from Washington to Seattle via Minneapolis,
Great Falls, Missoula, Spokane and
Portland, when it was hijacked by passenger
Dan ‘D B’ Cooper.
After dropping the passengers off at
their destination in Seattle and picking up
$200,000 in ransom money ($1.244m today)
and parachutes, N467US was back in the air.
Cooper jumped off the extended rear steps,
and was never found, and nor was his true
identity ever ascertained.
A boy found a few waterlogged bundles
of the ransom, a small fraction of the total,
on the banks of the Columbia River in 1980,
which if anything only served to deepen the
mystery, to this day the only unsolved episode
of air piracy in history. After three copycat
episodes, a vane was installed on 727s
worldwide, blown into place by the rush of
oncoming air, making it impossible to extend
the stairs inlight, and was known as the D B
Cooper Vane.DEVELOPMENTS
Not long after the 727-100 was in service,
a stretched version was on the drawing
board, 20ft (6m) longer thanks to a 10ft
(3m) plug inserted ahead of the wing and
another aft. Although harder to spot, another
modiication was to make the oval-shaped
intake for the number two (centreline) engine
round. The irst 727-200 took to the air on
July 27, 1967, and after FAA certiication on
November 30, it was put into service from
Boston by Northeast Airlines.
The irst 310 -200s had the same
maximum gross weight as the -100,169,000lb, which, with the additional
structural weight of the stretched fuselage,
meant less payload or less fuel. These
early -200s were pure people-movers, with
constrained range, and retained Boeing’s
classic 1960s Penthouse interior with open
hat racks and large dome lights in the aisle.
After building a total of 881 examples of
the 727 (of both fuselage lengths), Boeing
launched the 727-200 Advanced, which
took advantage of new and more powerful
JT8D-15 powerplants. It also had upgraded
light-deck instruments and new passenger
accommodation, which featured enclosed
overhead bins and recessed neon lighting,
a look known as the Boeing Widebody
interior. (There was also a contemporary
707-320B Advanced and 737-200 Advanced
with the updated cockpit instruments and
Widebody interiors.)http://www.aviation-news.co.uk 65
Lufthansa was an early European adopter,
with the airline starting Boeing 727operations
on April 16, 1964.An impressive line-up of 727-200s. Nearest to the camera is prototype N7270L, then N7428U of United Airlines, plus examples destined for
Sabena, Lufthansa and other airlines.