N707JT & Braniff
John Travolta owns a Boeing 707-138B. It’s a gorgeous airplane painted in QANTAS colors, the airline that ordered and operated the very airplane he owns.
What’s more interesting, to me, is that this airplane also was owned by Braniff International. Braniff bought it and used it to operate US Armed Forces MAC flights to Southeast Asia. The Boeing 707-138 was one of the many semi-custom airplanes Boeing built for special needs customers. In QANTAS’ case, they needed range above anything else and Boeing shortened the fuselage of their standard 707 by 10 feet thereby reducing the weight and increasing the range.
Braniff also was a Boeing “special needs” customer. They were the only airline to operate the Boeing 707-227 which basically combined the more powerful engines of a the 707-320 “Intercontinental” with the fuselage and wing of the 707-120. Braniff operated flights to several high altitude airports in South America and used these “custom” jets to start jet service there. They were the fastest of all the 707 jets and only 5 were ever built with only 4 being delivered (the first one crashed while on an acceptance flight.)
Oh, Thanks! Really amazing. keep working!
Good Evening, Love the pictures just a little correction to your posting about Braniff Boeing 707-138B fleet operation. The four 707-138Bs added to the fleet were used for domestic, Mexico, Hawaii, and charter operations. They were also used as back up aircraft for the single Boeing 747 which operated from Dallas Love Field to Honolulu. The 138’s were not purchased for the military Pac Mac operation, those flights were operated by a fleet of 9 Boeing 707 327C’s based at Travis AFB near SFO. Cheers, John M President of the LAX Chapter Braniff Clipped B’s FA Retirement Group.
John, you are right and I am wrong about those PAC MAC flights. It was a case of talking about too much 707 at one time. BTW, those -138B’s were the first aircraft my father arranged financing for at the beginning of his career at Braniff. Thanks for your comment and visit again. Greg R.
Good Afternoon FC,
My dad was one of the survivors of the N7071 crash.
I was curious if you have any links to the CAB report or remaining survivors.
I appreciate any help,
Dave Symmank
I have seen such information on the web and I’ll look for it again and forward it to you directly.
I owe you a reply and here is what I’ve found (and you have likely found the same, I suspect):
http://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=19591019-0&lang=en
http://www.aviationexplorer.com/707_facts.htm
(If you scroll down enough, you’ll find a period photo of exactly what N7071 looked like.
I would have sworn that I’ve read a report of that accident online somewhere but when I search today, I don’t see anything resembling what I remember. It’s possible it was once available and now it isn’t. One resource that might be of help is the McDermott Library of the University of Texas at Dallas which houses the History of Aviation Collection. I would be completely unsurprised to learn they had some sort of report in their possession.
Note that the 227s had the more powerful engines. This ended up working against the company in that they were the only airline that had the faster engines and couldnt do a swap out with another carrier for a quick engine change. The 227s would have to remain OTS until the engine could be repaired or for one to be flown in from Dallas for a change out.
Dave Symmank….I am researching the N7071 crash. Would like to contact you w/ info you may have.