RStretton

To the Northwest! After a bit of a break I'd like to follow up my recent threads on US classics and their histories with Northwest Airlines. Northwest had begun service in 1926 and during the pre-war years steadily expanded its business to the west coast of the US successfully pioneering operations in frequently awful weather conditions. One of the outcomes of this was the famous red tail which it was believed made it easier to spot downed aircraft in snowy conditions. During WW2 Northwest gained great experience and financial benefit flying routes to the Aleutians and this helped Northwest gain commercial access to the Arctic area postwar when in 1947 they became a true international carrier with the 'great-circle' routes via Alaska to the Orient (routes which were shorter than its rival Pan-Am's Pacific services) flown by DC-4s.

By 1950 Northwest was operating 10 Stratocruisers across the Pacific and a large fleet of DC-3s, DC-4s and Martin 202s (the latter ill fated and short-lived). Due to its Pacific flights Northwest became known as Northwest Orient (though the company's name was never changed). To its credit the airline was heavily involved in the Korean War.

The Strats though magnificent were only marginally profitable and in the early 50s six Super Constellations were ordered to allow the Strats to be moved to US trans-cons. These entered service in 1955 a year after Northwest gained a new President Donald Nyrop. Nyrop had headed the CAB previously and brought an austere view to the airline (for example the headquarters was in a windowless building that had been planned to be a hangar!). He also rationalised the fleet around Douglas types which saw the Connies replaced by new DC-6s and DC-7Cs (the latter also replaced the Strats).

Below are my Northwest pistonliners:









The airline was successful and in 1958 gained access to Florida from Chicago, Minneapolis and Milwaukee. That year Nyrop also uncharacteristically splashed out $67 million on new jets - namely 5 DC-8s, 10 Lockheed Electra's and a lot of spares. Another landmark of 1958 was the final retirement of the venerable DC-3. The first Electra's appeared in mid 1959 and were an immediate success and more were ordered. 1959 was one of the airlines best years with a $5.7 million profit. More was to come though and in 1960 the airline would enter the real jet age. That's what we'll look at next...

Here are some shots of pistons and props:

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Richard

My 1:400 Collection: http://www.diecastaircraftforum.com/modeldatabase/mycollection/collection-11962.html
My 1:600 Scale Model Airport: http://www.imogenia.com/

doug seeley

This is another wicked good post, Richard. I always liked the B 377 Stratocruiser, (an art deco masterpiece?), and especially in the Northwest Orient livery. I did not know Northwest's replacement for it was the DC-7C, and I wonder how that went? Believe that both were powered by turbo compound engines, PWs for the Strat, Wrights for the 7C, and both engine designs were somewhat finicky. And I have to ask how you squeeze so much depth of field out of your images. For me, the worst question in photography is "What camera did you use?", because good technique rules over equipment. I imagine you use a tripod, and an f/stop of around 18? Anyway, good stuff, and greatly appreciated. Waiting on the Pan American World Airways segment of this series... Keep 'em flying, Doug

RStretton

Thanks Doug. Honestly I am no photographic wizard. I take the shots outside so the light is ok and I have a relatively old Panasonic DMC-FZ5 camera which has a macro shooting setting. No tripod is used just my shaky hands and a flash and very little technique! I've been using Picasa to get the lighting correct and crop the photos down.

With NW it seems the L-1049s first replaced the Connies and then the DC-7C's replaced the Connies and remaining Strats. I've heard that both the Strats and DC-7Cs had dreadful engine reliability issues.

Pan Am will be coming soon as I just received a couple of new Pan Am propliners.

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Richard

My 1:400 Collection: http://www.diecastaircraftforum.com/modeldatabase/mycollection/collection-11962.html
My 1:600 Scale Model Airport: http://www.imogenia.com/

tonycutrella

I don't know about the 377s, but my old man flew DC-7Cs. As a kid, I remember I've heard him saying that it was an excellent three-engined plane. I do not think that this deserves any comment. DC-7s went very quickly after the jets entered into service. On the other hand, DC-6 soldiered on for a much longer time well into the wide-body era, even on scheduled operations. This was probabily because of their simpler and more reliable engines.

shandaken

Fantastic pics! Luv me some red tails.

Flight Mode

Great photos. Thanks.

There are few planes as beautiful as a Connie and it looks great in the NW livery.

The reasoning behind the red tail sounds rather ominous.

stevec

Excellent peace of history, and great photo's of what was a superb airline, well
sad it was absorbed into DELTA.

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Stevec...

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RStretton

Thanks everyone. Onto part 2. On July 8th 1960 Northwest truly entered the jet age when their first DC-8 flight took off for the Orient. The DC-8 also introduced the first livery change in 12 years (after an abortive attempt to wear the prop colours on the jet failed). Northwest was obviously unhappy with the DC-8 as no more were ordered and for the rest of the 60s NW became a strict Boeing customer.

Boeing 720s joined the fleet in 1962 and these were pressed into service on flagship routes like MSP-MDW-NY and New York to Hawaii (via MDW, SEA & PDX). To augment and replace the DC-8s 707-320 fanjets were ordered and arrived from 1964 onwards along with the first 727-100s. The 1960s were a time of steady growth and good profits for the airline, which by 1966 had an all jetfleet of 61 aircraft (at a time when many airlines were still using pistonliners). Never the largest of the Trunks by 1968 Northwest was comfortably the sixth largest of the domestic Trunk carriers with 91 aircraft. In fact it was the same size as Western and Continental added together.

In 1967 the livery was tweaked with a pointed arrow at the nose replacing the blunt boomerang but this livery was a stop-gap being replaced by a new bold Northwest Orient scheme in 1969 (previously Orient had always been in small type on the fuselage).

Below are my 1960s Northwest jets. The two 720s wear the two variants of the 1960s scheme. The 707 wears the second variant:





On June 22nd 1970 Northwest's inaugural 747 flight took off and soon Northwest was operating them across the Pacific from all four of its gateways (SEA, SFO, LAX, HNL). It was one of the few airlines to actually have routes that the Jumbo was suitable for.

Nyrop also ordered DC-10s however these were modified specially for Northwest to use the same P&W engines as their 747s and gain extra range. Famously inorder to make it look like he was getting a new model Nyrop insisted that the mark be changed from DC-10-20 to DC-10-40 so as not to be seemingly outdone by the -30 series!

The 70s seemed not to have the damaging affect to NW that it did to both PA and TWA, however Nyrop did have some bruising run-ins with unions which left labour relations at the airline in disarray. This was the biggest issue that Nyrop handed onto his successor, Joseph M. Lapensky, when he retired in 1978 after 24 years in charge. Generally however Northwest was in good shape to take on the de-regulation era.

In the last part of this post we'll take a look at the 1980s and early 90s for Northwest. Below is my 1970s era NW fleet:

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Richard

My 1:400 Collection: http://www.diecastaircraftforum.com/modeldatabase/mycollection/collection-11962.html
My 1:600 Scale Model Airport: http://www.imogenia.com/

dongfanghong

Classic aircraft and painting, and never go out of style. Thanks for sharing!

RStretton

Moving into the deregulation era Northwest weathered the 1980s craziness quite well. Lapinsky didn't last long as CEO and was replaced in 1983 by Steven G. Rothmeier. The company purchased a half share in TWA's computer reservations system and started a feeder network with 4 airlines (including the startup America West).

In 1980 they started transatlantic services to Ireland (from BOS & JFK), Sweden (JFK), Norway (JFK), England (MSP) and Germany (MSP). The next year Boston-London and MSP-Oslo was added. Frankfurt was added in 1984. In the Pacific a Tokyo hub was built up. By the end of 1983 there were 6 trans-pacific US gateways.

The fleet continued to grow with the addition of 20 757s from 1985 the year that the Orient titles were dropped. Then in 1986 the airline grew hugely with the purchase of its major local rival Republic which helped Northwest create fortress hubs at MSP, MEM and DTW.

Northwest was also the launch customer for the new 747-400 with the first aircraft added in 1989. Below is my Northwest 744 with the older 742 and DC-10 (still in their Orient colours):







In 1989 a leveraged buyout saw the airline purchased by financiers who made Frederick Rentschler CEO. A new 'Bowling shoe' scheme was introduced and an attempt to improve the airline's on time image was started. However debt from the takeover, several incidences affecting the airline's image, a US depression and competition in the Pacific from United saw the airline in some serious financial trouble.

Fortunately aggressive cost-cutting and an improvement in the economy and Northwest's service in general helped the airline out of these problems and allied with a pioneering agreement between it and KLM (not to mention KLM's equity stake) Northwest was by 1994 on its way to recovery.

I don't have a lot of aircraft from the 1990s onwards and in fact only have two bowling shoe colours planes - a 757 and a DC-9 (one of many acquired from the Republic merger). Here they are:

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Richard

My 1:400 Collection: http://www.diecastaircraftforum.com/modeldatabase/mycollection/collection-11962.html
My 1:600 Scale Model Airport: http://www.imogenia.com/

tonycutrella

Northwest also swept most of the DC-9-30 phased out by European airlines in the early '90s. They were refurbished and kept in service for another decade or more. I happened to ride on a few of the ex-Alitalia ones out of DTW and MEM when they were already 25 to 30 years old, and that I had already flown in with their Italian registration years before.

fazeman

Northwest Orient display features:

1) AC 707-351C and DW 747-251B
2) Lumberjack of the north
3) Grand Hotel Michigan
4) Chinese Junk and other far east items.

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Steve

Big Al

Another great thread, I have childhood memories of 1970's-80's Northwest Orient 747's and DC-10's operating out of Prestwick to Boston, in fact during one Scottish International Airshow at PIK in the early 80's a 747 captain requested a turn out over Ayr Bay and a low level fly past at break neck speed. Now most of us probably know how fast these things fly in the cruise, but to see it at around 200ft was something special. They moved ops from PIK to GLA in the early 90's using bowling shoe livery DC-10's before giving up on their Scottish connections altogether.

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Let's be having, the British Airways/British, Negus & Negus BAC 1-11-500 in 1:400 please !

RStretton

That's another really nice display Steve. I love the poster and the dragon badge.

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Richard

My 1:400 Collection: http://www.diecastaircraftforum.com/modeldatabase/mycollection/collection-11962.html
My 1:600 Scale Model Airport: http://www.imogenia.com/

fazeman

Now that's what I wanna hear! All those airlines and military aircraft from that period and the Airshow! You had it made Big Al. Kudos to the NWO pilot and for you seeing that jumbo cruising so fast, so low is otherworldly. I just took a look at PIK on google earth and that's a monster airport for the size of Prestwick. Then I read about the good flying weather in that area and know why it was very suitable starting back in the '30s.

The neatest thing about these posters is I can downsize them and copy them on photo paper. I used to sacrifice some of my airline brochures and ticket covers until I caught on to copying off the internet. The last two airlines for my first of two U.S. domestic cases will be Hughes Airwest and Western Airlines. I'll attach them to your threads when they are complete.

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Steve

Big Al

Hi Steve, Prestwick has had a long and chequered history as a transatlantic staging post going back to the days when they put a couple of refuelling stops onto those routes between the US and Europe. It was protected under law for many years as Scotland's transatlantic gateway, in a similar way Ireland protected Shannon for a similar role.

Since the early 90's that protection was lifted and all the US and transatlantic services moved their ops to GLA, 30 miles further north and only 7 miles away from the city of Glasgow. So in civil aviation terms it's seen a massive decline in traffic since then and nowadays only has Ryanair and Wizzair as customers. What it does continue to get however is a lot of freighters, training flights and transatlantic USAF staging traffic, some days it looks like a USAF base, they had a series of Herc and C-17 traffic at the weekend there.

Here is a link to some excellent old school pictures from it's heyday as a transatlantic staging post.

Prestwick Portraits

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Let's be having, the British Airways/British, Negus & Negus BAC 1-11-500 in 1:400 please !

fazeman

Open skies in its purest sense will never see the day of light because of our country's protective laws. And I don't know that open skies is the best idea anyway. If I can, next spring, I'd like to tour England and mainland Europe. That would be about a month's worth of vacation so I'm sure I'll whittle it down to a couple of countries. Part of the fun will be to see which airline I fly. In the Prestwick portraits, I look beyond the airplanes and see some beautiful countryside.

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Steve

WSobchak

Great history Rich. Just something about a simple cheat line that makes an aircraft look so elegant.

Are you sure about those MDW routings? I have seen only a couple pics of 720s at MDW, but those were only celebrity charters and such. ORD opened in 1955 and all ops were transferred there in 1962. Even TWA's Connies had to use ORD for their Atlantic flights because of the short runways.

RStretton

You could be correct - I can't recall whether the source said Midway or just Chicago now.

__________________
Richard

My 1:400 Collection: http://www.diecastaircraftforum.com/modeldatabase/mycollection/collection-11962.html
My 1:600 Scale Model Airport: http://www.imogenia.com/