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Post by akatala on Jun 4, 2011 0:00:54 GMT
I stumbled upon Champion Air while I was looking into the 727's history on Wikipedia. Apparently, this group got the idea that 727-200 Advanced was the best jet ever and ran a charter fleet of nothing but. According to Wikipedia, they catered to sports teams among other folks. Their color scheme is rather jazzy and that logo is just too awesome. Anyway, take a gander at this lovely, captured by Flickr's Cubbie_in_Vega while on short final into KLAS McCarran Intl Las Vegas. Image shared from my own server to avoid being a bandwidth thief. ^^  |
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Post by christrott on Jun 4, 2011 1:22:22 GMT
Champion had some of the best maintained 727's out there. It wasn't that they thought there were the best jet ever, it was that the guys who started it up had a good relationship with several airlines and were able to get some very nice aircraft (with pretty low times for 72's) that gave them better (everything) over the 737-200's that were then available as the alternative for charters of the type they wanted to offer.
Even more important was that several of their aircraft were ex-Braniff and still had the nosewheel braking systems installed, allowing them to operate the aircraft out of impossibly short runways at impossibly high landing weights, something no 737 could match.
Only the rise in oil prices and increasingly hard to meet noise restrictions really led to the airline's shutdown. Thankfully, most of its employees found jobs with Northwest or other operators before the shutdown so it didn't displace to many people, in effect, the airline more-or-less simply dissolved into the ether with the only thing left being the planes which went into storage, mostly in Kingman, Airzona. I believe a few have been sold since to other operations, but most will probably be scrapped as the era of the 727 is pretty much over.
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Post by railrunner130 on Jun 6, 2011 9:19:34 GMT
That is a sharp looking bird.
Speaking of hauling around sports teams, I should drag out my Miami Air photos and see what I have to share with HJG.
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Post by aerofoto - HJG Admin on Jun 6, 2011 12:02:23 GMT
All sorts of support .... and positive community input .... "IS" appreciated !  Mark C BOG/COL |
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