I am one of the lead guys who tried to save this plane for over a year. Finally, it had to be removed from the airport grounds so we sold it for scrap. Before we took ship 13 apart in early 2008, I saved all the cockpit items, a few rows of seats, the wheels and tires, the doors over the wings and alot of other neat items which I still have today. The biggest item I saved off this grand plane was the entire number 4 jet, the one that those two guys are checking in this video. It's still in my storage yard today. The front nose section along with the cockpit, as far as I know is still stored in South Jersey and the entire nose section of ship 3 has been restored and is now on display at the New Jersey Aviation Hall of Fame. I took film of this plane being broken up and it was very hard to watch. We tried so hard to save the plane, we really tried....
Shoot hard to believe it got scrapped after being brought back to flying condition. Would have been a good plane for the National Airline History Museum. My dad was a TWA 880 captain. Probably flew this ship.
I don't get it. Why did't they just cut it up in Mojave and where did they fly this to and eventually cut it up Herb? Seems like a lot of trouble to get her going after many years of sitting there.
My dad was an aircraft mechanic at Delta from 1967 to 2011. When he retired, the guys gave him a model of a Convair 880. It was always his favorite plane. Definitely the glory years of commercial aviation. I really enjoyed this video.
The convair 880s engine's are a commerical variant of the Military engines used in a B 58 Hustler Bomber. Plus F4 Phantom II fighter. Plus F104 too. That was exciting when i flew on a Delta Airlines 880 as a kid.
This video and the Rick Rojatt "Human Fly" DC-8 video are the only ones left that have the real sound of these early/first generation jetliner engines. Then they'll be gone forever. Thanks for the video, good stuff indeed! 👍 👍
Thanks, Herb. I'm sure you did all you could to save the old girl. I grew up under the landing pattern of Lindbergh Field in San Diego. The noise these things made on takeoff was astounding! What a great plane. The video of this plane taking off from Mohave is just glorious.
An absolute time warp Ship 13 1960 construction with TWA 1961 flying until 1973. In 1991 final flight love the detail cockpit and cabin view as in video in 1991 and well now over 62 years later viewing. Smoke and all easy going take off in 1991 a beautiful view and a loss thanks for this recording as is priceless. TWA gone as well a great way to fly in my past Lockheed L1011 and Boeing 747-131 domestic USA early 1980's. General Dynamics 880 was fast a super jet at the time but the later Convair Coronado 990 was super fast with Swissair good old days Preserving old relics well it is what it is or was. We all miss old times. Ansett 727.
Close to the last flight of an 880. I believe the Navy UC-880 was the last. This was certainly the last civilian flight of an 880. My Grandad set up and ran Quality Control for the 880/990 program. He was called out to San Diego from Fort Worth because he had run QC for the B-36 program. A lot of my family history is tied up in those planes. They may have been a failure economically for Convair but still the size and scope of the program affected many employees lives. I only saw an 880 fly once. The smoke was incredible. I wish one were airworthy.
...sad that thy couldn't save it. Would be a real "memory lane" experience to see it parked next to the restored TWA Connie and maybe do a 2 plane flyby at an airshow. Always loved the old TWA 60s livery, elegant and classic.
"WE" (Doug Scroggins, a NW/Delta pilot from Atlanta I forgot his name, and me) tried so hard to rescue two Convair 880s from Mojave airport around 2003-2006. I think Doug saved the cockpit from one of them. They were flyable at the time, more or less. For four years, I flew one of the last flyable 880s for the US Navy. They called it the UC-880. The Navy bought it for $1 from the FAA. The plane had never been in airline service -- it was a test plane used by the FAA at Oklahoma City and Atlantic City for research and training. Flight Systems Inc of Mojave converted it into a tanker and flight test aircraft for the Navy, primarily as a tanker for the F/A-18 Hornet aircraft test program, 1981-1990 or so at Patuxent River NAS, MD. It was also used as a GPS test bed, as a chase for the Tomahawk cruise missile, and many other missions. Sadly, somewhere around 1993, the Navy blew it up in a cargo bomb explosion test.
WOW - what a fantastic video! To see one of these iconic beauties fly - spectacular! Like being there. These were the times of higher, faster, better! Too bad the plane couldn't be saved in the end... A flying legend! Thanks for sharing this gem of a video - youtube at its best :-)
What a fantastic plane. It’s strange how there’s so much that’s familiar, yet so much that’s alien about the flight deck, versus modern aircraft. The overhead panel still has lights, engine starter switches, bleeds, anti-ice; but there’s no FAC’s, NAV / ADIRS switches, fuel pumps, etc.. The IP’s old-school primary instruments aren’t all that different from a modern PFD, but the engine fire pulls are where the AP / FD stack is on a modern aircraft and there’s not even a hint of an MCDU. The engine status dials look like what you might find on something like a 742 or 743, but since the engines on this 880 aren’t turbofans, I’m not sure what constitutes primary indicators for such engines. And then there’s the flight engineer’s station. Loads of AC and DC power handling stuff, hydraulic pumps and pressures, fuel pumps and readings and. All sorts of things that are managed automatically on modern aircraft, but had to be handled and monitored manually in a plane like the 880. All this in an aircraft with an M0.84 cruise speed. It must have been a ton of fun to pilot one of these beasts. It’s sad that there’s not a single airworthy example.
There is still 2 Convair 880s and 1 990 at the Mojave Air and Spaceport. One bears the TWA livery still. Not many are left and I hope the TWA one can be brought to the TWA Museum in Kansas.
I so wish that the flight had been audio recorded from engine start and all parts of the flight from the cabin. This was THE LAST CHANCE to do this. Clips are OK, but a complete cabin audio experience would be priceless. So would a flight in a DC 8 with the JT4 A engine. The Convair 880 had the CJ 805 engine that has as its base the j 79 engine of the B 58 and Phantom. The JT4A is the base J75 used on the F 106. Does anyone have recordings of a flight in the 880 or DC8-30?
Unreal how dirty jet engines were back then, essentially very powerful diesel engines lol. Just to think that all early jets were like this until the first high bypass turbo fan were introduced makes me wonder how much we polluted the air with these smoking clunkers
...and TH-cam decided to 'stretch it' a few years after upload, making it look awful. This is the corrected version, that hopefully this time it won't get stretched.
Someone cleverly asked if the 880 burned coal! Well... just about ALL airliners and jets left trails of black smoke like that in the early 1960s! The 727 was just as bad. And worse, the F-4 Phantom jet fighter was terrible with black smoke that let any enemy find it in the sky immediately! Until.... they learned to tighten up the exhaust outlets to burn a wee bit hotter in those early jet engines, to burn up all that black carbon smoke! The F-4, and the 727 came out with 'clean' (?) burning engines by about 1968-1970. But the 880 was always a smoke with the GE engines (civilian version of the military J-79 without afterburner) and no one bothered to clean it up because it was pretty much a museum or boneyard plane by about 1972. Elvis loved it. His 'Lisa Marie' was a smoker, for sure! It was ferried from Jacksonville, FL (I think its last place anyone flew it for him) to Memphis, gear down, in about 1982 or 1983. And it was still smoking then!
I am one of the lead guys who tried to save this plane for over a year. Finally, it had to be removed from the airport grounds so we sold it for scrap. Before we took ship 13 apart in early 2008, I saved all the cockpit items, a few rows of seats, the wheels and tires, the doors over the wings and alot of other neat items which I still have today. The biggest item I saved off this grand plane was the entire number 4 jet, the one that those two guys are checking in this video. It's still in my storage yard today. The front nose section along with the cockpit, as far as I know is still stored in South Jersey and the entire nose section of ship 3 has been restored and is now on display at the New Jersey Aviation Hall of Fame. I took film of this plane being broken up and it was very hard to watch. We tried so hard to save the plane, we really tried....
Can you upload the video you have of it being torn up? It's heartbreaking, but it tells a story.
Shoot hard to believe it got scrapped after being brought back to flying condition.
Would have been a good plane for the National Airline History Museum.
My dad was a TWA 880 captain. Probably flew this ship.
HERBHOOVERS where is the video?
I don't get it. Why did't they just cut it up in Mojave and where did they fly this to and eventually cut it up Herb? Seems like a lot of trouble to get her going after many years of sitting there.
I heard one was transported to Tillamook. Well the nose section anyway
Thanks to all the people who spend their energy trying to save or preserve these relics.
It got scraped after this
Heartbreaking to know that no existing 880 is airworthy. Thanks for uploading this video, it's great to see these early commercial jets in action.
Yeah, TF41's would have been a nice upgrade (50% thrust bump)
Even being so old out of a junk yard. It flew better then the MAX 8
My dad was an aircraft mechanic at Delta from 1967 to 2011. When he retired, the guys gave him a model of a Convair 880. It was always his favorite plane. Definitely the glory years of commercial aviation. I really enjoyed this video.
The convair 880s engine's are a commerical variant of the Military engines used in a B 58 Hustler Bomber.
Plus F4 Phantom II fighter. Plus F104 too. That was exciting when i flew on a Delta Airlines 880 as a kid.
This video and the Rick Rojatt "Human Fly" DC-8 video are the only ones left that have the real sound of these early/first generation jetliner engines. Then they'll be gone forever. Thanks for the video, good stuff indeed! 👍 👍
Thanks, Herb. I'm sure you did all you could to save the old girl. I grew up under the landing pattern of Lindbergh Field in San Diego. The noise these things made on takeoff was astounding! What a great plane. The video of this plane taking off from Mohave is just glorious.
You were so lucky to see one fly Chris!
The closest thing is my 5 foot long twa convair 880 model from early 60s
Do you remember PSA182 Chris?
An absolute time warp Ship 13 1960 construction with TWA 1961 flying until 1973. In 1991 final flight love the detail cockpit and cabin view as in video in 1991 and well now over 62 years later viewing. Smoke and all easy going take off in 1991 a beautiful view and a loss thanks for this recording as is priceless. TWA gone as well a great way to fly in my past Lockheed L1011 and Boeing 747-131 domestic USA early 1980's. General Dynamics 880 was fast a super jet at the time but the later Convair Coronado 990 was super fast with Swissair good old days
Preserving old relics well it is what it is or was.
We all miss old times.
Ansett 727.
Beautiful....every line built for speed. Extinct, but never forgotten.
Amazing how the cabin remained pretty much intact! It looks frozen in time!~
Close to the last flight of an 880. I believe the Navy UC-880 was the last. This was certainly the last civilian flight of an 880. My Grandad set up and ran Quality Control for the 880/990 program. He was called out to San Diego from Fort Worth because he had run QC for the B-36 program. A lot of my family history is tied up in those planes. They may have been a failure economically for Convair but still the size and scope of the program affected many employees lives. I only saw an 880 fly once. The smoke was incredible. I wish one were airworthy.
...sad that thy couldn't save it. Would be a real "memory lane" experience to see it parked next to the restored TWA Connie and maybe do a 2 plane flyby at an airshow. Always loved the old TWA 60s livery, elegant and classic.
Two of Elvis’ private jets are on display in full glory. Two legendary aircraft, Lockheed Jetstar and CV880. Enjoyed watching this video
"WE" (Doug Scroggins, a NW/Delta pilot from Atlanta I forgot his name, and me) tried so hard to rescue two Convair 880s from Mojave airport around 2003-2006. I think Doug saved the cockpit from one of them. They were flyable at the time, more or less.
For four years, I flew one of the last flyable 880s for the US Navy. They called it the UC-880. The Navy bought it for $1 from the FAA. The plane had never been in airline service -- it was a test plane used by the FAA at Oklahoma City and Atlantic City for research and training.
Flight Systems Inc of Mojave converted it into a tanker and flight test aircraft for the Navy, primarily as a tanker for the F/A-18 Hornet aircraft test program, 1981-1990 or so at Patuxent River NAS, MD.
It was also used as a GPS test bed, as a chase for the Tomahawk cruise missile, and many other missions.
Sadly, somewhere around 1993, the Navy blew it up in a cargo bomb explosion test.
Fantastic video. One of the best ever authentic glimpses into the sights and sounds of the little-known CV-880.
WOW - what a fantastic video! To see one of these iconic beauties fly - spectacular! Like being there. These were the times of higher, faster, better! Too bad the plane couldn't be saved in the end... A flying legend! Thanks for sharing this gem of a video - youtube at its best :-)
I have a video of a 60s Convair 880 up on You tube.
It from early 60s
wonderful old smoker
What a fantastic plane. It’s strange how there’s so much that’s familiar, yet so much that’s alien about the flight deck, versus modern aircraft. The overhead panel still has lights, engine starter switches, bleeds, anti-ice; but there’s no FAC’s, NAV / ADIRS switches, fuel pumps, etc.. The IP’s old-school primary instruments aren’t all that different from a modern PFD, but the engine fire pulls are where the AP / FD stack is on a modern aircraft and there’s not even a hint of an MCDU. The engine status dials look like what you might find on something like a 742 or 743, but since the engines on this 880 aren’t turbofans, I’m not sure what constitutes primary indicators for such engines.
And then there’s the flight engineer’s station. Loads of AC and DC power handling stuff, hydraulic pumps and pressures, fuel pumps and readings and. All sorts of things that are managed automatically on modern aircraft, but had to be handled and monitored manually in a plane like the 880.
All this in an aircraft with an M0.84 cruise speed. It must have been a ton of fun to pilot one of these beasts. It’s sad that there’s not a single airworthy example.
A great video. Seen it before, had to see it again. Classic, smoke and noise.
What a classic,i love the smoke.
I have to wonder where they dug up 3 Convair 880 type-rated pilots.
Nice video of the old Classic.
Herman
nice to see an old smoker fly again, an era gone by
Man, I bet that'll drive the environmental nuts crazy.
A thing of beauty
There is still 2 Convair 880s and 1 990 at the Mojave Air and Spaceport. One bears the TWA livery still. Not many are left and I hope the TWA one can be brought to the TWA Museum in Kansas.
There is one .forward of the wings at Tillamook
Wish there was a flying 880, or a 990. They did 615 mph! Gas guzzlers, but dang cool. Wish we had a way to experience classic aviation in America.
That's fuel economy: Every gallon pure joy.
Not miles per gallon, but smiles per gallon 😊
I saw Cathay's CV880 only one time, at a day of 1970's.
Most people don't know this was the first jet skywriter!
Love it! Why was this particular ship selected over the others? Condition?
Must have been a cousin to the F4 Phantom the way it left those smoky trails behind it.
Same engines (CJ805 is the commercial variant of the J79).
EPIC !
So why wasn’t this aircraft donated to an air museum to preserve it for all times?
I so wish that the flight had been audio recorded from engine start and all parts of the flight from the cabin. This was THE LAST CHANCE to do this. Clips are OK, but a complete cabin audio experience would be priceless. So would a flight in a DC 8 with the JT4 A engine. The Convair 880 had the CJ 805 engine that has as its base the j 79 engine of the B 58 and Phantom. The JT4A is the base J75 used on the F 106. Does anyone have recordings of a flight in the 880 or DC8-30?
No but 880s were probably quieter as they had thicker skins
Wonderful plane
Was this thing like Stage I noise ,you can here the roar from the engines from way down the runway on takeoff roll like a fighter jet at takeoff.
Sounded like a formation takeoff of F-4's in full burner and looked like it was on fire from all the smoke.
Grande Veterano
You really gotta love flying to sit in that miserable cockpit for an extended period of time.
Is the tall thin guy Kevin Lacey?
These planes had 2 Freon pack air conditioning systems that never worked.
well, a bit smokey but ok. where will it go>
Burning heavy fuel oil IF180??
Does it burn coal???
Unreal how dirty jet engines were back then, essentially very powerful diesel engines lol. Just to think that all early jets were like this until the first high bypass turbo fan were introduced makes me wonder how much we polluted the air with these smoking clunkers
where did they take it
Description
what year did this happen
Description
U posted this video couple years ago.
...and TH-cam decided to 'stretch it' a few years after upload, making it look awful. This is the corrected version, that hopefully this time it won't get stretched.
call the greenpeace!
Greenpeace would instantly make a petition 😂
Old smokey!
Someone cleverly asked if the 880 burned coal! Well... just about ALL airliners and jets left trails of black smoke like that in the early 1960s! The 727 was just as bad. And worse, the F-4 Phantom jet fighter was terrible with black smoke that let any enemy find it in the sky immediately! Until.... they learned to tighten up the exhaust outlets to burn a wee bit hotter in those early jet engines, to burn up all that black carbon smoke!
The F-4, and the 727 came out with 'clean' (?) burning engines by about 1968-1970. But the 880 was always a smoke with the GE engines (civilian version of the military J-79 without afterburner) and no one bothered to clean it up because it was pretty much a museum or boneyard plane by about 1972. Elvis loved it. His 'Lisa Marie' was a smoker, for sure! It was ferried from Jacksonville, FL (I think its last place anyone flew it for him) to Memphis, gear down, in about 1982 or 1983. And it was still smoking then!
smokey Beauty
16:59 ファントムの音やん😆
Show
Don't tell Al Gore.
Nice vodka burner
Ford courier tug
It's a Chevrolet LUV.
I see now thx
@@alijuman195 Unfortunately never see either of them anymore.
So, all can see part of the reason we had terrible air pollution back in the 1960's and 70's.