Dublin Airport Historical Movements

Air Malta's first jet equipment was a pair of Boeing 720Bs leased from Pakistan International and these commenced a weekly charter series, still with Pakistani registrations until they were purchased by Air Malta a few years later. Aviaco's favoured equipment on its Dublin charter flights was the DC-8 series 50, several of which the company had inherited from Iberia.   The two former French Skyraiders which had arrived in March took to the air again on the 4th on the next leg of their flight to the USA, departing one after the other in noisy fashion from runway 35, destination Reykjavik.  Two French-operated aircraft arrived to be based for survey duties; one was the IGN's brand-new Super King Air F-GALP, while a lot more interesting was DC-3 F-OCUY of Hemet Exploration.  The latter was to be lost four years later when it disappeared south of Mallorca on 21 April 1981 with the loss of the four persons on board.  By then it was registered as F-BJBO.  Al...

From this month on my logs are more detailed so I'll be able to include flight numbers etc. for more visitors.  The main event of the month was the Ireland-France rugby match on 19 March, and this produced a good variety of operators, most of which were not regularly seen at Dublin.  Star item was the MEA Boeing 720B, some of that carrier's fleet being based at Paris during one of the many upheavals in Lebanon's recent history.  Of the British charter carriers, Dan-Air appeared in some strength, with two Comets visiting in addition to BAC 1-11s.  A soccer international against France at the end of the month saw several French visitors, with the Air France 747-100 a first visit of the type with that airline. The two ex-French Skyraiders rank as the most interesting ever visitors to Dublin, as far as I am concerned.  From memory, they pitched up on the Dublin frequency after diverting from Shannon in bad weather, and when they announced themselves to ATC as two ...

Lufthansa sent in a couple of their less-common 727-100s.  Their service operated via Manchester on Saturdays and Sundays.   Similarly SAS used two of their short DC-9s, which were a rare sight in Dublin.  The French Noratlas was on one of their occasional navigation training flights - always a stirring sight and sound. The appearance of executive Convair 580 N76Y necessitated a visit after I heard "Convair 76 Yankee" on the radio that Sunday afternoon! 4 February G-AZGG       King Air 90 6 February D-ABIU         Boeing 727-30C             Lufthansa G-ATPE        HS125 9 February F-BXPT        Learjet 23 17 February G-BEJN         RC690 18 February SE-DBS        DC-9-21       ...

Another month of slim enough pickings, but some nice visitors nonetheless.  Gulfstream C-FNOR was a regular visitor; I think owners Noranda had an interest in Tara mines.  N64696 was an ex-United 720 which still wore that carrier's basic (old) livery.  This was a re-registration from OO-VGM of Delta Air Transport. It was one of many early Boeings to linger around the Aer Lingus hangars at Dublin for months at a time.  It eventually lasted a lot longer than most of the type, as it ended up as an instructional airframe at the Geo T Baker School beside Miami Airport.  It was broken up there in 2003. The Iberia DC-8 freighter was operating possibly the first of a series of scheduled cargo flights.  These used to arrive on a Saturday afternoon, with EC-BMV operating all flights in the series.  British Airways VC10 G-ARVM was used largely for crew training and while it mostly appeared at Shannon, on occasion Dublin or Cork were used for circuit work as w...

My records for these two months are few, so I am combining them in one post.  The star sighting for me was the French Navy C-47 on 15 December, which took me by surprise as it made an early left turn out off runway 24 towards Killiney and Vartry.  I had not known it was in and it was the first time I had seen one of these silver, white and dayglo machines.  Thankfully several more would visit before their retirement in the mid-1980s.  Aircraft "23" was originally 17223 of the US Navy, delivered in 1944.  After disposal by the French it was bought by Basler for their BT-67 turboprop programme.  As N96BF, on 16 December 1994 it crashed on takeoff at Lobito, Central African Rep. and was destroyed. BCAL 707 G-AYSI was a rare enough vistor to Dublin. This partic u lar machine was later sold to TAMPA Colombia as HK-2401-X but was destroyed when it crashed after an engine failure on take-off at Medellin on December 14, 1983. 17 November OO-SKF  ...

This month was again enlivened by some movements which would have used Shannon but for a fuellers' dispute there.  Three different Hercules appeared in my log - two Saudi C-130s and Southern Air's L-100 N9232R.  The two Dan-Air 1-11s were operating one-off charters but would in due course become regulars when the airline began a scheduled service from Gatwick.   SFERMA Marquis F-BLLR was a Beech Baron converted to Astazou turboprop power; fourteen of these conversions were produced and in fact this example (or at least its fuselage) survives as a museum exhibit at Montelimar.  British Midland 707 G-AYBJ operated a charter for Quebecair.  BMA's 707s spent most of their careers out on lease and wore many different liveries.  US Navy Convair 141009 on the 25th was visiting in connection with the presence in Dublin Port of the USS Mount Whitney.  A visit to the vessel found two Bell UH-1Ns on board: serials 159191 and 159193. 2 October D-ABEU...