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Post by chasensfo on Feb 3, 2022 7:24:28 GMT -5
\\Trans-Florida Airlines 1998 Trans-Florida Airlines (1966-2006) IATA: NONE LISTED ICAO: TFA CALLSIGN: TRANS FLORIDA Trans-Florida Airlines was a Daytona Beach, Florida (DAB)-based passenger and cargo charter operator which operated various vintage props. The carrier was founded in 1962 as Daytona Aviation, and in 1966 the airline received its part 121 operating certificate and began passenger airline operations with a DC-3 across Southern Florida and the Caribbean. The carrier expanded gradually with more DC-3s and went on to add a pair of larger Lockheed Constellations and a Vickers Viscount for a short time, but operating costs lead to the sale of the Constellations in 1976 and the scrapping of the Vickers Viscount. The following year in 1977, the airline added the first of several Convair 240s for both passenger and cargo roles and expanded the fleet to 5 examples by 1993. This became the new business model of the carrier for the rest of its life, and in the late 1990s, these 5 aircraft were still flying charters with 3 in a cargo role and 2 in a passenger role. Around this time, Trans-Florida began operating flights on behalf of Taino Airlines. The carrier suffered 2 accidents in Puerto Rico 1998 losing 2 Convair 240s, but luckily no passengers or crew members were seriously injured. 2 of the Convairs lived on to the 2000s, and the carrier shut down in 2006 40 years after starting operations as one of the last commercial Convair operators in the USA. Flightplans by Christian Gold, who has also painted the fleet on the CPAI CV-240 here: drive.google.com/file/d/1az-_-oN8--Cy99DcJqafCjjlicV17w12/view?usp=sharingConvair CV-240 Passenger Charters: Convair CV-240 Cargo Charters: Download Trans-Florida Airlines 1998 Flightplans Here
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Post by chasensfo on Feb 3, 2022 7:54:52 GMT -5
\\Aerovenca - Aeronáutica Venezolana de Carga 1998 Aerovenca - Aeronáutica Venezolana de Carga (1987-2000) IATA: NONE LISTED ICAO: AVC CALLSIGN: AEROVENCA Aerovenca - Aeronáutica Venezolana de Carga was a small Venezuelan cargo airline based in Valencia(VLN). The airline began passenger operations in 1987 with a 1944-built C-47 that served with the US Army Air Force in WWII and a few South Florida outfits as a converted DC-3C cargo aircraft beforehand. Despite having just 1 aircraft, the airline was successful and shuttled passengers around the Southern Caribbean for almost a decade before adding a Boeing 707-300F in a major June of 1995 expansion. The Boeing 707 was used to connect VLN, a secondary Venezuelan city without all the connectivity of Caracas(CCS), to Miami (MIA), Mexico City (MEX), and Manaus (MAO). Barely a full year later in August of 1996, the carrier gave up on its jet ventures and sold the 707 to First International Airways of Ghana, where it was lost in a serious landing accident in Kangana (KGA) a few months later. Aerovenca - Aeronáutica Venezolana de Carga flew on for another few years before shutting down in 2000 and the DC-3 was stored in VLN, where it sits dialect in VLN to this day in the full colors of its last owner. Representative flightplans by Christian Gold, who also has a pre-1996 version of these plans with the 707 as well in his cargo flightplans thread on RAI. Repaint appears to be needed. DC-3: Download Aerovenca - Aeronáutica Venezolana de Carga 1998 Flightplans Here
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Post by chasensfo on Feb 3, 2022 8:27:55 GMT -5
\\Air Memphis 1998 Air Memphis (1996 - Present) IATA: E9 ICAO: MHS CALLSIGN: AIR MEMPHIS Air Memphis is an Egyptian passenger and cargo charter and ACMI (providing all-inclusive aircraft, crew, maintenance, and insurance services to other airlines) carrier, based in Cairo (CAI). Air Memphis was founded in 1995 and began cargo operations the following year with 2 Boeing 707-300Cs, used both to cover for other airlines and for Air Memphis' own charters. Early customers included Tristar Air Cargo, Khalifa Cargo, Race Cargo, & The Red Cross. A 3rd Boeing 707-300C was added to the carrier in 1998, but that same year, the carriers first aircraft was destroyed in a fatal crash in Mombassa, Kenya (MBA) when it failed to become airborne after departing a runway shortened by 2,600 feet on a cargo flight carrying 34 tonnes of fish to Cairo (CAI). The carrier underwent a major change in 2000 adapting passenger operations by first leasing a Fokker 50 from Palestine Airlines (after the Gaza Airport [GZA] was destroyed in an Israeli airstrike) along with leasing 2 Bac 1-11-500s from Pakistani Aero Asia and a 727-200 from Istanbul Airlines for a short period. While passenger contracts expanded, Air Memphis also added another 707 freighter that year with a 4th added to the fleet in 2003. An ex-USAir DC-9-30 joined the passenger fleet in the full bare-metal colors of that carrier (with the titles changed) in 2002 and flew on for some time across the region in various roles. Later in the mid-2000s, several A320s were added to the fleet starting in 2005 while 2 more of the 707s were lost to accidents by 2003. For a short time between 2008-2009, the carrier operated an MD-83 on behalf of Sudan Airways. The carrier shut down in 2013 while operating several A320s and still flying the DC-9-30, which remains registered to the carrier presently. One of the 707s, stored in 2002, is said to still sit rotting in CAI today. Representative flightplans by Christian Gold, who has also painted a FS2004 native version the NAAI Boeing 707-300C fleet here: drive.google.com/file/d/17Cs5R8WPSd-l_l17ISmT6Y8PaB1Xk5J3/view?usp=sharingA P3Dv4 native version by Michael Pearson may be found here: library.avsim.net/search.php?SearchTerm=naai_707-320_mhs.zip&CatID=root&Go=Search707-300C: Download Air Memphis 1998 Flightplans Here
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Post by chasensfo on Feb 3, 2022 8:59:19 GMT -5
\\Airwave Transport 1998 Airwave Transport (1996-2001) IATA: ICAO: AWV CALLSIGN: AIRWAVE Airwave Transport was a Canadian cargo airline, based at the Montreal Dorval Airport (YUL), which was one of the few commercial operators of the Gulfstream GI into the 2000s and lost the majority of its small fleet to accidents. The carrier began cargo flights with a Gulfstream GI in 1996, serving the Eastern Canada and Midwest/Northeast United States providing courier and small package transport services. Just months later, the airline lost its only airplane to a serious fire that broke out during maintenance, severely burning a mechanic and writing off the plane. Within a few months going into 1997, Airwave Transport added 3 more Gulfstream GIs and a lone Convair CV-580 to the fleet to expand its operations. In 2000, Airwave suffered 2 crashes, losing 2 of its 3 Gulfstream GIs. One of these accidents was upon landing in YUL with the crew surviving, but the other involved an aircraft losing engine power inflight for undetermined reasons at an altitude above the service ceiling of that aircraft type and resulting in the plane stalling and spinning into the ground from 16,000 feet. Even worse, the captain of that flight was also the president and chairmen of the company! Canada's Transportation Safety Board (TSB) naturally began an investigation into the carrier, who sold the remaining Gulfstream GI to Propair Inc. and the Convair 580 to Nolinor Aviation, shutting down in 2001. Representitive flightplans by Christian Gold, who has also painted the CPAI CV-580 here: drive.google.com/file/d/1g5StEz663nARmj_X8-5Hfo2OEoT68sNq/view?usp=sharingThe Gulfstream GI is not painted as there is still no proper AI model for that type of aircraft. Gulfstream GI: CV-580: Download Airwave Transport 1998 Flightplans Here
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Post by chasensfo on Feb 3, 2022 10:16:32 GMT -5
\\Elf Air 1998 Elf Air (1992-2006) IATA: E6 ICAO: EFR CALLSIGN: ELFAIR Elf Air Cargo (1992-2006) IATA: E6 ICAO: EFRC CALLSIGN: ELFAIR Kampuchea Airlines operated by Elf Air (1997-1999) IATA: E2 ICAO: KMP CALLSIGN: KAMPUCHEA Elf Air was a Russian passenger and cargo charter operator, based at Moscow's Zhukovsky Airport (ZIA), which specialized in transporting tourists and merchandise between the Persian Gulf and Europe. Like many 1990s Eastern European start-ups, Elf Air was founded in 1991 after the breakup of the Soviet Union and the deregulation of the Russian airline industry. Though the aircraft were not true "Combi" variants, passengers were sometimes accommodated on seats attached to cargo pallets, loaded onto the aircraft as freight, and sat with the cargo! Operations began in 1992 with an IL-76D and an An-12A. Between 1993 and 1994, the airline underwent a massive expansion adding several more variations of the IL-76 to the fleet along with the An-26, YAK 40, IL-18Gr, and Tu-134AK. Over the next several years, the fleet was eclectic with various unknown and unmarked aircraft belonging to other operators coming and going as needed. Beyond its own services, Elf Air by now was also providing aircraft to support various other global operators including PRAGMA Manufacturing, Sankuru Air Services, Kampuchea Airlines, Air Charter Service, Stolichniy Bank of Savings, and The United Nations. In the late 1990s, another round of expansion saw more Tu-134s, including an A-3 model, and IL-18V\Ds added to to the permanent fleet. In 1999, one of the IL-76TDs was lost in a serious accident in Irkutsk (IKT) with the aircraft attempting to take off severely over the maximum takeoff weight. Into the 2000s, the carrier became known as Grizodubova Air Company and began to shrink before eventually shutting down in 2006. Representative flightplans by Christian Gold who has also painted the fleet here: drive.google.com/file/d/1nVkvC3XCyAUCWfVhBeu5DakGRWC-RaxH/view?usp=sharingIL-76T\TD Combi\Cargo: An-12A Combi\Cargo: Tu-134A: Tu-134A United Nations: IL-18Gr\D\V: An-26 Kampuchea Airlines: An-26 Cargo: Yak 40: Download Elf Air 1998 Flightplans Here
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Post by chasensfo on Feb 7, 2022 19:27:01 GMT -5
\\United Airlines 1998 United Airlines (1926 - Present) IATA: UA ICAO: UAL CALLSIGN: UNITED Shuttle by United (1995-2001) IATA: UA ICAO: UAL (Use "UALS,UAL" for proper AI parking) CALLSIGN: UNITED United Airlines is one 3 US major air carriers in the United States, based in Chicago (ORD), and is the oldest airline in the United States still operating. United Airlines was founded after Walter Varney purchased and merged several air carriers in 1926, but Varney's own airline started life in 1920 at the long-since-closed Redwood City Airport. After WWI, an abundance of airports were built in San Francisco Bay Area, most of them consisting of just a few hangars and open grass fields. Flying was still a novelty, but before the great depression, it was growing in popularity, and many wealthy young men who'd learned to fly tried their hand at a flying business. In 1920, Walter Varney purchased the Redwood City Airport, located very near today's San Carlos Airport (SQL), and began offering passenger and freight charter services and flight lessons in conjunction with a taxi cab company known as the Checker Cab Company. Varney named this company the "Redwood Aviation School". Though the school presumably stayed open until the airport was closed in 1939, Walter Varney moved his charter operation to the nearby (and also long-since closed) San Mateo Airport a few miles away. After being awarded a lucrative US Air Mail contract, Varney moved the operation to Boise Idaho, where it became Varney Air Lines and formally became a commercial airline. In 1930, Varney Air Lines was purchased by United Aircraft and Transport Corporation (UAT), which was an airline recently formed after an airline owned by aircraft manufacturer Boeing was merged with an airline owned by airframe and power plant manufacture Pratt & Whitney. UAT was soon after renamed "Boeing Air Transport". After the huge economic recession known as "The Great Depression", passenger travel all but dried up, and US Air Mail contracts became one of the only ways to keep an air carrier profitable. Out of desperation, airlines were bidding for contracts at prices that would barely turn a profit, but the US Government was rejecting most of these applications. An investigation revealed that the US Government was colluding with airlines owned by aircraft manufacturers and giving them business for exorbitant rates while rejecting privately-owned companies' attempts to bid for contracts at far lower rates. Known as the "1934 Air Mail Scandal", the fallout saw the US Government ban aircraft manufacturers from owning airlines. As a result, the Boeing aircraft company sold the 3 airlines it owned, Pacific Air Transport, Boeing Air Transport, and National Air Transport, to Walter Varney. Walter Varney, in turn, aggressively acquired several more airlines based across the United States over a 28-month period and merged their assets, including both the first airline to offer scheduled airmail flying and the first to offer scheduled passenger flying in the US. The merger formed a new transcontinental air transport network and called the new carrier "United Air Lines" with the route network expanded from Chicago, New York, Salt Lake City, and San Francisco. With close ties to Boeing, United operated various short-produced aircraft variants developed by the company, but most notably was the launch customer for the Boeing 247 in 1934. The most modern airliner of its time, the Boeing 247 was the first airliner to offer a primitive autopilot, and the speed and comfort of this aircraft allowed United to be the first airline to offer a direct transcontinental flight from New York to San Francisco without an overnight stop, making the journey in just under 10 hours on some flights. Sadly that first year, one of United's 247s became victim to the first criminal bombing of a commercial airline flight, and no motive or suspect was ever found. That year would be more or less be the story of the growth of the carrier over the next several decades. United would continues to be a pioneer in the modernization of aircraft, navigation, and air traffic control while also suffering lots of major losses while the US Government and air carriers struggled to fine-tune the quickly growing US airline industry and regulate safety. The DC-3 joined United's fleet in the late 1930s and became the mainstay of the network, being dubbed the "Mainliner". During this period, United also became the first airline to employ "Air Stewardesses", who were at the time registered nurses hired to assist passengers who were frequently airsick on bumpy low altitude voyages. During WWII, United assisted the US Army Air Force by converting civilian airliners purchased by the government into bombers or military transport aircraft as well as training military ground crews. Limited services continued, but expansion was halted until the end of the war. After the war, United, along with Pan American, became a true pioneer in transpacific flights to Hawaii, mostly from SFO and LAX using types such as the Boeing 227 Stratocruiser, derived from the wartime B-29 bomber. Through the 1940s, United began purchasing large numbers of Douglas aircraft such as the DC-4, DC-6, and DC-7, both factory new and military surplus. This allowed for a rapid expansion of its network, and by the 1950s, United was present in most major US cities nationwide, especially after its acquisition of the large Washington DC-based Capitol Airlines. United entered the jet age early on in the late 1950s with Douglas DC-8 jets, offering nonstop transcontinental service from San Francisco (SFO) and Los Angeles (LAX) to JFK. However, that decade ended with a string of high-profile accidents, including 4 midair collisions with one of them involving one of their brand new DC-8s colliding with a TWA Lockheed Constellation over densely populated New York City. Despite this, and another deadly decade to follow, United continued forward using DC-8, 720, and 707 jets to replace all its long haul prop services and using Boeing 727 and 737s (of which United was the first operator) to become one of the first major US airlines to become a full-jet operator with a fully modern fleet. United was also the first airline to popularize the "jet bridge', first added to one of its terminal piers on SFO attaching to the forward and aft passenger doors protecting passengers from the elements for the first time. After suffering more than 20 serious accidents through the dawn of the 1970s, United would never again have a decade with a high number of fatal accidents excluding the 9\11 attacks in 2001. United was a very early customer of the 747 in 1970, putting the aircraft in service just after Pan Am, and was the joint-launch customer for the DC-10 along with American Airlines (who ordered the type first but received the first aircraft together with United) in 1971. This made United one of the first carriers in the world with a sizable widebody fleet, and the types were used extensively on domestic services as well as some international routes. Up until the 1970s, United was primarily a domestic carrier. By now, the carrier had major hubs in SFO, LAX, ORD, and Denver (DEN), where the airline has had its crew training facilities for many decades, with focus cities and sizable operations in various cities including Washington DC (IAD), Seattle (SEA), Cleveland (CLE), Detroit (DTW), SLC, and JFK. As was the case before the deregulation of the US Airline Industry, carriers were granted routes from the federal government, who would often force a carrier to make designated stops between 2 cities and only allow a small number of non-stop flights on routes over 2 hours, if any at all, and airfares were also regulated. This changed when the airline industry was deregulated in 1976, and United was able to expand more or less freely and had the freedom to charge whatever it wanted for airfares, and so did the completion. United soon after introduced its iconic red, blue, and orange livery designed by Saul Bass (who also designed logos for several other airlines like Continental and British Airways around this time) and amassed huge numbers of Boeing 737-200, Boeing 727-200, and DC-10-10 jets while awaiting the delivery of the first of many Boeing 757 and 767 jets early the next decade. United became the launch customer for the Boeing 767-200 in 1982 and an early operator of the 757 soon after. The advanced twin jets were able to operate transcontinental and transatlantic services with the economy of 2 engines and 2 pilots. Along with expansion from its hubs and focus cities, United opened various point-to-point routes between its hubs and expanded into European cities like London, performing some of these with its 767s as some of the world's first ETOPS (Extended Operations; flying long periods over water with less than 3 engines) flights. As Pan Am began to struggle, United acquired a large number of routes from the carrier, including many in Asia (along with an NRT hub) and some to Europe, the South Pacific and South America, along with some new aircraft like the L-1011-500 and 747SP. United quickly turned SFO into its transpacific gateway, launching flights to several destinations such as Tokyo (NRT), Sydney (SYD), and Hong Kong (HKG). The routes changed hands so quickly that United flew several ex-Pan Am aircraft in that carriers full colors and United titles for some time. Services expanded, though SFO was already constrained by international gate space by the late 1980s and flights to Asia began to operate from the cities such as LAX and SEA as well, including a short-lived nonstop route from SEA-HKG that was served by both 747SPs and L-1011-500s. The L-1011s were only in the fleet for 3 years or so, and the 747SPs exited the fleet by 1995. Around this time in 1987, United also created the "United Express" banner as the other US major carriers were doing and signed several local service commuter carriers, such as West Air, to provide all services on behalf of the United brand and connect their hubs to smaller cities previously only accessible by interline codeshare. Cargo operations with dedicated fleets of aircraft, ending with the DC-8-50\60 series, were operated for a few decades, but those pure-cargo flights came to a close in the late 1980s. In 1989, United introduced a refreshed livery, with larger titles and thicker stripes which were lowered further down the fuselage. New Boeing 737-300 and 737-500 jets would quickly replace the last 727-100s in the early 1990s and have the 727-200 and 737-200 fleets greatly reduced by the late 1990s. Boeing 767-300s joined the long-haul fleet, mostly first being deployed on services from various hubs to LHR, and United was the first airline to operate the Boeing 777-200 in 1995 while it also received its first A320s. That same year, United's large DEN hub was transferred overnight from the closed Stapleton Airport to the new facility many miles away well outside of the city. On this same day, Continental Airlines, who had a major hub in DEN up until this moment, elected to close its entire hub operation in DEN with the closure of Stapleton. Given the whole of the massive Concourse B and with Concourse A mostly empty (until Frontier grew) as Continental elected not to move in, United enjoyed a massive expansion in DEN over the next 2 decades, eventually challenging ORD in the number of daily flights. A brand new livery was introduced in 1993 with an entire rebranding, with a grey fuselage and a dark blue belly and tail. 2 727-200s were fitted with an experimental "ghost" livery featuring a lighter grey and wore those colors throughout the 1990s, but pilots complained they were harder to see visually and the livery did not expand. With freshly painted A320s, 737-300\500s, 767-300s, 747-400s and 777-200s replacing aircraft with frequent factory deliveries, the white colors faded from the large fleet by the end of the 1990s. In 1997, United founded the Star Alliance along with Air Canada, SAS, VARIG, and Thai Airways International with "Star" being a reference to the 5 points on a star representing the 5 carriers. A 767-300ER was given a special livery with all 5 carriers' paint jobs represented. The rest of the fleet was given star alliance stickers on the front of the aircraft. By 1998, only a few examples remained in most fleets, with some fleet types such as the DC-10-30, 767-200 and 737-200 fully repainted. Most United 737-300\500s awaiting repaint were simply re-branded for the "Shuttle by United" operation, which was started in 1995 to combat Southwest's return to SFO after a long absence by starting high-frequency low fare service on many of Southwest's West Coast trunk routes and to keep them from starting new SFO to Southern California services. Initially, these planes were given the tail and belly of the new colors but the top of the fuselage was painted white. In 1998, aircraft begin to appear in the full new colors, but with Shuttle by United titles. This was again altered in 1999 with the titles changed to a block-type font and simply stating "United Shuttle". The Star Alliance badge was not applied to any of these aircraft until the 2000s. After focusing on the SFO and LAX hubs for a few years, the Shuttle operation had expanded to DEN by 1998 with high-frequency service to Phoenix (PHX), Las Vegas (LAS), and SLC. The Shuttle operation had replaced almost all of United's flights to LAS by this time as well as most to PHX as well. Most Shuttle by United turns were only 23-25 minutes long, including all ground time! What's more, many of these flights were "through flights", with same plane, same flight number service between 2 or even 3 cities on routes like SEA-SFO-LAX-TUS. Given the massive weather delays at SFO and LAX back then, which were far worse than today, it was common for Shuttle by United to not only be forced to cancel hours worth of its own flights, but also force Southwest, Alaska, and other West-coast centric carriers into massive delays as well with ATC struggling to cope with the backlogged Shuttle operation. In response, Alaska also significantly increased its frequencies on Shuttle by United routes, to which United retaliated by beefing up its flights to Alaska's SEA and Portland (PDX) hubs to 30+ daily frequencies. It was an interesting time in California's airline industry, with many airports in the state never again reaching the late 90s numbers even with further terminal and parking expansion years later. MIA and JFK had been developed into hubs, with several international and domestic routes from both, while Boston (BOS) and Newark (EWR) were focus cities. This same year, United welcomed its first A319s and domestically configured 767-300s into the fleet. The last batch of new A320s was being quickly delivered, with 5 aircraft arriving just in the summer of 1998 alone, with the majority of the A319s not arriving for some time. United had decided to move away from a point-to-point model and ended almost every route not connected to one of its hubs or remaining focus cities and started building huge connecting hub banks in DEN\ORD\IAD while SFO and LAX were too saturated by the Shuttle Operation (which could have 6 departures on 1 route in 1 hour!). Older aircraft had been mostly regulated to domestic flying on routes where United either needed capacity, had high levels of leisure travelers who didn't mind the older product, or where Untied wanted to dump seats into a market where it was at war with another carrier (such as multiple daily DC-10s on ORD-DTW!). The DC-10 fleet was mostly regulated to Hawaii, with many of the trips being through flights originating in the Eastern or Midwest USA. Some 747-100s were still in service, but other than a few routes to NRT, they, too, mostly did Hawaii and hub-to-hub flying. The 747-200B fleet was actually based in NRT at the time, and most flights are intra-Asia plus a few to the US. 727s still flew all over the network, but the fleet had shrunken considerably over the last few years, while 737-200s were a bit closer to total retirement with almost the entire route network for these aircraft moved East of the Rocky Mountains, sans a few routes such as DEN-SFO (which was SFO's last 737-200 route), likely due to the 737-300\500 centric Shuttle operation in this region. The newer Airbus fleet mostly did transcons, including some of the few non-hub transcons operated out of United's focus cities on routes like BOS-SJC and BOS\EWR-SAN. 757s and 737-300\500s did the majority of the domestic flying, while both did some routes venturing into points in Canada and Central America, while the 757s did a route from MIA stretching all the way to Santiago (SCL) via Lima (LIM) and the 737 fleet made it as far North as Anchorage (ANC) and as far South as Caracas (CCS). 767-300s still did most of the LHR flying, including some routes to focus cities, and much of the South America market, with the last leg of the around the world 767 flight from LAX-IAD-LHR-DEL-HKG being replaced with a 747-400 on an HKG-DEL-HKG rotation on this schedule, thus no longer serving Asia. The 767-200s were mostly considered configured for transcon services, and United almost exclusively used them on routes between SFO\LAX and EWR\JFK\BOS\IAD sans a few stops in ORD on the way back West. 777-200s were still used extensively on hub-to-hub flying for reasons of crew training and familiarity, but they also operated some services to Europe and some of the heavier routes to South America, including one from JFK to Buenos Aires (EZE) and several from MIA. The type had yet to visit Asia outside of once on a sales tour in the mid 1990s. United's 747-400 fleet was almost at full size in 1998 with just a handful of more examples arriving through the 2000s. Much of the 747-400 fleet was primarily based at the huge NRT hub, with services all across Asia and also to most of United's hubs and its JFK focus city from NRT, as well as several additional long haul flights from other Asian cities to SFO, ORD, LAX and JFK. The type was also used on all services to the South Pacific, which at the time consisted of daily flights to SYD from SFO and LAX as well as a daily service to Auckland (AKL) from LAX which extended onward to Melbourne (MEL). Many military and large group\VIP charters were also operated by the 747-400 fleet, which had long downtimes for maintenance in SFO (and sometimes ORD and LAX). Despite abandoning most domestic point-to-point and "triangle" domestic routes by 1998, United still had a small variety of international routes between different points. These included flights to San Jose, Costa Rica from both Mexico City (MEX) and Guatemala City (GUA), LHR to Brussels (BRU), Sao Paulo (GRU) to Rio de Janeiro (GIG), and Montevideo (MVD) to EZE. Domestically, United had a few odd routes left, with routes such as PHX and Tucson (TUS), while most of these flights were in the Eastern United States such as between Charlotte (CLT) and Greensborough (GSO) , Portland, Maine (PWN) and Manchester (MHT), and Richmond (RIC) and Norfolk (ORF). Though United Express had already taken over several mainline short-distance routes by 1998, a few interesting services remained such as SFO-MRY (which I once did in an EMB-120 in 17 minutes!) being operated by both the A320 and 757-200, along with 757s among aircraft flying the short COS-DEN route, while 737s and 727s did various short flights from ORD including Milwaukee (MKE), Madison (MSN), and Saginaw (MBS), with all of these routes being less than 30 minutes of flight time. United also was using large, and sometimes internationally configured, aircraft on various relatively short flights from ORD at the time as well which were a bit unusual. These included DC-10s to CLE and DTW while internationally configured 767-300ERs flew to Indianapolis (IND), DTW, PHX, and PDX, with PDX-DEN also being operated. The 1-hour or so SFO-SNA route was operated almost exclusively by 757-200s at the time, and with high frequency that sometimes saw more than 1 flight in an hour (America West, Southwest, and Alaska were all battling on SNA-OAK at the time and United kept them off the SFO route by dumping capacity defensively, along with the 757 having great short field performance). By 2000, only the 737-200 and 727-200 remained as "classic" members of the United fleet. United continued growing in similar directions until the attacks of September 11th, 2001 involving 2 of its aircraft and shattering public confidence in already unprecedented panic within the US Airline Industry. The resulting loss in revenue and loads resulted in the rush retirement of the remaining 727s and 737-200s, while also electing to retire the 767-200 soon after. Some United Express carriers such as Air Wisconson, Trans States Airlines, and Mesa Airlines had already put their first CRJ or ERJ regional jets into service. United and the other major US airlines elected to replace a large percentage of mainline routes with regional jets, growing their regional partners exponentially through the decade. The MIA and JFK hubs were closed, with MIA eventually being reduced to mostly regional jet service and JFK temporarily losing all service eventually in the 2010s, and the South America flying also mostly dried up. The Shuttle by United program was ended, but was again experimented with when "TED" was launched in late 2003 with all-economy class A320s taking over all of mainline United's flights to some leisure heavy markets which were mostly former Shuttle destinations such as PHX, ONT and LAS, with others including RNO, PVR, and SJD. United elected to retire its 737 fleet in 2009, planning on a future all-Airbus domestic narrowbody fleet. A merger with US Airways almost took place, with US Airways even joining the Star Alliance and a paper airline being created to give the flying public a new East Coast option after the consolidation of many of the markets with the planned marger. Despite this, the merger never occurred, and instead, Continental made a move and merged with United in 2012, though operations began to integrate years earlier. Still based in ORD, United inherited Continetal's hubs in IAH, EWR, GUM, and CLE (which was closed soon after) along with hundreds of 737-500\700\800\900s as well as Rolls-Royce-powered 777s and 757-200\300s and upcoming orders for brand new 787s and Boeing 737MAX jets. The merger was by all accounts very successful within the first decade, and today United is a leading global carrier with a mostly modern, and growing, fleet. In addition to all scheduled mainline flights from July 1998 (with that schedule running thru September with adjustments made monthly), these flightplans also represent real-life military and civilian group charters, aircraft retirements, and aircraft deliveries that occurred in 1998. 2 767-300s, 1 A319, and 5 A320s, all delivered during the period these flightplans represent, are simulated. These will arrive in ORD (Airbus) or SFO (767) as they did in real life after a factory ferry flight for pre-entry-to-service inspections, with aircraft sitting by the hangar at the hub or at the delivery center in Toulouse (TLS), Hamburg (XFW), or Everett (PAE). Likewise, several 1998 retirements (or representations of actively stored aircraft in 1998), are also included. The DC-10-10s and 737-200s to exit the fleet in this period are included spending some time at SFO, where they were prepared to exit the fleet with interiors and branding removed in real life, and then part of the week stored at the proper location, which was LAS for most of these aircraft. The 747-100s and 747SPs were already stored by 1998, so I do not have them move during hours you are likely to see them, with the exception of a 747SP which was brought out of storage in LAS during the summer of 1998 and moved to a new location, which is simulated. All charters are based on real-life movements in the late 1990s, and various ferry flights to reposition aircraft to appropriate hubs, or maintenance facilities in SFO and OAK, also exist to avoid downtime at an unrealistic airport or to prevent over-saturation of the limited SFO remote parking. A few extra 737s routes were given to some A319s delivered in this timeframe. For the retired\delivery aircraft, please assign them the following codes for proper parking with future LAS, PAE, SFO, ORD, XFW, and TLS scenery; atc_parking_codes=XUAL, atc_parking_types=RAMP. For the 747-400s used for charters, make one entry using the codes; atc_parking_codes=AMC,DOD and atc_parking_types=MIL_Cargo,Ramp for the military charter aircraft and atc_parking_codes=VIP, atc_parking_types=RAMP for the civilian\VIP charter aircraft. Flightplans by RAI member cmd320 and myself. Most repaints are available as far as the basic liveries go. However, between 1996 and the late 1990s, United had many named aircraft, honoring customers or employees. These names were hard to see in many photos as they were small text near the only on the right side of the plane, and the stickers were hastily applied which is why some were "gone" (as in had peeled off) by 1998. I have made variations for each of these aircraft as designated in the 1998 JP Fleets Book, and we will exclude those which were not present in the late 1990s, with Chris Gorodetzky (RAI member FSMuseum) planning on touching up his United fleet for these plans to some extent in the future. I think Michael Person may have some of the 747s cooking also. In addition, United had some aircraft that were named with larger letters that were plainly visible, which are also included. The Shuttle by United 737s with no Star logo, anticipated 2nd versions of many of the standard aircraft, and a few others like the "ghost" 727s are still needed, as are most of these named aircraft, sans a few major ones. The following repaints are available: FS2004-native Fleet by Chris Gorodetzky (except DC-10): library.avsim.net/search.php?SearchTerm=uafleet94-99.zip&CatID=root&Go=SearchMy updates to the above fleet to make it work better with 1998: drive.google.com/drive/u/1/folders/1Ux3b_NMzK_a3IXxN2iin4KIzUYsKyujyAIM DC-10-10 1993: library.avsim.net/search.php?SearchTerm=aim_dc1010_unitedairlines1990s_270285.zip&CatID=root&Go=SearchAIM DC-10-10 1989: library.avsim.net/search.php?SearchTerm=aim_dc1010_united_airlines_90s.zip&CatID=root&Go=SearchAIM DC-10-30CF 1993: library.avsim.net/search.php?SearchTerm=aim_dc1030_unitedairlines.zip&CatID=root&Go=Search(NOTE; the following liveries have some extra variations but are not color match to the fleet above): FAIB 747-100: library.avsim.net/search.php?SearchTerm=faib_747-100_ual_update_358821.zip&CatID=root&Go=SearchFAIB 747-200: library.avsim.net/search.php?SearchTerm=faib_747-200_ual.zip&CatID=root&Go=SearchFAIB 747-400: library.avsim.net/search.php?SearchTerm=faib_747-400_ual.zip&CatID=root&Go=Search747-400 PW: 747-400 PW Military AMC Charters: 747-400 PW VIP Charters: 747-200B PW: 747-100: 747-100\747SP Retirement Flights\Simulated Storage: 777-200 PW: DC-10-10\30CF: DC-10-10 Retirement Flights: 767-300\ER PW: 767-300 PW Factory Delivery: 767-200 PW: 757-200 PW: A320-200 IAE: A320-200 IAE Factory Delivery: \ A319-100 IAE: A319-100 IAE Factory Delivery: 727-200adv: 737-500: 737-300: 737-300\500 Shuttle by United: 737-200\adv: 737-200 Retirement Flights: Download United Airlines 1998 Flightplans Here
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Post by chasensfo on Feb 8, 2022 12:48:13 GMT -5
\\Frontier Airlines 1998 Frontier Airlines (1994 - Present) IATA: F9 ICAO: FFT CALLSIGN: FRONTIER FLIGHT Frontier Airlines today is one of the largest ultra-low-cost airlines in the United States, based in Denver (DEN) and with hubs and focus cities all over the country flying close to 300 Airbus jets. In the early 1990s, Denver announced that it would be closing its Stapleton Airport, located near downtown Denver and by now constricted of any further development, with a brand new massive and future-proof facility many miles outside of the city. At the time, Stapleton was a massive hub for both United Airlines and Continental Airlines, the latter having acquired Denver's large domestic hometime airline, Frontier Airlines, in 1987 giving it a massive boost in the city. However, in 1993, as the passenger terminals at the new airport were nearing completion with Concourse A being built to house Continental's massive hub, Continental announced its intentions to close the DEN hub entirely with the closure of Stapleton and instead turn DEN into another "outstation" served only via its other hubs. Sensing an opportunity with large numbers of vacant gates and the likelihood of higher fares now that United did not have to compete on many routes, 2 ex-Frontier Airlines employees a United Airlines Captain decided to start a new airline to compete against United at the new airport. The locally popular Frontier Airlines name was revived and the company was incorporated in early 1994, beginning flights initially out of Stapleton on 05JUL94 with a small fleet of 5 737-200s with an all coach configuration, initially serving a few points in the Dakotas region where fares were high. Frontier also adopted the old Frontier Airlines' slogan, "Spirit of the West", and painted the slogan on their aircraft below the titles, with each aircraft tail featuring photos of 2 wild animals native to the region, with one on each side. Nostalgia and the bleak future for Continental's future in Denver helped Frontier quickly grown with experienced staff, and by the time Stapleton closed in early 1995, Frontier had already expanded across several states and had many more aircraft, mostly used 737-200s being retired from USAir along with several larger and more modern 737-300s. Just as Frontier had hoped, they found themselves as the largest tenant of the mostly vacant Concourse A straight away, and with only United to compete with on most routes, Frontier quickly expanded further adding cities like San Francisco (SFO), Chicago (MDW), New York (LGA), Los Angeles (LAX), Minneapolis (MSP), Phoenix (PHX), Seattle (SEA), and Washington DC (DCA) to the network along with some smaller airports that were losing mainline service to the commuter carriers serving the major carriers, such as Bloomington (BMI) and Peoria (PIA). By 1996, Frontier already had a sizable fleet and offered competitive frequencies on many key business routes. In doing so, Frontier began to pull out of most of its original markets in the Dakotas and the rest of the Great Plains region, instead of concentrating on trunk routes. The carrier now dominated most of the backside gates of Concourse A in DEN, along with some gates at the West end of the concourse. To further strengthen its presence in these markets, Frontier Airlines had entered merger discussions with Western Pacific Airlines, based in nearby Colorado Springs (COS). Western Pacific had successfully created a sizable hub using 737-300s to connect passengers between the West and East Coasts with low fares and 737-300s. Western Pacific also had a decently-sized commuter operation, using subsidiary Mountain Air Express (MAX) to add several thinner routes to its network with Do328s turboprops. Finding itself in financial trouble, Western Pacific was quick to accept Frontier's offer, and preparations for the merger began in 1997 with Western Pacific quickly relocating its COS hub to DEN, including the MAX operation, with all these flights filling in on Concourse A in DEN which less than 3 years after its opening was already approaching capacity thanks to this expansion. However, at the last minute, Frontier executives discovered that Western Pacific had lied about figures and was in much more debt with much less revenue than the carrier had reported to Frontier. The merger was abruptly called off, and Western Pacific remained in DEN for a few more months, quickly shedding its fleet, before failing in February of 1998 (MAX flew on until having its assets acquired by Air Wisconsin for United Express DEN flights). Having just wasted money on a failed merger, the next few years saw fleet expansion but not many new destinations. PIA and some other smaller cities were already gone by 1998, while Frontier had as many as 6 frequencies on some routes. The fleet had grown into a fleet of 24 737s, evenly split between the 737-300 and 737-200. Due to the nature of its network being based around connections, Frontier operated in hub banks. Some busier markets may have some flights arriving at "off" times, but most flights will arrive about 30 minutes apart in an arrival bank and then depart an hour to 90 minutes later in a large departure bank. These banks tended to coincide with United's, and DEN quickly went from calm to gridlock during these periods, even with plenty of runways. Despite this and the meteorological challenges of a hub in the temperamental Rocky Mountains, Frontier enjoyed good on-time statistics, as well as positive customer satisfaction ratings. Frontier confidently placed major orders in 1999 for large numbers of A319s as well as becoming the launch customer for the A318. The first A319s joined the fleet in 2001, and with Frontier accelerating the retirement of its 737-200s following post-9\11 cost-cutting, they quickly became the dominant fleet type for the carrier in the early 2000s, and the 737s were all retired by 2006. These new aircraft introduced a new livery with large silver billboard titles and now only featured one animal on each aircraft, with the same photo on both sides of the tail. DirectTV was also unveiled as a feature on these aircraft, which offered Private in-seat televisions (PTVs). Frontier quickly approved with the large comfy seats and PTVs on these Airbus jets, and the carrier again began expanding rapidly into new business markets as air travel picked up, at which point Frontier created "Frontier Jet Express" in 2002. Frontier Jet Express was Frontier's regional brand, offering DEN-based regional flights. Mesa Airlines first had the contract for these flights, operating CRJ-200s in their own colors and a Frontier Jet Express sticker, and one of the first new cities launched with them was San Jose (SJC). Mesa was soon replaced in January of 2004 by Horizon Air, being the first flying unaffiliated with Alaska Airlines that carrier would operate, who operated larger CRJ-700s in the full Frontier livery. Rather than being used for expansion, these CRJ-700s were mostly used to replace Airbuses on flights with lower load factors to free up the Airbus fleet for more profitable routes. Looking to take the operation in-house, Frontier created its own subsidiary, Lyxn Aviation, to operate Q400 turboprops. These flights began in 2007, with the aircraft painted in the full Frontier livery with baby animals featured on the tail, and added cities such as Aspen (ASE) to the network. Meanwhile, Frontier had more than doubled in size since the start of the decade, and the carrier was experimenting with point-to-point routes outside of the DEN hub model, including routes to Mexico from several Californian cities. In an attempt to grow their presence in California, Frontier signed a contract with Republic Airways to operate EMB-170s (in full Frontier colors) and began a SFO-LAX "shuttle" route with low fares and high frequencies, while also adding a few other routes from SFO such as LAS. Meanwhile, Frontier discovered that the operating costs of the A318 were too similar to the A319 for the aircraft to be worth more in the fleet than as spare parts for the A319s, so the 11-strong fleet was retired after being operated only from 2003-2007. After a few steady good years, an oil crisis and US economic recession caused a crisis in the airline industry that saw many airlines close their doors between 2007 and 2009. Frontier declared bankruptcy in 2008 and was bought by the parent company of Republic Airways, which in turn merged Frontier with both Midwest Airlines (formerly Midwest Express), who it had also purchased and Republic Airways. The next few turbulent years saw Republic E190s pop up in full Frontier colors for a few years, and planes in Midwest Airlines liveries operating Frontier flights regularly. Frontier was initially offering freshly baked cookies on board like Midwest Airlines used to offer and an expansive buy onboard menu, and Chautauqua Airlines, owned by Republic, began operating flights for Frontier from the Midwest Airlines Milwaukee (MKE) hub, using E145s in full Frontier colors and E135s in full Midwest colors. Lynx Aviation was shut down soon afterward, with many of the Q400s being stored in Louisville (SDF) for some time, and the Midwest operation was abandoned, with cuts to inflight service and the closure of the MKE and Kansas City (MCI) hubs. The Frontier brand moved forward, and point-to-point and focus city expansion continued rapidly, with Southwest Airlines simultaneously growing at DEN, which it had only recently returned to. Republic decided to sell Frontier to the Indigo Partners equity firm in 2013, and a new livery with "FLYFRONTIER.COM" titles was introduced the following year, along with larger A320s, as Frontier began to transition into a traditional low-cost carrier. All onboard service was eliminated, and all additions beyond the basic airfare now had fees attached, along with all items on board the aircraft. Frontier now frequently added and dropped routes and destinations alike, frequently experimenting with markets. Meanwhile, the seats were replaced with the now popularized "slimline" seats, with very little padding and much-reduced legroom, along with having no recline. At the time, other major ultra-low-cost carriers in the US like Spirit and Allegiant mostly still shied away from most major markets where there many daily flights by other carriers, with those carriers preferring to use airports like Oakland (OAK) and Phoenix-Mesa (AZA) instead of San Francisco (SFO) and Phoenix Sky Harbor (PHX) respectively. This put Frontier at a huge advantage already having staff, which it had by now mostly outsourced, and gates\slots at major US airports. With fares commonly offered for between $19 and $39 on routes as far as SFO/LAX-ORD, Frontier now relied on on-board purchases and ticket extras to make its money, and undercut the major carriers at other big hubs by up to hundreds of dollars. The carrier exploded through the rest of the 2010s, opening a large hub in LAS and operating an expansive point-to-point network across the whole country. A320NEOs and A321s introduced another new livery, which paid homage to the original Frontier brands, and by the end of the 2010s, the fleet was almost entirely made up of these 2 new types. Today, Frontier maintains a hub in DEN, but it is no longer one of the larger operations for the carrier, which has given up the majority of the gates on Concourse A in the last several years it held for decades. On 07FEB21, Frontier announced it would acquire Spirit Airlines, forming a massive low-cost carrier that will retain the Frontier brand, not even 30 years after their humble beginning. Flightplans by Justin Sutton, who was a Frontier pilot when he made these plans. Some repaints exist on the ancient AI Aardvark models, but FAIB paints are in progress...kinda. Not sure when they'll be finished, but I'll release the few that are done soon. For now, here are the available repaints: AIA 737-300 (not v2) fleet: library.avsim.net/search.php?SearchTerm=aia_737_300_frontier_fleet.zip&CatID=root&Go=SearchAIA 737-200 1995 fleet: www.flightsim.com/vbfs/fslib.php?do=copyright&fid=151273AIA 737-200 N237TR: library.avsim.net/search.php?SearchTerm=aia732fr.zip&CatID=root&Go=Search737-300: 737-200: Download Frontier Airlines 1998 Flightplans Here
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Post by chasensfo on Feb 8, 2022 16:07:52 GMT -5
I have updated the United repaint links to include hasty modifications of the fleet by FSMuseum to take the star logo away from the shuttle aircraft and add the star logo as required to other aircraft. No additional extra versions and I'm sure the logos aren't perfect, but they're good enough until we get a proper 98 fleet one day in the future. Link posted above in the United post.
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Post by bensplanes on Feb 12, 2022 17:47:55 GMT -5
Thank you for these North American carriers, Chasen! Was looking forward to seeing some domestic DC-10s in KMCO. Cheers!
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Post by chasensfo on Feb 15, 2022 19:05:55 GMT -5
\\American Airlines 1998 v2 (UPDATE 22FEB21; added the very early 1999 Astrojet 757 special livery and Boeing 737-800 delivery flights from BFI) American Airlines (1930 - Present) IATA: AA ICAO: AAL CALLSIGN: AMERICAN American Airlines is one of 3 legacy US airlines, based in Dallas\Ft. Worth (DFW), and both one of the largest and oldest operating air carriers in the world. American Airlines was founded in 1930 as American Airways after a massive conglomerate of 82 small air carriers was formed during a series of mergers in the 1920s. Prior to the major US economic slump known as "The Great Depression", air travel was just starting to pick up as a means of transportation but was still mostly only for the very wealthy or the occasional person traveling by air simply for the novelty of it. After the depression hit, US Air Mail contracts became one of the only stable and assured ways of keeping an air carrier profitable, and many of the small independent airlines in the US merged with or were acquired by airlines with such contracts as they were otherwise most likely facing their demise. In the case of the carriers that made up American Airways, the roots of some of the founding carriers can be traced back as early as 1921 when Robertson Aircraft Corporation was founded. Due to the economic state of the nation, the carrier first mostly expanded on air mail services rather than passenger routes, expanding to 72 cities by 1933, including a route to Mexico. The following year in 1934, the carrier was renamed American Air Lines, and passenger travel became more of a focus for the carrier, which was using flat rates for transport on its passenger services and offered multiple transcontinental routes generally starting in New York (LGA) and terminating in San Francisco (SFO), Los Angeles (LAX), or Seattle (SEA). Up until this point, American had an eclectic fleet of various vintage props acquired from the various airlines which formed the carrier, such as the Ford Trimotor and Wright FC-2, but Texas businessman C. R. Smith (who had just been hired to run the company) began working with Douglas on an improvement of the DC-2 series, of which American currently operated, that would suit the needs of American's vast route network. Thus, the DC-3 was born, known as the "Flagship" at American Air Lines, and with that carrier being not only key in the development of the type but also the first to use it operationally in 1936. The DC-3 quickly became one of the most popular airlines in the world, and it was the staple of the American fleet all through the end of WWII. Along with the launch of the DC-3 Flagship, American also launched the "Admirals Club" for its valued frequent flyers, a rather visionary move as only a very small handful of short-lived carriers had tried out any kind of loyalty program up until this point. The Admirals Club both awarded frequent travel and also allowed for special services and eventually lounge access (with the carrier's lounge in LGA accredited as the first airline lounge in history) and prime seating, with the program first being invite-only and later becoming open to all with a membership fee. Transcontinental services were streamlined with stops eliminated on key Flagship services until the carrier was finally able to offer a same-day 20 hour and 19-minute route between New York and Los Angeles with 8 stops en route all in large cities, known as flight AAL001. Some DC-3s were specially fitted with beds, known as "Flagship Skysleepers", and used on some specific routes including AAL001 where a DC-2 was used up until the route got into the late evening at which time passengers transferred to a DC-3 Skysleeper for the flight through the night, another novel concept. During WWII, American provided aircraft and staff to the US Army Air Force and operated a limited network due to the lack of demand and much of its staff being involved in the war effort. After the war, the company had started operating as American Airlines and began launching some international subsidiaries. American Export Airlines (AEA), was one of the first US carriers with Transatlantic route approval in 1945, first offering a service to Shannon (SNN) with flying boats, later adding DC-3s, DC-4s, and Lockheed L-049 Constellations in 1946 and expanding as far as Copenhagen (CPH) by 1948. American Airlines bought enough stock in AEA to obtain operational control of the carrier from 1945 forward, which American eventually renamed "American Overseas Airlines", and acquired Boeing 377 Stratocruisers for the carrier in 1949 with the goal of further large expansion. The international network was connected to American's vast domestic network and helped American go head-to-head with Pan Am in the Transatlantic market, a move which quickly lead Pan Am to purchase American Overseas Airlines from American Airlines and operated the carrier as a subsidiary known as Pan American's Atlantic Division (after the merger was rejected for the Civil Aeronautics Board [CAB]), and this carrier was what eventually would be purchased by Delta Air Lines in 1991. A Mexican subsidiary, known as American Airlines de Mexico S.A., was also founded after WWII and used to flights mostly connecting Mexico with points in Texas, with American even first building suitable airfields for many of the cities it served! By 1950, American was the 2nd largest airline in the world in terms of fleet size behind only Aeroflot. Interestingly, American had planned on joining the jet age with de Havilland Comets. However, the string of fatal accidents and resulting findings of fuselage ruptures after a certain number of flight cycles lead American to instead invest in the Boeing 707 and 720 as well as the Convair 880 jets. The 707 was introduced in 1959, making American among the first jet operators in the world, with the type quickly being put on Transcontinental services from the carriers now-massive JFK hub to SFO and LAX, with both of those cities also receiving many other early jet routes. Bac 1-11s and 727-100s joined the fleet in the 1960s and were deployed all across the Eastern and Midwestern United States, with propliners such as the DC-6, DC-7, and Lockheed Electra quickly replaced. In 1962, American launched "SABRE", which was the first electronic airline reservations system, and in 1967 the carrier introduced its famous "AA" logo and the basic livery it would use for the next 4 decades. Orders were also placed around this time for the carrier's first widebody jets, with American ordering both the 747 and the DC-10. Both the DC-10 and the L-1011 were developed largely around the needs of American for a widebody trijet, but American elected to go with the McDonell Douglas product due to operating costs. The first 747s, which featured an upper deck lounge complete with a piano, bar, and cocktail lounge, were deployed mostly on services between JFK and SFO\LAX, while American was the joint-launch-customer of the DC-10-10 in 1971, along with United Airlines, beating United in putting the first DC-10s into revenue service by a few weeks. That same year, American Airlines acquired Trans-Caribbean Airlines (TCA), and the Caribbean network that would lead to American's large Miami (MIA) and San Juan (SJU) hubs was born. Though American had a relatively "normal" safety record for a carrier of its size through the previous decades, the next few decades would be plagued by several high-profile fatal jet accidents. In 1974, American lost a fully loaded DC-10 flying from ORD to LAX after the #1 engine ripped off severed the hydraulic lines on its way over the wing just after takeoff rotation. Along with the Turkish Airlines disaster in Paris, this accident made global news and put the safety of the DC-10 program as a whole into question. American also came very close to losing a DC-10 flying from Detroit (DTW) to Buffalo (BUF) after it suffered the same cargo-door blowout as the doomed Turkish jet but was able to return for a crash landing with almost no flight control input thanks to a light load and a highly skilled crew. Both the DC-10 accidents were found to be the fault of American ground staff, and as the carrier had also lost 707s and a 727 very early on in their operation, the public perception had become less than stellar. Still, American expanded, opening a route to Sydney (SYD) via several points in the Pacific and also becoming to first major US airline to hire a female pilot with Bonnie Tiburzi becoming a 727 First Officer with the carrier. Going into the 1976 deregulation of the US airline industry, American's network was largely point-to-point, as many flights between 2 cities had various stops in route as required by the CAB at the time. When the industry was deregulated and pop-up discount carriers began offering nonstop flights in markets where American was still making stops in less-traveled cities, the carrier decided to take advantage of the failure of Braniff in DFW to turn the airport into a mega-hub for connecting Western and Eastern US traffic re-aligning many of the cities along multi-stop routes into individual non-stop flights to DFW. In 1982, the carrier opened up a second such huge hub in ORD. By now, the 707s and other early jets were mostly phased out, and the 727-200 had become the staple of the fleet along with the older 727-100s and a huge new order of MD-82s which came trickling in. The "American Eagle" brand was started as American reached out to local service and commuter airlines, mostly in Texas with the likes of Chaparral and Fort Worth Air, and various aircraft such as the Beech C99, CASA 212, and YS-11A began appearing in American Eagle colors. Looking to expand on the West Coast, where the North-South networks were full of intense competition between various low-cost carriers and United, who had a foothold in SFO, LAX, SEA, and Portland (PDX) at the time, American acquired Orange County (SNA)-based AirCal in 1987. AirCal had a fleet of 737-200 and 737-300s at the time, along with a small number of BAe-146-200s which it had recently acquired brand new with most larger airports in California operating as focus cities and a route network stretching as far North as Vancouver (YVR) and as far East as ORD. American used the assets of AirCal to form a West Coast hub in San Jose (SJC), about 30 minutes down the freeway from SFO, and construction began on a new large terminal, known as "Terminal A" and featuring jetbridges at a time when SJC was only using air stars with limited passenger facilities. An American Eagle contract was granted to Wings West Airlines, who operated Beech C99s, Metroliners, and later Saab 340s mostly out of SJC and LAX all across California. In addition to flights across the West Coast, and frequent "Shuttle" flights to Southern California in direct competition with USAir who had recently bought AirCal's arch-rival Pacific Southwest Airlines (PSA), American launched flights from SJC to Tokyo (NRT) first with DC-10-30s and later brand-new MD-11s. However, in 1991, soon after the completion of the new terminal and not long after the ex-AirCal planes had finally been painted in American's own livery, a decision was made to retire all of the ex-AirCal aircraft and effectively close the SJC hub, though some non-hub-to-hub services, including flights to Hawaii and the NRT flight, remained. The 1990 purchase of Eastern Airlines Latin America network had helped turn JFK and MIA into large hubs as well, but less suited for connecting traffic sans some North-South or Caribbean routes. A fleet of Airbus A300-600Rs was used extensively on these services, and also some routes to Europe. American then opened hubs in the Eastern US, with both Nashville (BNA) and Raliegh (RDU) gaining dozens and dozens of flights including services to London (LHR). A huge American Eagle operation was also transferred to BNA, mostly using Saab 340s, and in the mid-1990s, the American Eagle carriers were acquired by American's parent company, the AMR Group, and operated on a single certificate. By now, the 727-100s had left the fleet and the MD-80 was by far the largest type in the fleet, joined by 727-200s, 757-200s, 767-200\300s, and DC-10s on domestic services. Fokker 100s began arriving, mostly to be based in DFW and ORD, and were deployed on routes where the MD-80s capacity wasn't needed. Much like SJC, American was not happy with the performance of the BNA and RDU hubs, and the BNA hub was closed very soon after it was opened by 1995 while RDU retained some services, including the LHR flight, but also lost most of its routes by the late 1990s. Other than Hawaii and Japan, the rest of the Pacific operation was discareded as American ran into some financial trouble. American began to focus on the satellite airports in some of its larger cities such as Washington DC, Dallas, Houston, and New York. In addition to a few odd non-hub routes from LGA and Washington Dulles (IAD), a high frequency "shuttle" operation was started between LGA and Toronto (YYZ) as well as between Austin (AUS) and the Houston Hobby (HOU) and Dallas Love Field (DAL) airports. AUS also saw a relatively high-frequency link to SJC, dubbed the "Nerd Bird" as it catered to tech traffic between the Silicon Valley and Austin, where companies such as Apple had growing campuses in both cities. In 1998, attracted by the growing tech traffic in the San Francisco area, American decided to re-open the SJC hub with the acquisition of RenoAir. Though based in Reno (RNO), RenoAir had its operational hub in SJC and also had focus cities in LAX and Las Vegas (LAS), and owned most of the former American gates on Terminal A in SJC, which luckily for American had prevented Southwest from acquiring those gates when the SJC hub was abandoned. RenoAir's MD-80s, MD-87s, and MD-90s began appearing in a huge variety of hastily applied hybrid liveries, and by the time the merger would be completed in August of 1999, very few planes would remain in the full RenoAir colors, with all aircraft eventually adopting a standardized American livery which featured a white fuselage instead of bare metal, with this livery being dubbed as "White Trash" by the legacy AA pilots. The MD-11 was the flagship of the fleet at this time, mostly used on services to NRT with a few domestic flights between ORD and MIA to DFW and an odd-route from SEA to NRT and a service from MIA to Buenos Aires (EZE). Only 3 DC-10-30s remained in the fleet and were mostly regulated to longer Hawaii services to ORD and DFW, while a sizable amount of DC-10-10s did West Coast to Hawaii services and services between hubs or on high-density routes. 767-300ERs, all internationally configured, did a handful of domestic routes but mostly flew to Western Europe and South America, including several services from a small Sao Paulo (GRU) focus city to neighboring countries. Like United, American had a small number of 767-200s specially configured for transcon flights dedicated to flights from JFK or Boston (BOS) to LAX and SFO. A larger number of internationally configured 767-200ERs mostly served Western Europe, along with a few domestic routes and a route to Rio de Janeiro (GIG) as well. The A300-600R fleet was split between domestic high-density configured birds, dedicated mostly to flights between JFK and MIA and the Caribbean and Central America as well as flights between the Northwestern US and Florida, while internationally configured A300-600Rs did services to Europe, including a high frequency "shuttle" service between JFK and LHR. 757-200s were used on many domestic flights over 3 hours as well as on some shorter high capacity routes and some services to South America, including Cali (CLO) where American had lost a 757 a few years earlier in 1995. The 757 fleet had a few short services from SJU such as flights to St. Maarten (SXM) and Aruba (AUA) which were otherwise mostly flown by American Eagle ATRs. A decent number of 727-200s were still flying, but were mostly based in MIA and flying to the Caribbean, Mexico and Central America, with several domestic services operated as well, many of which being "through flights" with same plane and flight number services to Latin America via MIA. A small MD-83 fleet was mostly regulated to longer routes over 3 hours while a huge MD-82 fleet consisting of about 250 aircraft flew all across the American network, including several services to Mexico. The Fokker 100s, still based in DFW and ORD, mostly flew from DFW to cities fairly near ORD and vice versa, along with some routes in Mexico and much of the ORD to Northeastern US routes and the AUS-DAL shuttle route. The network was almost entirely hub to hub, with only a small few routes not including a focus city existing, such as San Antonio (SAT) to Mexico City (MEX) and BOS to Orlando (MCO), along with some tag on routes between 2 points such as Montego Bay (MBJ) to Kingston (KIN), La Paz (LPB) to Santa Cruz (VVI), and Richmond (RIC) to Norfolk (ORF). Paris-Orly (ORY) was still used at the time as France did not allow US Carriers in CDG for the most part and American had some London-Gatwick (LGW) services in addition to its many LHR routes. LAX and BOS were focus cities, but mostly for transcontinental\transatlantic routes or routes to Hawaii in the case of LAX, with few domestic services otherwise to non-American hub\focus cities. The whole fleet had the standard livery at the time, with the MD-80s having a black nose and "Super 80" titles, while the whole fleet had "Luxury Liner" titles on the nose as part of a campaign advertising the fact that AA had removed seats from its airplanes for extra leg room. 1998 was the last year before American Airlines became a founding member of the "oneworld" alliance, along with British Airways, Iberia, Cathay Pacific, and Canadian Airlines, at which time oneworld badges were added to all the planes. 737-800 deliveries started very early in 1999 to replace MD-80s. In early 2001, American would go on to acquire the once-massive TWA, inheriting a St. Louis (STL) hub which it closed rather quickly and boosting its JFK presence while temporarily bringing the MD-80 fleet to over 400 examples. Expansion, of course, would be halted due to the 9\11 attacks which saw American lose 2 aircraft and lead to a several year period where 50 seat ERJ-145 regional jets replaced mainine on many routes and ex-Reno Air MD-87s and MD-90s were retired, along with the DC-10s and, not long after, the 727s and MD-11s. 777s and 737-800s had joined the fleet from the summer of 1999, the 777s being the new flagships and were used on a short-lived Transpacific expansion that even saw the launch of flights to Taipei (TPE) from SJC (which was started in conjunction with a 767-300ER route to CDG). However, the TPE service was very short-lived, and American yet again closed to SJC hub in 2005 with a few ex-Reno Air routes going to American Eagle ERJ-140s and the rest of the non-hub services, including NRT, fading away as American again reduced its Asia network to only NRT. Flights were eventually added to China, Hong Kong, and other parts of Asia but not until late 2000s\2010s. In 2013, American announced a major merger with US Airways, who itself was still finishing its merger with America West, and unveiled a new livery along with a new flagship product on special transcon A321s to replace the aging 767-200s. Now one of the largest carriers on earth, American operates a large fleet of 787-8\9s and 777-200\300ERs on global services and mostly operated Airbus A319\320\321s on domestic services alongside a huge fleet of 737-800s. Flightplans by RAI member cmd320, and are mainline only. Note that these flightplans, like all flightplans associated with this project, use KATT instead of KAUS for Austin, as the old Muller Airport was active until late 1999. There is an FS2004 scenery for this airport and I am working on converting it to work in FSX\P3D as well as modifying the airport to reflect its final late 1990s form. I have included the 757-200 in the Astrojet livery, which was introduced in January of 1999, and 2 very early 1999 Boeing 737-800 delivery flight from BFI as well to better represent the late 1990s. For the delivery flights, assign a new .cfg entry to your AA 737-800 with "atc_parking_codes=XAAL" and "atc_parking_types=RAMP". Most of the repaints are still needed in P3D native resolution, but here are the available paints for now: 1994 fleet (good for AIA Fokker 100, MD-80s, 727-200, AIG 757-200, and TFS A300-600R): library.avsim.net/search.php?SearchTerm=aafleet1994.zip&CatID=root&Go=SearchFSPX MD-11 (Ranmori Scythe): drive.google.com/drive/u/1/folders/1W-VAbn-iJR0aLW1W17Q7WHNPWfbVSzwEFSPX MD-11 (Michael Pearson): library.avsim.net/search.php?SearchTerm=fspx_md-11_aal.zip&CatID=root&Go=SearchFAIB 767-300: library.avsim.net/search.php?SearchTerm=faib_767-300_aal.zip&CatID=root&Go=SearchFAIB 767-200: library.avsim.net/search.php?SearchTerm=faib_767-200_aal.zip&CatID=root&Go=SearchAIG 757-200 Astrojet (FS2004 Native): library.avsim.net/search.php?SearchTerm=aig752astrojet.zip&CatID=root&Go=SearchAIM DC-10-30: library.avsim.net/search.php?SearchTerm=aim_dc1030_americanairlines_307311.zip&CatID=root&Go=SearchAIM DC-10-10: library.avsim.net/search.php?SearchTerm=aim_dc1010_american_v2.zip&CatID=root&Go=SearchFAIB 737-800 (use non-winglet model): fsxaibureau.com/manufacturing/boeing/boeing-737-800/american-airlines-737-800/MD-11: DC-10-30: DC-10-10: A300-600R: 767-300ER: 767-200ER: 767-200: 757-200: 727-200: MD-83: MD-82: Fokker 100: 737-800 delivery flights: Download American Airlines 1998 v2 Flightplans Here
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Post by chasensfo on Feb 16, 2022 1:55:17 GMT -5
Updates:Cebu Pacific updated to v3 (Added various real-life charters to aircraft with long ground times, changed RPVB to RPVX, changed AI cruise speeds to AIG standard): drive.google.com/drive/u/1/folders/1o419GA7IVsG2o3f5RaSJR2pXSbeIvilyNovair 1999 v2 (re-ordered aircraft for better AI parking, changed cruise speeds to AIG standard): drive.google.com/drive/u/1/folders/1tdx8QiSFyh73gAupE0_nGFSpgW1qQZC4Syrian Arab Airlines 1998 v2 (Added various charters, re-ordered aircraft for better AI parking, changed cruise speeds to AIG standards, deleted extra 727): drive.google.com/drive/u/1/folders/1qH2q1QKJHB4C8z5vsa-fGe2pm__H66o5New Incomplete Airline:United Express 1998 (Contains all Air Wisconsin, SkyWest, Trans States, and United Feeder System flights. US West Coast\DEN completed, by cmd320): drive.google.com/drive/u/1/folders/18Xgw2_1bG9Tot0wR-j8KTvmvHHVIR2FhNOTE: If using FS2004 thru P3Dv4, change KNYL to KYUM, the code has changed in P3Dv5.
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Post by chasensfo on Feb 17, 2022 6:44:54 GMT -5
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Post by chasensfo on Feb 22, 2022 10:17:28 GMT -5
American Airlines updated to v2, added the 757-200 retrojet livery and 2 737-800 delivery flights, both of which happened came to be in very early January 1999, thus better representing late 1990s American. //Airbus Industries 1999 Airbus Industries (1970 - Present) IATA: VK ICAO: AIB CALLSIGN: AIRBUS INDUSTRIE Airbus Transport International (1970 - Present) IATA: 4Y ICAO: BGA CALLSIGN: SUPER TRANSPORT Airbus Industries, a joint venture between France and Germany with parts factories all across the globe, is the largest aircraft manufacturer in the world, producing airliners, military aircraft, and helicopters with its largest facilities in Toulouse, France (TLS) and Hamburg, Germany (XFW). Founded in late 1970 as the first widebody airliners (the Boeing 747 and Douglas DC-10) were rolling out, the first product the company would produce was the Airbus A300, the first twin-engine widebody aircraft. Though based in France, Airbus was a consortium of European companies including Deutsche Airbus of Germany, Hawker Sydney of the UK, Fokker of The Netherlands, and CASA of Spain. Assembled in TLS, the first A300 flew in 1972, with Japan Air System (JAS) being the launch customer (and even adopting the Airbus house colors as its new livery that it would wear for over a decade) and Eastern Air Lines of the USA being the first carrier to place a major order, followed by Thai International and China Airlines. With large orders on the books, Airbus was quickly able to produce new variants of their A300, eventually including both General Electric (GE) and Pratt & Whitney (PW) engine variants and a 2-pilot version which eliminated the flight engineer, which was revolutionary for a widebody jet at the time. This was followed by the shortened version of the A300, dubbed the A310, which featured the -200 and -300 versions, the latter of which was capable of Transatlantic journies between Western Europe and the US East Coast. The A310 also featured a futuristic glass which was later added to another A300 variant, the A300-600R. Both the A310-300 and the A300-600R were the first products to feature wingtip fences, which increased range and reduced drag by creating a smoother airflow over the edge of the wingtips. Pan American placed an order for both of the newer widebodies with deliveries beginning in the mid-1980s and the type being deployed on routes including New York (JFK) to London Heathrow (LHR). Around this time, Airbus began working on a revolutionary airliner that would eventually surpass Boeing's 737 as the world's best-selling airliner; the Airbus A320. Featuring an almost entirely glass with fly-by-wire controls, which respond to control inputs by the pilot by commanding thrust and control surfaces to move in a manner that sets a constant pitch\roll rate and trims the aircraft automatically, negating the traditional need for pilots to apply back pressure or rudder inputs to avoid losing/gaining lift in turns and attitude changes. The traditional control yoke had also been replaced by a "side stick", with a priority button on either side of the activating or deactivating the stick's response for either crew member, unlike a traditional aircraft where the control columns are mechanically linked to one another. Many procedures and systems on the aircraft requiring manual input on most aircraft were now fully automated as well. The first version of the A320, the A320-100 which featured no wingtip fences, was first delivered to Air France, Air Inter, and British Airways starting in 1988 while Lufthansa was among the first carriers to operate the newer and much more widely produced A320-200 in 1989. The A320 saw early setbacks with 3 of the launch customers suffering fatal A320 accidents related to the fly-by-wire controls or other automation in the first few years of service. Air France had a highly publicized fatal accident in 1988 (before the type had entered revenue service) during an airshow fly by where the aircraft became stuck in "Alpha Floor" mode and maintained a constant attitude without climbing and flying into a forest at the end of the runway in front of hundreds of airshow spectators, some of which caught the event on video. Airbus and Air France claimed that pilot error was the blame, but the captain, who survived the accident, insisted that the aircraft did not behave as he had been taught that it should have. 2 years later in 1991, Air Inter crashed an A320 into a forest during an approach to Strasbourg (SXB) in foggy weather after the pilots misjudged their altitude due to misconfiguring the altimeter. Not long after in 1993, Lufthansa also suffered a fatal accident induced by the fly-by-wire system in 1993 when an A320 landing in Warsaw (WAW) floated down the runway during a storm not making firm contact with the ground which, in turn, resulted in the A320 not allowing the crew to deploy the spoilers and reverse thrusters until the airliner was 5,000 feet down the runway, leading to a deadly overrun. Despite this, other early customers, which included the US carriers Braniff (who intercepted a canceled order by failing Pan American), America West, Northwest Airlines, and Leisure Air as well as China Airlines, did not suffer any disasters, and the type had become very popular by the early 1990s with orders from around the globe. The A320 branched out into the "A320 Family", which first featured the stretched A321 in 1993 followed by the shortened A319 in 1997 and a cooperate version of the A319, dubbed the CJ, or "Corporate Jet", 319 in 1998. While A320 manufacturing remained primarily in TLS, the A321 and A319 were largely manufactured in XFW. From 1992, Airbus introduced its next generation of widebody jets; the A330-300, first flying in 1992, and the A340-200, which first flew in 1991. Both aircraft featured enough commonality with the A320 series to satisfy global aviation authorities to allow the certification of pilots to simultaneously fly all types with just different training required rather than an entirely new training process. This was a big motivation for carriers like Air France and Lufthansa, who operated all Airbus types, to grow their fleets. Both long-haul aircraft, the twin-engine A330-300 was hugely successful in most of the world outside of the United States, where only US Airways (at the end of the 1990s) and Northwest (in the early 2000s) ordered the aircraft. The A340-200 quad jet, however, was not very popular with its short fuselage and limited seating capacity, with most airlines holding out for the A340-300 to lunch in the mid-1990s, which was essentially the 4-engine version of the A330-300. The A340-200 fuselage eventually became the A330-200, which began deliveries in late 1997 and sold much better than its 4-engined counterpart. As parts for these aircraft, such as the wings, stabilizers, fuselages, and engines, were made all over Europe, Airbus had established "Airbus Transport International" at its founding in 1970 to fly parts between factories into TLS (and later XFW) for final assembly. Selected for this role was (ironically) Boeing's 377 Stratocruiser, itself based on the WWII B-29 Super Fortress bomber, highly modified with a massive bulging fuselage and dubbed the "Super Guppy". A hard-working fleet of 3 of these aircraft were the unsung heroes of Airbus production for over 2 decades until Airbus developed its own A300 into the A300B4-608ST "Beluga", named after the whale which the aircraft shape resembles. The Beluga was first built in 1994 and was put into use at the very end of 1995, first with 2 examples while another 2 joined the fleet in 1998 and the Super Guppy was retired, with one being preserved in TLS. A special livery was fitted to the #3 Beluga in 1999, and several more would follow in the coming years, often advertising aircraft and items transported by the Beluga fleet. Airbus would go on to produce more variants of its A320, A330, and A340 family, such as the even shorter A318, A320\A330NEO (or New Engine Order) series, the ultra-long-range A340-500, and the stretched out A340-600. In 2005, after 15 years of development, Airbus introduced the world's largest airliner; the Airbus A380-800. Though huge orders were initially placed by Emirates and dozens more by other carriers, including large orders from FedEx and UPS for cargo variants, massive delays to the program resulted in many cancellations, including the loss of all orders for the cargo version which, in turn, was never developed. Envisioned as an economical way for airlines to use fewer frequencies on routes thanks to the higher seating configuration, new A380 orders were only coming from Emirates by the mid-2010s, which put plans for an A380NEO on hold and put the program as a whole into jeopardy. ANA of Japan was the only new A380 operator in the second half of the 2010s. In 2019, the French national carrier, Air France, decided to retire the type citing operational costs and inefficiencies making the aircraft more valuable as spare parts\scrap. The COVID-19 pandemic of 2020 shut down global air travel effectively for years, and as airlines rushed to retire older or inefficient aircraft types to survive, the majority of A380 customers, including Lufthansa, China Southern, Thai International, Malaysian Airlines, and Qatar Airways announced that they planned to retire their A380 fleets in the months or years to follow the pandemic, while Etihad announced that it will most likely do the same. Airbus closed the A380 line, with the last aircraft delivered to Emirates at the end of 2021. Another new type introduced in 2015, the A350, which features more display screens and other new modifications, as well as an ultra long haul version capable of range similar to the A340-500 and an A350-1000 version stretched to the dimensions of a Boeing 777-300ER, has been much more successful and is now flown by the hundreds by airlines all across the globe. In addition to these aircraft, Airbus has produced several helicopter variants as well as some military transports like the A400M. In recent years, plants were opened in other parts of the world, like Mobile, Alabama (MOB) where A320 and A350 series aircraft are produced, and the C-Series product line of Canada's Bombardier was purchased by Airbus to become the A220 series, with -100 and -300 variants. Airbus overtook US aircraft manufacturing giant Boeing as the largest aircraft manufacturer in the world in the late 2010s, with its A320 family of jets surpassing Boeing's 737 series as the best-selling jetliner in the world around the same time. These flightplans represent Airbus in the late 1990s, with aircraft in testing at the time represented to fill the parking at both TLS and XFW and providing a good variety of the airline customers of the period. The A330-300 and A320, both of which were mostly found in TLS, were being built in small numbers at the time compared to the A319\321 and A330-200, while a decent number of A340s were still being built. The A319 was the most popular product at the time, which is reflected in the number of them which will appear in XFW. Test flights occur both to airports with Airbus facilities and some European airports where I found at least some test flights to have occurred, though this is just a small sample as Airbus used a wide variety of airports on an occasional basis. Some aircraft simulate actual individual test flights, as is the case of a Gulf Air A330 which uses LHR for a test flight, which I'd imagine for slot reasons was rather unusual. I have only included aircraft which are pre-delivery. Some flightplans already include aircraft deliveries for that airline, and I will be updating many more airlines soon to reflect deliveries for planes not already included in the 1998 or 1999 flightplans. ADE files in progress for TLS and XFW will ensure the delivery aircraft (which will use the airline's own code for parking except starting with "X") park at the delivery center for their simulated deliveries while the test aircraft park on the various Airbus aprons. The Airbus Transport International Beluga fleet of 4 aircraft is represented flying between the Airbus factory airports, as they often did, and on odd charters, including one across North America, which were actually flown in the late 1990s. The Beluga's will also be visiting airshows in Zurich (ZRH), Farnborough (FAN), and Paris (LBG) as they did in real life and will join other static displays, such as the Concorde, which are already created with other flightplans over the weekend. An A330-200 in the Airbus livery participated in an airshow in Berlin (SXF) as well, and will spend the weekend there. For parking and callsign purposes, please assign a new .cfg entry for each livery using "atc_parking_types=RAMP" for the test flights and "atc_parking_types=CARGO" for the Belugas along with the proper Airbus codes\callsigns. As Billy Rutherford had painted some, but not all, of the Belugas, I filled in his missing paints, including the few missing modern paints as a bonus in case you have use for them. I could not find the Air Canada A330-300, Air Transat\Canada 3000 A330-200 Air 2000 A321, CJ319 Demonstrator, Croatia\Eurowings\Finnair\US Airways A319 or the primer repaints. The following repaints are available: FSPX A340-300 Air Canada: library.avsim.net/search.php?SearchTerm=fspxai_a340-300_aca.zip&CatID=root&Go=Search FSPX A340-300 Air France by Nils Gosselin: drive.google.com/drive/folders/17SEBBW-CV2MfOJ35tjSlURiZqaTRv7ftFSPX A340-300 China Southwest: library.avsim.net/search.php?SearchTerm=fspxai_a340-300_cxn.zip&CatID=root&Go=SearchFSPX A340-300 Iberia by Florian van der Kleij: drive.google.com/file/d/18sAi-kzTORwM7zQN8efGWE8mjg-cIeEl/view?usp=sharing FSPX A340-300 Lufthansa: www.juergenbaumbusch.de/?p=10665FSPX A340-300 Olympic: library.avsim.net/search.php?SearchTerm=fspxai_a340-300_oly.zip&CatID=root&Go=SearchFSPX A340-300 Singapore Airlines: library.avsim.net/search.php?SearchTerm=fspxai_a340-300_sia.zip&CatID=root&Go=SearchFSPX A340-300 Turkish Airlines: library.avsim.net/search.php?SearchTerm=fspxai_a340-300_thy.zip&CatID=root&Go=SearchFSPX A340-300 Virgin Atlantic: library.avsim.net/search.php?SearchTerm=fspxai_a340-300_vir.zip&CatID=root&Go=SearchFSPX A330-300 Korean Air (part of 1998 package): library.avsim.net/search.php?SearchTerm=korean_air_1998.zip&CatID=root&Go=SearchFSPX A330-300 Dragonair\FAIB A321 Air Macau (part of 1998 package): library.avsim.net/search.php?SearchTerm=airlines_of_hong_kong_1998.zip&CatID=root&Go=SearchFSPX A330-300 Philippine Airlines by Michael Pearson: drive.google.com/u/0/uc?id=1XsKY1PgESqn3ZH32kwYc_lhM-TgNbscm&export=downloadFSPX A330-300 Thai International (fleet) by Michael Pearson: drive.google.com/file/d/1fynKLLwouE-x0D5CQvVJH4fU1waSAZUO/viewTFS A330-200 Airbus House Colors: www.flightsim.com/vbfs/fslib.php?searchid=91365088TFS A330-200 Airtours International (part of fleet package): library.avsim.net/search.php?SearchTerm=airtours_international_fleet_late_1990s_early_2000s.zip&CatID=root&Go=SearchFSPX A330-200 Austrian Airlines: library.avsim.net/search.php?SearchTerm=fspxai_a330-200_aua_1990s.zip&CatID=root&Go=SearchFSPX A330-200 Gulf Air: library.avsim.net/search.php?SearchTerm=fspxai_a330-200_gfa.zip&CatID=root&Go=SearchFSPX A330-200 SABENA: library.avsim.net/search.php?SearchTerm=fspx_a330-200_sab.zip&CatID=root&Go=Search FSPX A330-200 SriLankan: library.avsim.net/search.php?SearchTerm=fspxai_a330-200_alk.zip&CatID=root&Go=SearchFSPX A330-200 Monarch: library.avsim.net/search.php?SearchTerm=tfs_monarch_airbus_a330-200.zip&CatID=root&Go=SearchMRAI MRAI A300B4ST "Beluga" #1 (my edit of a Billy Rutherford paint, includes missing new colors variants as well): drive.google.com/drive/u/1/folders/12Sy6aT7ckPR-lYMd19VS3ZUptVWGtVsKMRAI A300B4ST "Beluga" #2: library.avsim.net/search.php?SearchTerm=ai_a300-600st_beluga_f-gstb_skylink.zip&CatID=root&Go=SearchMRAI A300B4ST "Beluga" #3: library.avsim.net/search.php?SearchTerm=ai_a300-600st_beluga_f-gstc_francaise_revolution.zip&CatID=root&Go=SearchMRAI A300B4ST "Beluga" #4: library.avsim.net/search.php?SearchTerm=ai_a300-600st_beluga_f-gstd.zip&CatID=root&Go=SearchFAIB A321 Austrian: library.avsim.net/search.php?SearchTerm=faib_a321-200_aua_1990s.zip&CatID=root&Go=SearchFAIB A321 British Midland by Florian van der Kleij: drive.google.com/file/d/15GzkOzaxD9AbnMCJPfVoX8e23iIOiXjD/view?usp=sharingFAIB A321 Dragonair: library.avsim.net/search.php?SearchTerm=faib_a321_hda.zip&CatID=root&Go=SearchFAIB A321 Iberia by Florian van der Kleij: www.juergenbaumbusch.de/?p=2196FAIB A321 Monarch: library.avsim.net/search.php?SearchTerm=faib_monarch_airbus_a321-200.zip&CatID=root&Go=SearchFAIB A321 Sichuan Airlines: library.avsim.net/search.php?SearchTerm=faib_a321-200_csc.zip&CatID=root&Go=SearchFAIB A320 China Northwest Airlines: library.avsim.net/search.php?SearchTerm=faib_a320-200_cnw.zip&CatID=root&Go=SearchFAIB A320 Qatar\Qatar Amiri Flight: library.avsim.net/search.php?SearchTerm=faib_a320-200_qaf.zip&CatID=root&Go=SearchFAIB A319 Aer Lingus: flyingcarpet75.com/repaints/airlines/a/aer-lingus/47-aer-lingus-a319FAIB A319 Air Canada: library.avsim.net/search.php?SearchTerm=faib_a319-100_aca.zip&CatID=root&Go=Search FSPX A319 Air France by Nils Gosselin: drive.google.com/drive/folders/1kzT7ZQwyrfJ1K-T9_k2iyzn4jEGlhU8TFAIB A319 Air France by Nils Gosselin: drive.google.com/drive/folders/1NfBOF2g6PtE1FM2uI1P47Sp8bBaCniYyFAIB A319 America West: library.avsim.net/search.php?SearchTerm=faib_a319-100_awe.zip&CatID=root&Go=Search FAIB A319 British Airways (no 'United Kingdom' World Colours titles): library.avsim.net/search.php?SearchTerm=faib_a319_baw_fsx_.zip&CatID=root&Go=SearchFAIB A319 Northwest Airlines (by Chris Gorodetzky): drive.google.com/drive/u/1/folders/1xCzKzYWZaO6hAxw_oyvGrTYAWOBfkRip FAIB A319 Silkair: www.juergenbaumbusch.de/?p=2106FAIB A319 Swissiar by Daniel El Meddeb (Fleet Package): drive.google.com/file/d/1j54pB5P7GSHphkKBu_gthbU99NI2rwqx/view?fbclid=IwAR19_lCTlASlqs6JDrkIOkbvCO1w4k0ZB2ozmPPiiIP2lQ2xBhKVkwsqMMY FAIB A319 TAM: library.avsim.net/search.php?SearchTerm=faib_a319-100_tam.zip&CatID=root&Go=SearchFAIB A319 United Airlines (by Chris Gorodetzky): drive.google.com/drive/u/1/folders/1Ux3b_NMzK_a3IXxN2iin4KIzUYsKyujy Airbus A319\320\321\332\333\343 Test Flights: Airbus Transport International A300B4ST: Download Airbus Industries 1999 Flightplans Here
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Post by chasensfo on Feb 23, 2022 12:02:21 GMT -5
I am very excited to release this carrier, as I have been hunting for the (very rare) final schedule of Western Pacific for years since this project started. Having many clear memories of seeing these aircraft at SFO and DEN as a child, Westpac has always had a special place in my heart and I'm happy to see their final state finally represented in the Flight Simulator world. \\Western Pacific Airlines 1998 Western Pacific Airlines (1995-1998) IATA: W7 ICAO: KMR CALLSIGN: KOMSTAR Western Pacific Airlines operated by Mountain Air Express - MAX (1996-1998) IATA: M7 ICAO: PKP CALLSIGN: PIKES PEAK Western Pacific Airlines, nicknamed "Westpac" by employees, was a very short-lived US low-cost carrier based in Colorado Springs (COS), which is less than a 2-hour drive from Denver (DEN). Denver has always been popular with carriers as a connecting hub given its geographical location allowing for flights to most parts of the United States in under 4 hours. When the city of Denver decided that in early 1995 it would close the Denver Stapleton Airport, located near downtown Denver, in favor of opening a new huge facility quite a distance from the city, Continental Airlines decided that it would close its massive DEN hub when the move to the new airport commenced. Seeing an opportunity with the new airport location adding significant travel time for residents in the Southern Denver or Colorado Springs suburbs as well as anticipating exorbitant airfares on many routes from DEN as United would now have a monopoly on many routes, a new airline was organized and founded in 1994 as "Commercial Air". At the time, COS was a massive facility that saw more general aviation and military use than it did airline service, and the passenger terminal was larger than needed-be with plenty of room for expansion and little competition in the way of air service. Historically, the airport had mostly been served via tag-on routes to Denver with various carriers such as TWA and America West were currently connecting COS and DEN on routes to their hubs in 1994 with few nonstop routes available to passengers. While COS had relatively high airfares at the time with America West's flights to Phoenix (PHX) (many of which stopped in DEN) being the only low-cost carrier route, facility and landing fees were significantly lower than those in DEN. The carrier changed its name to Western Pacific, and the decision was made to invest in turning COS into a large connecting hub in hopes of attracting stop-over traffic between the Western and Eastern United States as well as siphoning local traffic away from both United and the new Frontier Airlines. Frontier was another low-cost carrier operating Boeing 737s, formed largely by former employees of the original Denver-based Frontier Airlines which was bought out by Continental in 1986, who had recently started with the same business model as Western Pacific but elected to be based in DEN to compete head to head with United. COS had recently expanded its terminal to feature a long pier with gates on both sides which was used by all the current air carriers, and though there were plenty of vacant gates most of the day, Western Pacific wanted to ensure it had sufficient room for rapid growth and large banks of flights on the ground at once to maximize connectivity. Thus, a new pier was built adjacent to the current gates creating an alleyway and featuring several gates just for Western Pacific to use. As the terminal neared completion in the Spring of 1995, Western Pacific began signing leases for Boeing 737-300s from various carriers, but mostly USAir, and flights began on 28APR95 initially using their first 2 737s along with a pair of 727-200s wet-leased from Express One International, wearing that carriers full colors but featuring Western Pacific logos and titles. Initial destinations included Las Vegas (LAS), San Francisco (SFO), Houston (IAH), Chicago Midway (MDW), and Los Angeles (LAX), though the airline rapidly expanded month by month. A 3rd 737-300 joined the fleet within a few weeks, and initially, the 3rd aircraft wore bare metal hybrid livery with the blue tail and red stripe of USAir while the first pair of 737s wore an all-white livery with simple "Western Pacific" fuselage titles above the window and the "WP" logo on the tail. Around this time, Western Pacific had the novel idea of selling each of its aircraft as "flying billboards", allowing companies to paint one of their 737s as a giant advertisement which both was eye-catching to the public, gaining the tiny new start-up carrier quick attention, and provided extra money to the airline which had invested significantly already in its new COS facilities. While the first contracts were signed, Western Pacific applied billboard "Beat The System" titles to the hybrid aircraft and began a marketing campaign encouraging passengers to avoid the DEN mega-hub and the fares of established airlines and to instead help grow the local company and, in turn, the smaller, more user-friendly COS airport. The 4th 737-300 also arrived in the bare-metal hybrid colors of USAir, wearing a large question mark symbol on the tail and "Future Logo Jet" billboard titles across the fuselage, an indication of what was soon to come. This provoked Western Pacific to create a "Mystery Flight" campaign, where passengers would pay a relatively small fare for a trip to an unknown destination, being told only what climate to dress for, and would show up to a ticket counter draped in black sheets with question marks all over it only then finding out where they were traveling. In reality, it was just a clever way for the carrier to cheaply fill seats while gaining press and creating a fun atmosphere for employees and passengers as it tried to make a name for itself. In June of 1995, the first logo jets were unveiled, 2 of which promoted local businesses with an aircraft painted in tan and maroon colors advertising The Broadmoor Hotel in Colorado Springs, an aircraft painted red advertising the "Pro Rodeo Hall of Fame" in Colorado Springs with those titles on one side and "Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association" titles on the other, along with a photo of a cowbody riding a bucking horse on the tail. The other, and undoubtedly the most iconic special livery in the airline's brief history, was advertising Fox's hit TV Cartoon "The Simpsons". Painted bright yellow with the Fox logo on blue engine cowlings and the characters of the Simpsons family painted across the fuselage, with Marge Simpson's tall hair going up the vertical stabilizer, employees nicknamed the aircraft "The Electric Banana". By 1996, the 727s had been returned to Express One and the airline had grown considerably while becoming very popular with local travelers and curious enthusiasts alike, with many going out of their way to try the carrier. East Coast destinations such as Washington DC (IAD) and Newark (EWR) were added along with several other destinations in the Eastern and Southeast United States including Miami (MIA), Atlanta (ATL), Indianapolis (IND), Nashville (BNA), and Orlando (MCO). Meanwhile, in the Western US where the carrier's initial focus was, the carrier now served most major cities including Seattle (SEA), Portland (PDX), and San Diego (SAN) along with several secondary cities such as Ontario (ONT) and San Jose (SJC). Through 1997, the carrier had been adding a 737 to the fleet every several weeks, with aircraft awaiting logojet customers often cycling through liveries promoting special deals and ad campaigns for Western Pacific such as the "Spring Fling Jet", advertising a discounted fare for a significant other, the "Super Summer $aver Jet", advertising special summertime low fares, and the "Winter Wonder Plane", advertising Christmas holiday specials. Various other aircraft briefly wore unique versions of a Western Pacific house livery, with few aircraft ever wearing the same design, though they were usually basic with a white fuselage and then some kind of color variation on the titles and "WP" logos. At least 2 aircraft in 96 were flown briefly in bare metal ex-USAir hybrid colors, with one having a large image of Western Pacific's cartoon airplane logo, dubbed "Westpac Willey", and another destined to soon become a billboard wore "Future Sam's Town Logo Jet" titles. COS now had several solid busy hub banks during the day, with most flights being operated daily. Most flights operated as "through flights", operating 1-stop same airplane service between a city in the Western\Southwest US and the Eastern\Southeast US. This explosive growth did not go unnoticed, as Western Pacific was indeed succeeding at siphoning both local traffic from United in DEN and connecting traffic from various other airlines across the US. The sleepy COS airline terminal quickly became much busier than ever in its history, with United dumping dozens of mainline frequencies on the less-than-20-minute DEN-COS route, even using a few daily DC-10s and several 757s at one point on the short service, and offering dirt-cheap fares to local COS pax to connect through DEN onto other United flights. For some time in 1995 and 1996, United eliminated all United Express flights on the route and was 100% mainline. Likewise, RenoAir, feeling threatened with Western Pacific's encroachment into its SJC, LAX, and LAS hubs, began several daily low-fare flights from COS giving Western Pacific its first direct competition with another low-cost carrier. Carriers already serving COS such as American, Delta, and TWA all increased frequencies in attempts to keep Western Pacific off their hub routes, with American and Delta both up gauging some flights to Boeing 757s while also lowering fares. Still, Western Pacific expanded further by launching a regional subsidiary in the summer of 1996 called Mountain Air Express, or "MAX". MAX initially operated a fleet of 4 Dornier 328-100 turboprops, parking at the end of the Western Pacific pier with 1 aircraft wearing a special livery promoting "Cheyenne Frontier Days". MAX was feeding the hub banks with connections to cities previously unserved by Western Pacific as well as adding frequencies to some existing mainline routes such as Kansas City (MCI), Oklahoma City (KOKC), and Tulsa (TUL). By mid-1997, MAX had grown to serve 16 cities (some seasonally or only on weekends for skiing) including Salt Lake City (SLC), Albuquerque (ABQ), Santa Fe (SAF), Aspen (ASE), Grand Junction (GJT), and even Denver (DEN), surely to spite United's efforts to attack COS. Western Pacific now served most United Express destinations in the Colorado and Great Plains region via COS. Though Western Pacific had yet to turn a profit with its massive expansion, deliveries slowed and the carrier felt that further expansion at COS, where the carrier now served 25 cities, was difficult due to gate constraints. Confident to challenge United head-on and eager to acquire the many gates on DEN's Concourse A that Frontier Airlines, who had also successfully grown, had mostly to itself, Western Pacific entered merger talks to acquire Frontier Airlines and relocate to DEN. Initially, these talks went well, and rather quickly, a merger intent was officially announced by the 2 carriers. Given the fact that this decision had been reached in the course of a few weeks, Western Pacific found itself in the difficult position of trying to honor the schedule it had been selling through the end of 1997 while also moving its flights, staff, and facilities to DEN ahead of the merger as quickly as possible. The solution was a modification to the 1997 summer schedule which saw most routes still originating in COS but "stopping" in DEN in both directions. While MAX flights between COS and DEN continued to operate and feed connections, Western Pacific elected not to sell its dozens of daily flights between COS and DEN and instead attempted to operate stops in DEN and COS as quickly as possible to keep up with the schedule. MAX flights largely operated the same way, with most flights originating in COS but then operating via DEN, while some now operated from DEN alone. Western Pacific moved into several vacant gates at the East end of Concourse A, while Frontier held on to the West end. What's more, the carrier had taken delivery of its first 3 brand-new factory delivered 737s around this time. With complications and costs high and Western Pacific running low on cash, secondary cities such as SJC and ONT were cut in the next flight schedule, as were some other cities like MIA and IND, and frequencies on routes flown by Frontier already were trimmed in many cases to try and preserve the network during the merger. The 2 carriers unveiled a new standardized livery, featuring a uniform dark grey aft fuselage with a red stripe on the tail, which would feature new Western Pacific branding, and a white forward fuselage preserved as space for the flying billboard program. Western Pacific released publications and advertisements announcing that the combined carrier would transform into a full-service airline to better compete with United, even offering a first-class cabin along with meals and other amenities. Very shortly before the merger was to begin, and after Western Pacific had invested millions of dollars into the move to DEN, Frontier Airlines abruptly canceled the merger, publicly denouncing Western Pacific for providing inaccurate information regarding its finances and declaring that Western Pacific indeed could not actually afford to acquire Frontier. Calling off the merger left both airlines at the edge of bankruptcy. While Western Pacific retrained its fleet of 19 aircraft, a 20th 737 already built in Renton (RNT) was not taken up, ending up at Air New Zealand instead. The carrier shut down the vast majority of its network, instead mostly reverting to bumping up frequencies on some of its earlier routes, only retaining ATL, EWR, IAD, and MCO in the Eastern US. MCI, TUL, and OKC mainline service ended, with all flights going to MAX. MAX itself abruptly ended service to the majority of its network, only retaining half of its 16 destinations. The cuts were revealed in the airline's final schedule, printed to represent November of 1997 through April of 1998, which was also the first (and last) schedule that saw COS as nothing more but a high-frequency MAX "shuttle" route with no mainline service. By mid-November, Western Pacific had declared bankruptcy, however, flights continued until 04FEB98 when the airline abruptly shut down, unable to continue due to its financial state. The colorful 737 fleet, which was all leased and not owned outright, sat stored on remote parking stands in DEN for a few weeks, but the aircraft quickly found new homes or better storage locations. Much of the fleet ferried to Dallas Love Field (DAL) for storage, while several others ferried to Paine Field (PAE) or PHX for conversion work for new customers. A few of the 737s ferried to Brazil in Western Pacific's full colors to join the fleets of VARIG, VASP, and Transbrasil. Though Western Pacific's 3 years or so of service were just a flash in the pan, the carrier is still very popular with enthusiasts to this day for its numerous special liveries. MAX continued operating independently through June 1998, at which time it was acquired by Air Wisconsin who used to Dornier 328 fleet to replace Mesa Airlines DHC-8s on the United Express DEN turboprop contract. COS has never been nearly as busy again in its history, with United quickly ending the capacity dump on the COS-DEN route once Western Pacific was gone (though a small number of mainline flights remained for a while) and the other carriers doing the same or leaving entirely. The former Western Pacific pier was closed and sits vacant today, after just 3 years of usage, and COS has largely been served by mostly regional jets in the years since Western Pacific. The included flights are based on the final schedule, which was printed for 16NOV97-04APR98 and features the carriers proposed final branding and a "Get Off In Denver Free!" (phrasing) ad campaign where the carrier, out of desperation, was allowing passengers incredibly flexible stays in DEN when connecting on to another destination. Though Western Pacific shut down exactly 2 months prior to fulfilling this schedule entirely, the aircraft could be seen sitting around DEN for several weeks after and at other airports like DAL and PHX through the end of the summer of 1998. Seeing how cool this carrier is, I can't resist adding them despite the fact they barely survived into the late 1990s. For realism's sake, note that the MAX Do-328s are being flown by Air Wisconsin out of DEN in the United 1998 flightplans, so if you wish to see DEN as it truly looked in the final days of Western Pacific, simply replace the United Express Do-328s with Mesa DHC-8-100\300s which operated the same flights as the Air Wisconsin Do-328s until June of 1998. I can very clearly recall from an early 1998 visit to DEN with Western Pacific active that the DHC-8s were either all or mostly all in the grey 1993 livery at that time. Impulse AI has painted the DHC-8-100, and Christian Gold has converted their texture to a DHC-8-300 version (these aircraft were stored afterward and not used in the United 1998 plans, though the DHC-8-100s came back in the 2000s). Repaints on the FAIB models are still needed (I'll love you if you do them), but Paul Haak has painted much of the fleet on the original AIA 737-300 model and a few of the textures active in 1998 on the AIA 737-300v2 model. Be careful as most of the paint v2 aircraft do not look as they did in 1998, so only install the v2 aircraft I have listed below for these plans, and otherwise use the old AIA model liveries. The MAX special livery is needed. The following repaints are available: AIA 737-300 1997 fleet (replace any aircraft in this package that is also included below on a v2 paint, but keep the rest): library.avsim.net/search.php?SearchTerm=pph_kmrai_jan97.zip&CatID=root&Go=SearchAIA 737-300v2 N947WP: www.flightsim.com/vbfs/fslib.php?searchid=91385053AIA 737-300v2 N951WP: www.flightsim.com/vbfs/fslib.php?searchid=91385031AIA 737-300v2 N952WP: www.flightsim.com/vbfs/fslib.php?searchid=91385044AIA 737-300v2 N955WP: www.flightsim.com/vbfs/fslib.php?searchid=91385067AIA 737-300v2 N962WP: www.flightsim.com/vbfs/fslib.php?searchid=91385085JBAI Dornier 328 MAX: library.avsim.net/search.php?SearchTerm=mountain_air_express_do_328-100.zip&CatID=root&Go=Search737-300: Dornier 328-100 operated by Mountain Air Express - MAX: Download Western Pacific Airlines 1998 Flightplans Here
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Post by bensplanes on Feb 23, 2022 14:24:27 GMT -5
Appears that WP took the "Billboard" livery concept quite literally. Nice plans, Chasen!
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