-LGW on a positioning flight on KT B707 G-APFF, I was the only pax.

[@flyboy747uk]

My first ever flight was on a British Airtours 707 to Palma Majorca in the mid 1970's

[@rodjamesranger7537]

Btours ! love it.

[@Mark_Ocain]

Wow, they operated these on such short routes. They can't have made a great deal of money on a trip to Vienna using this equipment. The Conways were not exactly as efficient as the JT3D either.

[@johnchallen4454]

Hi Mark, we were a charter company so, whilst the fuel burn was high, the aircraft were financially written down and I guess the price paid by the charterer covered all our operating costs and a small profit. Traditionally a larger slice of profit came from duty free sales on board to our 189 pax. Cheers, John

[@lenkapenka6976]

What year was this? Going by the Vehicle Registration 'N' I assume around 1973-1975?

[@britishairtours]

I do not have the video now, Pete McKeown, the skipper featured, lent it to me. By deduction British Airtours was formed when BA when was formed on 1st April 1974 so any time after that I guess.

[@lenkapenka6976]

+britishairtours Thanks, I reckon also by the clothes fashion of the passengers and vehicles that we are looking at sometime early 1975 onwards!

[@minair99t]

Peter retired in November 1975 so that narrows the date down a bit.