Wednesday, January 1, 2014

New Year flashback


Welcome to 2014! It seems to be traditional, at the opening of each new year, to look back on the year just past. That seems a bit prosaic, and since it's easy enough to do just by clicking through the index to the right, I offer instead this look back to LAX a quarter century ago.

These snaps were taken from the old tower at the east end of the terminal complex. Circa 1988, the current tower is still several years in the future. DA brought these in recently, and graciously has allowed me to share them here.







9 comments:

  1. Wonderful pictures, send thanks to DA! Can you tell us what goes on in the old tower these days?

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    1. The old tower cab is now used as a conference room, which would seem to be counter-productive. United Airlines ramp control is on one of the upper floors, and I think there are still various airport administrative offices there.

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  2. VARIG, Panam, Eastern, Air America (in Total Air colors), Flying Tiger Line, those where the days.
    I think the red T-tail at ( I think ) T1 in pic PDA1200883.JPG belongs to a USAir Bae-146 .
    I cannot make out the small propeller jet in front of the Air America Tristar.
    I learned from picture PDA1200881 that SouthWest has been operating at LAX for at least a quarter of a century.
    Apparently Panam operated at T2 while it was still under construction.
    I just had to compare the Delta Airlines billboard on their hangar on pic PDA1200879 with the present view using Google maps! The hangar is still there, but the billboard is not.
    Happy New Year Captainvector!
    --Filip


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    1. I think the turboprop you mention is an EMB-110. I can't confirm the type of the USAir jet; it could indeed be a Bae-146, in which case it was acquired from the merger with PSA. However, based on the angle of the lower dorsal fin, I think it more likely that it is actually a Fokker 100.

      A whole bunch of extinct (at LAX, anyway) aircraft! We don't see Bandeirantes, Fokkers, Bacjets/Avros, or Tristars anymore.

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  3. Ah, there are some airplanes I can actually recognize!

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    1. Whadya talkin about?!? I've shown you the DC-3 pix before!

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  4. Thanks for the retro look back--good idea for a post!

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  5. I think I see a United 747-SP, a really interesting looking jet. I happened to see one I think that was operated by Iran Air in Beijing not too long ago.

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  6. Oh and it's sad not seeing Singapore 747's passenger jets at LAX (or anywhere). Given the year, it's probably the 743 "Big Top", definitely have taken that a couple of times as a kid.

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