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United's Island Hopper Adventure: 7 Pacific Islands in 15 Hours on a Boeing 737
When it comes to serving remote communities, airlines are sometimes the only means to provide vital resources to these places. One such example is the "Island Hopper", a service by United Airlines from Honolulu (HNL) to Guam (GUM) that stops in various Pacific islands. (aeroxplorer.com) Mais...
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The 1978 island hopper was a Continental 727 freight/passenger configuration that also carried a mechanic and a bunch of parts. A couple of the strips were still crushed coral and there was no ground support. Pilots would do flybys to see if a vehicle was parked on the strip, or maybe somebodys was making a dugout canoe. The flights betwee Truk and Guam were always full. Truk was no alcohol because of drunken machete fights after watching kung fu movies so the only way to get a drink was on the flight to and from guam. Best place to stay was the Village on Ponope.
I flew on Air Mike a couple of times when I was assigned to Johnston. Later, when I was on Kwaj, with my family, we usually flew on the C17 that came through twice a week. Air Mike was pretty expensive as I recall.
Loved living on Kwaj. We used a World Airways DC-6 Combi to get to/from HNL. THe "Red Tail" was the mail plane, so shortly after that landed, we all headed to the post office to see what had come in.
My favorite spectator sport was the competitive ice cream shopping at the SurfWay when the supply barge came in every 6 weeks.
Reminds me of the early days into Prudhoe Bay (w.r.t. flybys). Very interesting when visibility was low. Of course, it radically different now.
Just checked Flightaware to see details on this weeks flights. They operate with 20 year old 737-800 NG s. the same aircraft operate various Guam-Japan routes operated by United.
Correct - mine was an older 737-800 that was piloted by fresh mainline pilots. Probably the worst landing I have experienced ever and I have 2+ million miles on AA and UA. plus my own pilot experience. Thought the gear was going to collapse we hit so hard - the woman next to me grabbed my hand (did not know her).
