DC-9 adventures with East African Airways, 1976

[joscyriacv2]

Hello everyone. I decided to take a break from my VA as i felt it was restricting the number of aircraft and airlines i could fly. So i decided to pretend like an East African Airways pilot in 1976 and fly some of the 1976 schedules. This airline was a joint venture between Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda. They flew variety of planes such as the DH Dragon, Argonauts, DC-9 and the VC-10. They were considered to be a fine airline. The airline broke apart in the 80s due to Tanzania and Uganda not paying their dues. The aircraft was split among the three nations.

I'll be flying the Douglas DC-9-32 configured with JT8D-11 engines as this was the engine used in 5H-MOI, the aircraft repaint available at HJG. The flights were performed on VATSIM.

EC924 Mombasa - Nairobi, STD: 0755, STA: 0845, Callsign EastAf924


At gate. Loading pax, cargo and fuel planning.


Climbing out, heading inland. Following the Navex VOR at Nairobi, how i think they may have done it in 1976.


Mount Kilimanjaro in the background. EAA also operates flights to Kilimanjaro


Landed and at gate. Difference between planned and actual fuel burn: 11kgs

EC978 Nairobi - Entebbe, Uganda STD:0700 ATD:0800


Climbout


Lake Naiwasha and Mount Longonot in the background


Rain on descent


Decelerate


A cockpit shot on landing

That's it! Nice flights. Observed that in both cases i couldnt arrive on scheduled time whereas current day schedules i can easily match or even beat. I think its because back in the 70s they'd fly all the way to the final at 300kts and suddenly drop everything and slow down whereas im doing it much slowly and fuel efficiently.

[Nathan Ford - HJG]

Really nice photo set, the colours look great.

Cheers,

Nathan

[mzoe]

Very nice flight report! I like the colour scheme of this airline. Also the DC9 Aircraft hosted by HJG are Very good to fly with the FDE provided.
Super nice shots
Michael

[Herman]

Nice flights and screen shots.

Herman

[aerofoto - HJG Admin]

I think its because back in the 70s they'd fly all the way to the final at 300kts and suddenly drop everything and slow down

That's probably not unusual near less busy airports around the world where there's far less traffic to potentially conflict with .... in fact it's even been done here at AKL too during off-peak times.

im doing it much slowly and fuel efficiently

I always try'n teach people to fly "economically" too (to the extent that just because something might have a typical cruise velocity of up to 0.82 .... it doesn't mean one has to fly anything at that velocity) .... rather than going "BALLS -TO-THE-WALL" and burning virtual fuel unnecessarily

I remember hearing the late Doug PATTERSON (NZ NAC's general manager/CEO from the late 60's until their 1977 merger with AIR NZ) explain .... "even if we stepped up the cruising airspeed of our B737-200's from around 450 to 600 MPH one wouldn't get from AKL to CHC any quicker .... for the much higher burn it might lop just a minute off the chock to chock time" .... just not economically worth it

Mark C
AKL/NZ