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Sunday, 20 May 2012

Our aircraft (11)

I have this urge to record all kinds of information. Whether this is a useful habit remains to be seen but sometimes it comes in handy. In this post, and the previous ones with the same title, I make use of a list keeping track of all the aircraft types my wife and I ever flew in. Hence the plural title of these posts: our aircraft. During my professional life I also recorded the number of miles we/I flew. The first nine posts in this series are in Dutch but I am sure you'll understand the pictures. I am now coming close to the end of this series. This one and the next and that's it.


In 1995 I was still very much involved in attracting customers to KLM's Cargo Service Center. And keeping them of course. If my memory serves me right, I went to Minneapolis on my way to a Canadian manufacturer of aircraft engines in Winnipeg. (I should have kept track of the purpose of my trips as well!)
June 6, 1995, McDonnell Douglas MD11, KL, SPL/MSP, 4,155/406,515 miles
Photo ex fascination-aviation
Those were not holiday trips. The next day after the meeting I left Winnipeg for Montreal and then onwards to Amsterdam making this a trip of approx. 48 hours in total.
June 7, 1995, Airbus A320, AC, YWG/YUL, 1,120/408,029 miles
Photo ex thestar
The marketing guys of McDonnell Douglas operate just like those working for car manufacturers. They start out with a small (and cheapish?) aircraft such as the DC9-10 (length 32 metres, approx. 90 passengers). And over the years the models are growing and growing until you end up with the MD-90 below (length 46 metres, approx. 150 passengers).
Sept. 8, 1995, McDonnell Douglas MD-90, AA, CHI/YUL, 737/416,298 miles
Photo ex markabbottphotos
The last product developed by no longer existing Dutch aircraft manufacturer Fokker, is the F70. It is capable of carrying some 80 passengers and KLM Cityhopper is the main operator of this type.
Feb. 22, 1997, Fokker F70, KLC, SPL/HAM, 236/430,898 miles
Photo ex KLM
CHI = Chicago
HAM = Hamburg
MSP = Minneapolis
SPL = Schiphol
YUL = Montreal
YWG = Winnipeg


The captions mention the date of my/our first flight with that particular aircraft type, the aircraft type, the airline prefix, the route and the distance and the total number of miles u/i this flight. Unless otherwise mentioned, the picture shows an aircraft of the carrier with which we/I travelled.
To be continued.
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4 comments:

  1. The Hamers21 May 2012 at 10:08

    Nice to see a F70 in your list! Allthough i didn't fly as much miles in it as you did, I actualy made some landings with it. I have to be honest: they were all in the full motion simulator. But as I remember it were pretty nice landings ;-)

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  2. Peter21 May 2012 at 10:21

    @The Hamers,
    If those landings were not so pretty nice, you wouldn't (or even could not) remember them... ;-)

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  3. Hans from Vienna21 May 2012 at 22:42

    Of that small (and no way cheapish)DC-9 series we (KLM) had a couple of DC-9-15 RC, the rapid-change version, which operated in Europe with cargo during night. It had a reinforced floor, a large cargo side door and passenger seats as well as the gally were on removeable pallets. Cargo people, anyhow being of a rougher type made the interior of the a/c suffer, which of course was detremental to the glossy luxerious look for the pax version. Therefore KLM abstained from ordering this concept in follo-up orders. However the idea was picked up in theories for future a/p handling by loading pax already in the terminal on removable pallets to be ferried to the a/c and thus reduce ground time.

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  4. Unknown28 January 2013 at 09:24

    One local airline here still flies Fokker planes. Must find out which Fokker model it is.
    Those DC-10's met with fate many times. I didn't like them either, had several Garuda flights with them. Lucky they were only short ones. Noisy things and then to know many of them dropped from the sky.
    I really like planes too, maybe one day will do a blog on the ones I have boarded.

    ReplyDelete

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