Wednesday, October 23, 2013

My First Plane Picture - EVER - Air Pacific BAC1-11

The year is 1979, and this is my first ever picture I took of an aircraft.

I took these pictures while on a family holiday to Fiji.

Seen here is Air Pacific's BAC1-11 (sorry not sure on the rego) which operated to Auckland from Suva on Saturday's. These machines were pretty dam noisy, but I enjoyed the ride anyway, and this is where my interest for airplanes really started.

The top photo was taken at Suva, just before I boarded the flight which for today was operating SUV-TBU-AKL.
 As we approached TBU (Tonga) the Captain advised that due low cloud and a passing thunderstorm we might not be able to land today in TBU and might have to divert back to SUV for fuel. Well this was the case and after 2 approaches we diverted back to SUV.
We then flew SUV-AKL non-stop later that day in the same aircraft.

The second photo is out the window looking east en-route SUV-TBU about 20 minutes into the flight.

(photos have been scanned from slides)

Air Pacific BAC1-11
Suva, Fiji - 1979

Air Pacific BAC1-11
En-Route Suva - Tonga
1979

2 comments:

Maurice said...

Nice to see your first ever plane picture! I know that the BAC111 and VC10 (BOAC) were the noisiest aircraft to regularly visit Auckland during that era but was the 111 reasonably quiet inside, say during cruise?
Keep up the good work! I appreciate it all.

Anonymous said...

I grew up in Blockhouse Bay in Auckland and was in my last year of primary school in 1979. I can remember the Air Pacific 1-11's would fly over my family home outbound to Fiji at about 0600. The noise was phenomenal and could continue to be heard well after the plane could no longer be seen. Thanks for the memories.