Aviation News – June 2018

ground handling problems, so extra airport

staff were brought in and mechanised

baggage handling quickly followed.

HAWAII CALLING

The aircraft were quickly put to work on

what United regarded as one of its prime

destinations – from the west coast to the

Hawaiian Islands – not just to Honolulu, but

also to the lesser-known destination of Hilo.

United had begun  ying to Hawaii from the

west coast in the 1940s, but by the end of

the 1960s, it had decided that it wanted direct

 ights from the east coast, pointing out that

with the DC-8, you could leave New York at

9am and be in Hawaii by early evening. This

enabled United to operate non-stop services

from Chicago and New York and these were

dubbed ‘Royal Hawaiian’  ights. One aircraft,

N8073U, had the legend ‘Super 8 to the

Aloha State’ painted on the nose. Two  lms

featuring Elvis Presley, Blue Hawaii in 1961

and Paradise Hawaiian Style released in 1966,

had Americans  ocking to visit the islands and

there was never a shortage of passengers.

Normal con guration on these routes was 26

 rst class and 174 coach and even in the latter,

there was the luxury of six-channel stereo

and widescreen movies in the cabin – a very

modern innovation.

By this time, widebody jets were being

ordered by United’s competitors, but

McDonnell Douglas wasn’t about to give up on

its narrowbodies and felt there was still more

to be squeezed out of the airframe. It began

to redesign the engine pods and extend the

wingspan and thus the fuel capacity. This

allowed it to increase the range of the aircraft

to more than 6,000 miles (9,656km).

In addition, two more plugs were inserted

forward and aft of the wing, extending the

fuselage length by a further 80in (2m). In

those heady days of passenger comfort, the

extra length was used by United to improve

the seat pitch rather than increase the seat

row numbers. The aircraft was sold as

the DC-8-62. United decided to order ten

examples of the -62, with a view to putting

them on the Hawaii routes.

United used a total of 117 DC-8s over 32

years and it is a tribute to the professionalism

of all concerned that, given the operating

conditions at the time, only  ve aircraft were

lost in accidents. Perhaps the most bizarre

of these was on December 16, 1960, when

one of the then unmodi ed -11 series,

N8013U, was on Flight 826 from Chicago to

New York. Whilst on approach to Idlewild, a

misunderstanding with air traffic control led

the aircraft beyond its clearance limit and

into the path of a TWA Constellation that was

descending into La Guardia on a  ight from

44 Aviation News incorporating Jets June 2018

A classic air-to-air image of

United’s DC-8-11 N8028D with

wingtip probes that were

used during early  ight tests.

Douglas/Jon Proctor collection

The second aircraft off the DC-8 production line was delivered to United as N8001U in January 1960. Bob O’Brien

United’s DC-8 N8006U was built in 1959 as a -11 but was modi ed  ve years later to -12 speci cations. It was powered by four Pratt & Whitney

JT4A-9s and is illustrated wearing ‘United DC-8 Friend Ship’ titles. This aircraft was scrapped circa 1980. Bob O’Brien

42-46_jetliners_dc8-DC.mfDC.mfDC.mf.indd 44 04/05/2018 12:02