ChrisNH From United States of America, joined Jun 1999, 3804 posts, RR: 2 Posted (7 years 3 weeks 4 days 11 hours ago) and read 2218 times:
AA doesn't serve Manchester, NH (MHT) and likely never will, so these flights on Saturday--an American Airlines 757--are a curiosity:
AA 9737: St. Louis to Manchester, NH
AA 9476: Manchester to Victorville, CA
This week is New Hampshire school vacation week, so we had a handful of unusual and uncommon mainliners carrying charter groups to one place or another. But I cannot fathom why a tour group would be headed out to VCV.
Does anyone from AA have any idea what this was all about?
MaartenV From Netherlands, joined Aug 2005, 271 posts, RR: 0 Reply 1, posted (7 years 3 weeks 4 days 10 hours ago) and read 2203 times:
Quoting ChrisNH (Thread starter):
AA 9737: St. Louis to Manchester, NH
AA 9476: Manchester to Victorville, CA
Are these regular flights numbers, or ferry/charter flight numbers.
Was it possibly an ex-TWA 757, then its probably at the end of its lease and being returned to the owner who will park in the desert until they find a new operator.
That still doesn't explain its stop in MHT though...
ChrisNH From United States of America, joined Jun 1999, 3804 posts, RR: 2 Reply 2, posted (7 years 3 weeks 4 days 9 hours ago) and read 2121 times:
Quoting MaartenV (Reply 1): That still doesn't explain its stop in MHT though...
No, it really doesn't. Someone replied via e-mail that they thought it was a military charter. While I was at MHT that same morning (two hours earlier) I saw a Champion Air 727-200 (N697CA) across the field from the terminal at Wiggins Aviation. In front of the building I saw two buses from which troops were disembarking. This plane, according to FlightAware, went MHT to Oklahoma City (more fuel, obviously) and then on to VCV itself. So I would tend to believe the military charter theory. Maybe some highly secretive desert training...Hmmmm?
MaartenV From Netherlands, joined Aug 2005, 271 posts, RR: 0 Reply 3, posted (7 years 3 weeks 4 days 9 hours ago) and read 2091 times:
I was definitely wrong about the airplane being stored at VCV, since it has left VCV, according to Flightaware, as flight 9738, to Miami, on Saturday.
Since more planes came in during the weekend from airlines like World, ATA, and Champion, I assume that it was indeed a military charter. I don't know if it was highly secretive, because using commercial airports and an airline like American to carry troops to a highly secretive training, wouldn't be the way I'd do it. But I have no knowledge about how the US Army or Air Force work, so I might be totally wrong.
SCXmechanic From United States of America, joined Dec 1999, 534 posts, RR: 1 Reply 4, posted (7 years 3 weeks 4 days 7 hours ago) and read 1953 times:
No secret at all... The national training facility isn't far from VCV and thats where the US sends troops to train for war...
I used to work for an airline that flew in and out of there quite often with both DC-10s and 727s hauling troops in and out. They usually stayed about 2 weeks I think and then we would come back in and take them back to their regular bases..
Positiverate From United States of America, joined May 2005, 1590 posts, RR: 9 Reply 5, posted (7 years 3 weeks 4 days 4 hours ago) and read 1828 times:
Quoting SCXmechanic (Reply 4): No secret at all... The national training facility isn't far from VCV and thats where the US sends troops to train for war...
Not too long ago I flew on a DL 764 from LAS to ATL that was ferried in to LAS from VCV, where they had just dropped off some troops. From what the agent at LAS was telling me it happens fairly often.
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