Douglas DC-8

In June 1959, Philippine President Carlos Garcia... signed Republic Act 2232, making Philippine Airlines the national flag carrier and directing Philippine Airlines to resume international services with government assistance.

In June of 1962, Philippine entered the jet age as a Philippine DC-8 Sampaguita? Sampaguita, possibly.

That was the name that they put on the airplane.

Left for its maiden flight to San Francisco via Honolulu.

And

from Luxembourg, I flew with DC-8 Iceland Air to Freeport, Bahamas.

From Bahamas with Air Florida to Miami.

How much was all that? I can't

All of a sudden, we see it being towed down the short runway, turns into the main runway, turns in now pointing straight at us, coming in towards the terminal.

And on the ramp is parked a US DC-8 freighter.

And I can see that the left wing tip of the 707 is going to hit the nose of the DC-8.

Uh-oh.

So I yelled out, wave, and anyway, they stopped.

They back and filled the 707 and got it in such a situation that if it went back another foot, it would fall into the mud.

And if it came forward another foot, it would hit the DC-8.

Have you watched the Austin Powers movies? Have you ever seen the one where he's got to turn a forklift around in a hallway? No.

It was about 4 a.m. on August 12, 1962, and United Airlines Flight 861, a red-eye flight from Chicago to Portland, had just landed.

The 81 passengers were unbuckling their seatbelts and peering out the windows of their big four-engine Douglas DC-8 into the pastoral darkness outside.

One or two lights twinkled here and there, and the shadowy hulk of a few low buildings and pickup trucks could be seen in the distance.

Inside the plane, there was a murmur of confused conversation.

It is a public-use airfield used as a home base by many Portland pilots who prefer not to deal with the traffic of PDX.

On any given day, a plane spotter loafing at the Dairy Queen on Graham Road might see Pipers, Cessnas, and Beechcrafts flying in and out with occasionally something larger.

But now, dominating one end of the 4,600-foot airstrip stood the hulking form of a Douglas DC-8, one of the largest aircraft to fly in and out of PDX on its 8,800-foot runways, and certainly the biggest thing that had ever landed at Little Troutdale Airfield.

Troutdale manager Les Meyer was in bed when the big jet began its landing, but got up fast when he heard it coming in.

It was nigh.

The likes of the 707 and the DC-8 and the 737 and the 727 were all in existence or on the horizon.

And that really killed the need for an airplane like the Caravelle.

Because better capacity, way more efficient and newer engineering that meant that they could actually perform better at higher altitudes and their pressure and at higher speeds.

Four engines meant four separate chances to keep flying.

It was the philosophy that shaped the Boeing 747 that explained why the Douglas DC-8 and the Lockheed L-1011 carried those extra power plants on Atlantic crossings.

that drove the engineering consensus at every major airframe manufacturer for decades.

More engines meant more redundancy.

Well hello and welcome to episode number 619 of the Plane Talking UK podcast.

My name is Carlos and in this week's fully packed show we have a North Atlantic emergency for a 777, more Ryanair stories than you can shake a stick at and where to spot 747s and also a supersonic DC-8.

In the military news this week, we'll be hearing about why the F-117 is still relevant and Airbus' new combat drone.

We'll be drawing our final winner for the Hercules book competition and we've been trawling the dark recesses of the internet for yet another retro airline ad of the week.