USA Jet B727 Ops

[bafanguy]

OK, Google knows everything so we don't have to. Found the airplane using the manufacturer's serial number: 53259

McDonnell Douglas MD-88 53259 / 1849 | Most Recent Photos | Planespotters.net

www.planespotters.net

I flew my last trip for Delta in that airframe. Glad it's not rotting in the boneyard.

 

[belchfire]

I'm a pretty solid Boeing fan, at least up to the 737-700. Anything after that is a stretch too far. I don't care how many seats they stuff into the airframe or how much fuel it can hold, the 737 is a sorry and cheap excuse as a replacement for the 757 and both Boeing and the airlines that fly over water with Fat Albert should all be ashamed of themselves and should be banished to coach in 737-800's for the remainder of their mortal lives!

Quality cannot be replaced by cheapness...

Passengers deserve better treatment, but what do I know? I'm a freight dog and boxes don't bitch...but pilots do and if you ever have the misfortune of spending 10 hours in coach in a couple of Copa's 737's you'll bitch too, trust me.

I think Boeing bought McD just to kill the remnants of Douglas Commercial and the DC-9 lineage as well as acquire the flat sided tail cone aerodynamics patent and FA-18 though it still pisses me off that Big B tried to take credit for a long history of partnership with Alaska Airlines during Alaska's 50th Birthday (Alaska was converting to Thunderguppies from MD-80's at the time) by putting up a sign in Sea-Tac with a picture of a DC-3 in Alaska livery on it!

And 90% of the people who saw that flagrant lie were clueless which pissed me off even more...

I'm going to carry the last laugh to my grave though...the Boeing B-17 "Sentimental Journey", if she's still doing the airshow circuit, was built by Douglas in their Long Beach plant!

In fact, since Boeing had 30 years to watch Airbus frack up with overweight, under-performing, over budget and behind schedule airplanes and decided to farm out the "Dreamliner" the same way the latter does, then lets automation drive airplanes into the ground with single failures because a bunch of punkazz ipad geeks (who wouldn't know a slide rule if you slapped them upside the head with it!) are now their engineering staff and they stopped production of the 747?

Boeing sucks almost as bad as Airbus!

 

[bafanguy]

Belch,

I kinda like both flavors. Flew the 737-200 long time ago...and the 727-200 (all 3 seats). And an embarrassing amount of DC9/MD80 time. Never aspired to the WB int'l stuff as I successfully dedicated my life to under achievement.

You don't hear much about USA Jet these days. They have ads out for both seats with nothing remarkable in the requirements. No mention of taking expats.

pilotyip used to post on here a good bit in the past but I haven't seen any sign of him in ages. Seems like a good guy. Hope he's okay.

 

[belchfire]

Oh, the old 737's were fine, with the DC-9 they were the original regional jets. They'll never fill the shoes of even the narrow body 757, ever. Boeing has taken leave of their senses and how they ever got the 737 Max (which is at least the third stretch too far) certified with one AOA sensor that when failed lets the AP stuff the airplane into the ground I'll never know...

I miss Yip popping in here, hope he's okay!

 

[FlyBigE]

Looks like Kalitta II has finally parked their last 727 a few months ago. The 727 is one of my favorite planes. I was fortunate to have flown it. Looks like just a few left flying in the USA at:

IFL GROUP - Cargo use
USA JET - Cargo use
RTX Corp - "Voodoo 1" test bed aircraft
Everts Air Cargo - Zero G Bird
Toward Air - Cargo

probably missed 1 or 2 VIP birds left in the states.