Right now, I’m not entirely certain which direction this blog will go.  Being an avid fan of the airline business and someone who follows the business daily, I found myself having some opinions.  Being pretty certain that my family no longer wants to hear them, I thought I could write them here.  We’ll see what happens.

I said I was an airline business fan which means I’m not an old aircraft fan or a warbird fan.  Mostly I’m a fan of the business and my interest in commercial aircraft comes second to that.   As you can imagine, this is not a hobby that impresses dates.

On the header of this blog there are 5 different photographs depicting Braniff International aircraft.  Interestingly enough, 3 of those 5 never served Braniff.  One of those that did never served in Braniff livery.  The one on the far left is a photograph of a Braniff DC-10-10 model and working from left to right the remaining aircraft are a concept of the Boeing 2707 SST in Braniff colors, a model of a Braniff L1011, the Concorde in Braniff livery and, finally, the Alexander Calder Braniff DC-8. 

The DC-10, L1011 and B2707 SST never served Braniff.  (Indeed, the B2707 SST never got beyond full size model mockups).  Braniff did operate the Concorde, for a short time, by “sharing” the Concorde with both British Airways and Air France.  The services operated from London and Paris to Dulles Airport (Washington D.C.) and then Braniff flew them with their crews to Dallas.  By the end of the service, tickets on the Concorde from Dallas to Washington D.C. cost a $10 premium over standard first class fares. 

The Calder DC-8 is my favorite Braniff aircraft.  Designed by Alexander Calder, this DC-8 served Latin American routes through the 70’s.  It was only very rarely seen in Dallas and I can only recall seeing it once myself when, I believe, it was substituted onto the DFW-HNL (Honolulu) service in place of the regular 747-100 (N601BN).  I last knew of its fate about 4 or 5 years ago when I discovered it was serving an air cargo airline out of Miami.

If anyone finds this blog outside of my family, I’ll be impressed.  If you do and you like it, please leave a comment. 

Greg

Filed under: Uncategorized by ajax