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We’ve come across a cache of public-relations photos taken at the Minneapolis debut event for the 747-400 WorldPlane, and have scanned them to display for you here. Enjoy!

Expanding on the article “Convairs to the Rescue” in the June 2019 REFLECTIONS, I used timetables from our online archive to reconstruct the scheduled routings for Southern Metroliners before the merger and Republic Convair 580s for two periods after.

Southern intended to work the Metros hard, with high-frequency / fast-turnaround service from smaller markets into Atlanta and Memphis. SO based most of the fleet in ATL, so the first flights of the day were early outbound runs likely nearly empty.

The 580s needed more time for turnarounds and their higher capacity meant high-frequency service was impractical. Gradually the Convairs replaced a few DC-9 services as well.

The linked Excel spreadsheet has three tabs, with each tab listing the itineraries of ATL/MEM prop operations, sorts them into the order each aircraft worked the schedule with a color-coding key, and displays their arrivals and departures at both Atlanta and Memphis using that color-coding, to help you trace each aircraft’s movement.

Click here to open the file in a separate tab.

Staff at Detroit Metro had an unfortunate incident on August 7, 2000 when a Jetway’s overhead weather door became unfastened from its safeties and rolled down while passengers were disembarking.

The unlucky front-cabin passenger who was knocked to the floor was none other than Irwin Jacobs, takeover artist who had made a run at NWA in 1989 with his comrade Carl Pohlad.

From the Minneapolis StarTribune, Saturday, December 16, 2000:

“It could have killed me… It hit me on the head. I was very fortunate.”

Jacobs, who reportedly is in compensation discussions with Eagan-based Northwest… had nothing negative to say about the response of NWA’s employees. He said he remains a high-mileage frequent flyer on his hometown airline despite being momentarily knocked out in the mishap.

“They were gracious and very concerned,” Jacobs said. “They reacted quite well.”

Northwest spokesman Jon Austin said Jacobs declined immediate medical assistance and later that day caught another Northwest flight from the airport. The company’s report said the whammy left a bump on Jacobs’ head.

“He continues to fly with us extensively,” Austin said.

Click here to open a PDF of the center section of the inaugural issue of Republic’s Scene Magazine, with introductory stories and images about the new airline!

Click on this link to open a printable PDF of this puzzle:

Scroll down for the solution…

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The big event is once again scheduled for mid-October, at the convenient Best Western Plus just south of the Mall of America. Details in the image below – if you’re interested in renting a table to sell aviation-related items, contact Bill Rosenbloom or Bill Marchessault: (612) 386-5080, or bill@airlineposters.com. Hope to see everyone there!

We used a few excerpts from Northwest’s June 1997 WorldTraveler Magazine in our March 2019 REFLECTIONS; here is the full article in PDF form, and both sides of the center photo spread:

Limited space in the print pages of the March 2019 REFLECTIONS meant that we couldn’t physically post some of the great media we hold – but we have plenty of space on this website!

Here are the publicity photos of the WorldPlane that were formerly housed on nwa.com in 2002:

There just weren’t enough pages in the March 2019 REFLECTIONS to show the Hughes Airwest advertising from its timetables to encourage visits to the Fair:

Northwest’s floating junk, brought over from Hong Kong, was quite popular and NWA staff needed to be on board during all show hours to prevent souvenir hunters from absconding with parts of the boat…

Some great outside links to see more about Expo ’74 include:

http://www.spokesman.com/picture-stories/expo-archives/ – a huge photo archive of sharp images from Spokane’s local newspaper

http://www.expomuseum.com/1974/ – includes a big map of the show site and plenty of background information

http://www.historylink.org/File/10791 – the comprehensive history of how the 1974 Fair came to be and how it operated

After a season’s worth of scanning, we can finally say all the Hughes Airwest timetables in the Norris and Na collections have been digitized and loaded to the NWAHC website. There are only two system issues we are still seeking: May 1, 1974 (we have the July 1 revision but not the original issue), and October 31, 1971.

It is possible those two issues exist in the NWAHC Archive, but the indexing teams haven’t reached that part of the stacks yet. We’ll keep our eyes open in Eden Prairie, as well as on eBay…

–Scott