a little tribute to what you miss at your home airport due to crjs and erjs. At CRW i miss,....
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Photo © Frank C. Duarte Jr.

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Photo © Michael F. McLaughlin

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Photo © Howard Chaloner

because of


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Photo © Brad Harris
and
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Photo © Jonathan Derden - SPOT THIS!


post what you folks miss, pre RJ days.

I fondly remember Royale's Gulfstream I's IAH-SHV.


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Photo © Thomas Millard


And TX Int'l DC-9's on the same route.


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Photo © Frank C. Duarte Jr.

what is on the routes now?

Hey, where I grew up, I'm thankful for RJs.

We went from having these:

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To these:

MyAviation.net photo: Photo © Stephen W. Sides

MyAviation.net photo: Photo © Stephen W. Sides

All it would take to get those aircraft back is money. If you are willing to pay a lot more and settle for once or twice a day service, they you can probably get that type of service back.

Who wouldn't miss flying on a Metro II in Texas in the summer? Or thrashing through thunderstorms(5 times a day) on Iowa Airways E-110's? And, who couldn't get enough of the moderate turbulence all day long on the PHX-LHU-BHC-SNA-BUR-BHC-LHU-PHX runs on StatesWest's SD360's?

Livin' large at 8,000'!  TC

I have always had a place in my heart for the Fokker F70/100's. Lots of space, you could actually stand up, and an airline stood a fair chance of actually making some money off them. Life goes on I guess.


TF

Ssides, great point, i'm so sick of people that complain about flying Regional "Jets" instead of 737's and MD-80's. They should be made to fly turboprops for a few years and see if they would rather keep those or fly RJ's

and who are you talking to? CRW has had turboprops for years and years. Theyve always been here. and ive flown on 2 of them, and i enjoyed it. Im not including props, their shortened name isnt "RJ".

Apologies in advance for the number of pictures, but the history of Bakersfield's airport is like no other in the country...

No other airport has gone through as many In's and Out's as BFL has.

Pre-deregulation days, these were frequent visitors:

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Photo © Michael Haywood


After 1978's deregulation, those three were out of BFL faster than the starship Enterprise at warp speed. A few small commuter airlines flew to SFO and LAX once in a while, but the airport was a ghost town in the early 1980's. Continental tried BFL-LAS-IAH for about six months during this time, but they pulled out quickly.

In September, 1984, AA started two daily roundtrips BFL-DFW, through SBA:


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Photo © Tim Perkins


AA also tried to provide ORD service, once via LAS, and once via SNA, actually scheduling a 757!!


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Photo © Kazim Alikhan - yyzspotter


Almost immediately, UA returned with 727 and 737 service, initially to SFO, and then extended to DEN via FAT/SBA. Very haphazardly scheduled, for the most part, it never was as popular as AA. They also ended up competing with Continental to DEN, which overextended their California service after taking over the old Frontier:


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Photo © Johan Ljungdahl


I remember the flight schedule at the time showed CO service to Monterey as well as Stockton to Denver. Didn't last long - CO went into bankruptcy, and they pulled out. UA did the same with their jet service. Within a couple of months, BFL-DEN went from four flights a day to zero. Instead, BFL was back to this:

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And the new "commuter" airline division of American provided this:

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It culminated with this:


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Photo © Paul Schoberg


Only to LAX. BFL-SJC was tried (very briefly), but like AA's SJC hub, it was a [email protected]$$ed approach.

In the late 1990's, everything except the MD-80 flights were gone (in terms of jets). Then the second daily flights was cancelled. Then it became seasonal (thanks to the outrageous fog in the central valley of California). Then it was gone altogether. Then AE pulled out completely.

At one point, there were four flights to SFO and five to LAX a day on UA prop jets. Period.

Since the RJ revolution, these have become regular sights at BFL:

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I guess there's life in the old airport yet!! Hopefully other airlines will send more jets to this poor lonesome airport once the new terminal is finished. AE back to DFW, SkyWest to SLC, and United Express could easily manage a couple of flights to DEN.

Let us not forget the Fairchild FH-227's! Oh the joys of the vibrations emanating from those glorious engines, not to mention the noise!

Granted, I like a lot of the older props, too. BTW, originally the 732 was initially developed along the lines of an RJ. However, their launch customer requested at least a 100-seat aircraft. For all intents and purposes, the F70 and F100 are also RJ's, as was their predecessor, the Fokker F-28.

Yep, hopefully service will improve when BFL goes from this


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Photo © Ben Wang


to this

http://www.meadowsfield.com/new_terminal.asp

CRW's terminal is bigger than that thing. Instead of getting a new terminal, we just build concourses, each having about 4 more gates.

Well since I live in PHX, I can't relate to the RJ-only experience. However, I do have the same "things used to be better" feelings.

I remember the days of seeing these land...


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Photo © Frank C. Duarte Jr.

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Photo © Ray Harvey



to constant barrage of....


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Photo © Jeremy Irish/Cactus Wings

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Photo © Matthew Smith



Yes we do have the BA 747 flights, but it's not in HP colors.

You guys are starting to make me cry already. St. Louisans of all people remember the pre-RJ days. Before AA cut our flights, RJs were a minority here...MD-80s and 757s took up the majority of the gates, along with one or two Boeing 763ERs. When AA cut our flights, they not only cut over half, they also replaced the MD-80s with RJs on over half of those routes. The RJ's incompetency with the MD-80 really was felt by us...the cabin is cramped, and of course, it is tiny compared to the MD-80. RJs rose from minority to majority in terms of AA jets here per day. I guess if I want to go even further back to the TWA days throughout the 1990s, before the RJs came along, we got several Boeing 747s a day, quite a few L-1011s, Boeing 727s, MD-80s, 757s, DC-9s, 767s, etc. Literally every gate was occupied at STL 24-7. When the RJs came into the picture at first, they operated very short-legged routes...now AA has put them on medium-haul routes like STL-ATL, STL-CLE, etc. I don't want to have to sit in those cabins for more than an hour. The RJs literally ruined much of my life  

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Photo © Tom Turner

to
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ew. Im not against props. But that particular prop.......

to
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Photo © Tom Turner
nice colors though




Il76TD inspired me.

a little tribute to what you miss at your home airport due to crjs and erjs

I promise I am not starting an a.net style war here.

However, I do need to point out a couple of things.

1. I agree that things used to be great for a lot of airports. Those airports that have recently dropped into the slum of RJs occupying the current places.

2. But how about the airports that could use service? For comair alone, they went from having 20something destinations to 50something and those people now have a choice.

3. For those who used to be serviced by props, there are now a slew of RJs to choose from and thereby generating more seats out of that particular city.

I personally do not mind what aircraft that I am on if I am in the right seat (6'6" high). But even though these aircraft may not have the prestige of a mainline flight, they certianly make a business prosper.

And for those who think that they got screwed by getting RJ service...think again. Even those who schedule flights arent that stupid. You get the aircraft that provides the best generated revenue and you build from there. Not the other way around.

XJR

very true what you said XJR, (read your e-mail). You make good points. MAny cities were helped by the introduction of RJ's. However, even without RJ's these destinations that now have a (choice) would have still gotten service if an airline wanted to give them service. Turboprops would have filled the role.

Some destinations are very small and may have service to a close hub, but nothing out of a turboprops range. nothing is flying fay-Dfw or anything like that.

Or CRW-DEN ( wouldnt hold my breath for long on that one though).

tiny destinations that only have 1 or 2 destinations would have gotten them anyway.

Hts never had mainline. Always had props to ATL and CLT and PIT. when rj's came they got fewer flights to ATL. and the same to CLT and PIT. So for some airports, its like getting mainline, reducing frequency.

I'm with you Thrust.

Miss seeing all the MD-80, 757s, and occasional 767 in STL when I'm up there. It was great seeing them in TWA livery, AA is still great considering what I see now. A great big airport with a couple MD-80's, 5 RJ's, and 40 unused, dark gates.....

Moman

i flew there when it was bustling with twa. and compared to that, its very sad to see now.

A slightly less crowded ORD! 

I remember quite distinctly....

Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Now if they'd just cut back on the cramped little buggers they call "regional jets" which aren't really regional the way they are used....

For me, is the same.

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Photo © Miguel Snoep
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Photo © Miguel Snoep


The props for me will be the best, specially the FOKKER50!!!! 

Fokker50

those things dont seem to do cargo jstice where i live. (f-27) very loud and slow. as far as props go, i like the DO 328.

Slight correction KCRWflyer, HTS did have mainline service.
USAir to CLT and PIT. On and off at various times.
I flew on the short lived mainline HTS-CLT-MCO in Feb90.
The F-28 gave me the creeps, and I love ALL airplanes! I arrived in one piece, so I can't complain, but the poor thing sounded like she was going to shake herself into pieces.

As a spotter I certainly miss all the mainline activity that used to be here at BHM. Since 727's, F100's, L1011's have been retired, there's less variety from that perspective. But XJR said it best, the airline is scheduling equipment that is most conducive to making money. Believe me, airline management studies the O & D figures from each city and determines the best equipment to use. If it weren't for RJ's then here in BHM we certainly wouldn't have nonstops to MSP, DEN, CLE and EWR for starters. There may be other routes as well but those certainly wouldn't be in existence.

airlines are using RJ's due to profitabitliy. Im talking from a moemorabilic and mental prespective. The DC-9 is like my concorde. I truly. Whe boardings were hige, theyed bring in an MD 80 and i still wanted the DC-9. Nothing can match the roar that thing made as it soared over my rooftop at 2,000 ft.

very touchy subject for me

Have we forgotton?


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Photo © Thomas Sczepkowski

I realize that some airports like Abilene, TX went from turbo props to RJs. However, other cities such as ICT went from 727-200s to Saab 340 & ATR 42s. AA switched to Eagle turboprops for 18 months in Wichita in order to replace the union ticket counter, and gate agents with lower paying AEagle employees.
Today, only 5 daily flights out of Wichita are narrow bodies, the rest are pencil jets. However, the cargo airlines operate 727-200s and 757s into Wichita daily.
In Wichita, American went from these:

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Photo © Frank C. Duarte Jr.

to these

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Photo © Tim Perkins

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Photo © Paul Spijkers