Post by viscount on Sept 5, 2011 21:11:57 GMT 1
While looking through 'Daily Post' microfilm held by the Liverpool City Records Office (currently closed until 2013 for refurbishment, with a temporary library room set up in the Museum) for something else, found this piece of negativity in an article about the size, cost and airport rebuilding necessary to introduce the aircraft, on the day of the first scheduled passenger service by Boeing 747 of Pan Am in Heathrow. After the comments about Liverpool, the article went on to explore the cost to BOAC ahead of their introduction of the type and their dispute with the pilot's union over flying the aircraft.
Mind you, I think that reflected the opinion of the times. It would still be 3 years before the Boeing 747 regularly appeared at Manchester. However, nine years later the doubters were proved wrong, with two and even three being at Liverpool Airport together - a some even leaving direct transatlantic! How the sceptics, like the Daly Post reporter, were to be proved so wrong.
I see history repeating itself with the Airbus A.380, and feel that in a further seven or eight years we will see one at Liverpool John Lennon, around ten years or so after the first services into London. Time will tell.
Problems of the Jumbo and Landing at Speke
from: The Liverpool Daily Post, 12th January, 1970
from: The Liverpool Daily Post, 12th January, 1970
".......................Outside of London, Manchester willl be the next of Britain's Airports to accommodate the Boeing 747.
But if fog were to close Manchester, as it is prone to do, and the Jumbo was diverted to Liverpool it would only just make it. It might get down, on the 7,500 foot runway at Speke, but take-off would be a far different proposition because of the weight and the amount of fuel it have to carry. Trying to get 400 passengers through the Speke terminal would be like trying to squeeze the proverbial quart into a pint pot. ................"
But if fog were to close Manchester, as it is prone to do, and the Jumbo was diverted to Liverpool it would only just make it. It might get down, on the 7,500 foot runway at Speke, but take-off would be a far different proposition because of the weight and the amount of fuel it have to carry. Trying to get 400 passengers through the Speke terminal would be like trying to squeeze the proverbial quart into a pint pot. ................"
Mind you, I think that reflected the opinion of the times. It would still be 3 years before the Boeing 747 regularly appeared at Manchester. However, nine years later the doubters were proved wrong, with two and even three being at Liverpool Airport together - a some even leaving direct transatlantic! How the sceptics, like the Daly Post reporter, were to be proved so wrong.
I see history repeating itself with the Airbus A.380, and feel that in a further seven or eight years we will see one at Liverpool John Lennon, around ten years or so after the first services into London. Time will tell.
