Personal Golden Jubilee

[atuk]

Yes folks, fifty years ago I became an plane spotter at Glasgow Airport. Living under the flight path in Linwood and attending the John Neilson High School which had many school clubs I joined two of my friends and made regular journeys to Glasgow Airport by bus or bike to view aircraft from the spectators terrace. Dan Air Comets, 1-11s, 707s; Donaldson 707s; Britannia Airways 737s; British Caledonian 1-11s; Court Line1-11s, the occasional Monarch Britannia; British Midland 1-11s; all feature in my log together with the overseas DC8 operators Air Spain, Aviaco and Lofleidir, as well as all the scheduled airlines and aircraft! You can tell I’m a charter boy at heart.

Like everyone else I’ve seen huge changes in aircraft types, airlines collapse and new ones formed, the shift with low cost operators eroding much of the traditional inclusive tour charter traffic, the hub and spoke model which works well for some airports but to the detriment of many others, terrorism attacks, the financial crash , the ash cloud and most recently Covid! In many ways it’s a miracle that aviation is continuing given all the economic woes, operational obstacles and Lack of employment security. It really shows that those left in the industry working away like trojans do so through their love of aviation, not just simply a job!

My very first flight was a 1-11 series 200 from GLA-NCL with British Caledonian for my sixteenth birthday. My last flight was a TUI 787 from GLA-PMi inJune this yearHow things have changed! My flights to celebrate my forthcoming 65th will be with BA,again from GLA hopefully on a Neo.

Now that travel restrictions have been eased I’ve been fortunate to fly from ABZ,EDI and GLA over the past eight months to LPA, LHR, LGW, PMI and look forward next month to GLA-FRA and EDI-MUC in September then GLA-CFU in October. As the old song says “Things can only get better”. I’ll also use that old song for myself which is appropriate for my work in the opposition airport at check in and the gates “I’m still standing” and hopefully will be doing so for some time to come.

[bill]

Good post Ian. My first flight was a BEA Trident 1 down to LHR en route to Turin via a BEA Trident 2, circa 1972. Done the return on Alitalia DC-9 to LHR then a Trident 3 back up to GLA. From then I too was hooked as a spotter. One of the Tridents had the backwards facing leather seats and I remember slipping out of them during take off.