This video begins with the terminal as it looked in the 1950's and 60's in Roanoke, Virginia. It was called Woodrum Field. And the plane is a Piedmont Martin 404 which Piedmont bought used from TWA and Eastern. The 404 was built in Baltimore, Md by Glen Martin in the very early 1950's for TWA and Eastern. When they began to retire the model in 1960, if I remember correctly, about 36 went to Piedmont. Their loud and distinctive roar were regular features of the skies over Virginia, North Carolina and other states through the 1960's. The two engines were Pratt & Whitney R-2800 CB-16 which had 18 cylinders. The Convair 240 flown by American Airlines had the same engine and the DC-6 had four of them. I remember being impressed and thrilled riding next to the no. 1 engine on a night flight from Atlanta, Ga to Roanoke, Va in 1967 and sat for the duration of the flight listening to the roar and watching out my window the long trail of fire shooting out of the exhaust pipes on both sides of the motor. I was so fascinated by this airplane as a teen that several times I went to the Piedmont hanger in Roanoke where several 404's would be serviced and spent the night as their daily service would end in Roanoke. It was there I ask the mechanics questions about the plane and engines and still remember some of the details about those old aircraft engines. Also I was told that most of the 404's operated by Piedmont came from TWA and those has a red beacon light midway on top of the cabin but the planes built for Eastern had this light on top of the vertical stabilizer and that is a good way to tell if the Piedmont I'm looking at came from TWA or Eastern. In the 1950's when Piedmont flew DC-3s, Eastern had Martin 404 service to Roanoke. They called it Silver Falcon service. Piedmont also had a few F-27 propjets by about 1958 first joining the DC-3 fleet then in a couple of years, the Martin's replaced the DC-3's. Also it is stunning how in Roanoke you could walk right up to the outside fence in front of the terminal building and be within 30 feet of the plane or if it wasn't boarding, walk out to the plane and talk to the pilot as he walked around making his inspection and sometimes walk with him..... and walk right into the hanger behind the terminal and walk up to mechanics and watch their work and ask them questions. There were no Xray machines and no metal detectors then. I assume nobody gave any thought to someone putting a bomb on board or hijacking the plane in 1960. Virtually NO security other than a couple of security guards who stayed inside the passenger terminal. I flew to Atlanta, Richmond, Charlotte, Ashville and Washington, D. C. several times on Piedmont Martin 404's and don't remember any metal detectors there either but I could be mistaken. But I'm sure there were none then in Roanoke. My how times have changed!
God, how I miss being a kid avgeek and Piedmont Airlines in the 70s and 80s. Thanks to Piedmont, lead to global avgeek trekking. But my heart still lies firmly with Piedmont.
Piedmont was the best company I ever worked for. Sad that the corporate money grubbers destroyed it. The 727's were the prettiest airplanes ever built by Boeing and she was a screamer.
When I was a kid Piedmont had a plane that landed at Raleigh County Memorial Airport (Beckley, West Virginia) on Sunday evenings around 7:30. If we were lucky we would get out of church around 7:00 or a little after and my dad would drive straight to the airport to "see the plane land". It was always a "race" to get there before the plane landed. More than once we would see it coming in for a landing as we were pulling up to the fence. We would sit there an watch the folks get off and on.......trying to figure out their story...where they were from or where they were going. Many times you would see a soldier get off or on the plan as this was during the Vietnam War. For a 7-8 year old kid it was a thrill to see such a "big plane". But the biggest kick was to stand at the fence and wait for the plane to make the turn to proceed to the runway for takeoff.....it would turn and that hot blast of exhaust from the prop engines would just about blow you over. Big thrill for a little kid.
I had the very best years with Piedmont. Mar 23 1964 - Mar 1994. After graduating from training, I was temporarily held in INT as a system reserve - which really meant that since I was the very last person on the seniority list, I didn't even get a base bid. I was sent wherever they needed a flight attendant - INT, ATL, DCA, TYS, ORF, ILM, ROA and everywhere in between. First held an actual base bid in DCA, then went to ROA for 4+ years before returning to my hometown, ILM where I stayed until the base was closed, then transferred to CLT. One of my personal highlights was when I was assigned to a DC3 charter. PAI had held two 3s to be used for charters. I was so thrilled and remember every moment of it. To go from a DC3 to being the Senior Lead Flight Attendant on a beautiful B767 on international flights was really something. 25+ years with the best airline in the world followed by the remaining time under USAir to complete 30 years. Best to worst, let me tell ya! Piedmont employees loved to come to work, no matter which department it was. Piedmont was US, it was in our hearts - and still is. I flew every type of equipment PAI had.
I flew the Martin for Piedmont out of Wilmington, N.C. for the last three years of the sixties before I became one of the first F/O's to bid the '737 out of Atlanta. After moving up in seniority over the years I flew as captain on the '767 for my last 5 years with the airline (the last four in a USAir uniform) out of LAX and CLT. Ref the Martin, after WW II Eastern and TWA determined that their DC-3's needed to be replaced, whereupon they went to Glenn L. Martin for what ended up as the '404. Other airlines went to Convair, a renamed Consolidated which had built B-24's and PBY's in WW II, for the Convair '240 and its upgrades. Martin during WW II built the original B-26, the Martin Marauder, originally with too little wing, so that the jingle around the Tampa-St. Pete area in those days was "one a day in Tampa Bay." And they referred to the Martin B-26. After 3 feet were added to the wingspan, Jimmy Doolittle flew it and declared it safe, which put it back into combat, ending the war with the fewest shot down per sortie of any Allied bomber mainly due to the fact that it was the fastest. Anyway, Eastern and TWA signed contracts with Martin just prior to the N. Korean invasion of South Korea, which necessitated that the Martin Company become involved in war production which delayed production of the '404. After the Korean War ended in 1953, Martin went to the two airlines and sought to renegotiate the contracts, since the price of aluminum and other things had escalated and building the planes under the old contracts would result in a considerable loss for Martin. I think it ended up costing them around $69 million. After the courts upheld the old contracts Martin was forced to do just that, build the airplanes at a loss. After construction was complete Glenn L. with rancor decreed that the tools and jigs used to construct the '404s be buried behind a hangar so that any spare parts requested by Eastern or TWA would be extraordinarily expensive. This was the reason those two trunk carriers sold the planes while they had plenty of life left in them to Piedmont and Southern. The Martin Company also did all it could to supply spare parts at reasonable rates to the two regional carriers. I think Piedmont even got a set of wings for free. When Tom Davis decided to buy the Nihon YS-11 to replace his aged Martins, someone in the chain of authority laid off the 92 mechanics who performed scheduled maintenance on them. I then during my last year out of Wilmington was in the right seat three times while the captains landed Martins with failed engines. At the end Piedmont stripped the instruments and radios and sold the hulls for $55 thousand apiece to race teams, car dealerships, and others who wanted to fly their executives and employees around in an old Martin.
Enjoyed the insight. I noticed after some checking a number of years ago that the Martin and the Convair 240 had the same engine; Pratt and Whitney R-2800, but the sound was different..probably because the exhaust on the Convair was at the back of the wing and the Martin version had the short pipes at the engine. As a passenger, the Martin was loud and as I noted in my earlier post, at night there was a stream of fire streaming out of the exhaust pipes. Was the engine noise prominent in the cockpit? Also the P & W R-2800 probably required a lot of servicing to keep it running well did it not? And one of those Martins was sold to a company that flew people down to Florida to see real estate for sale out of Atlanta and the Martin crashed in Atlanta on the highway just after take off with double engine failure. This was in 1970. It turned out the young men who fueled the Martin thought it had turbine prop engines and put kerosene/jet fuel in the tanks. Just after take off, the gasoline was burned off and when the jet fuel began being introduced to the cylinders, the engines began to overheat and splutter and then quit completely resulting in the Captain landing on an Atlanta highway but the plane skidded into a bridge and was cut in half with some loss of life. You can read about it on the internet somewhere. But I was in Atlanta the rainy day it happened and was sadden as I loved the old Martins. We thought about going out to the crash site but the road was blocked well before the actual site so we turned back. They also blamed the crew for not noticing that the wrong fuel was put into the tanks. I remember when Piedmont began getting the Boeing 767 and it was a thrill to see such a large aircraft in Piedmont livery. I think U. S. Airways had retired all of the Piedmont 767's now. Kudos for making it all the way to a Captain on a Boeing 767. That must have been a rewarding way to end your career.
My first flight was on a Piedmont M-404 from Roanoke to Charlottesville in 1968. The return to Roanoke was on their first B-727. It always struck me as odd that they would fly a 727 from New York to Charlottesville to Roanoke and then terminate in Asheville NC. It was an awesome experience and one I'll never forget.
Very cool footage, thanks for sharing! Really enjoyed the shots of the 737's taking off and landing in Greensboro. Right around the 10:30 mark you can see Piedmont's aircraft maintenance facility in the background. As of 2021 this building is now owned by HAECO Americas and is still in use today!
Yes it was the fault of the pilot in the other aircraft. He was in the wrong place. the pilot and passengers of the light twin were drinking in the airport bar before they took-off. They hit the Piedmont 727 at around 7,000 ft' parts and bodies fell in a large area including a school yard. It was a sad deal. Piedmont's last fatal accident was here in Charleston WV. A Fairchild FH-227 (Fokker F-27) crashed on landing 1968. They never had another fatal incident after that, until they sold out to their arch enemy USAir in 1988.(the darkest day in airline history until 9-11-01.
@airpiedmont I never rode a PI YS-11 but rode many ex PI YS-11s at Airborne Express back in the 80s. Cool plane I still remember all the sounds and the sometimes strange sounds in icing conditions!
@@tomb4568 There are many great stories about the YS-11. Employees either loved them or hated them. But they definitely were a workhorse for PI and did what they were intended to do... get in and out of those tricky mountainous airports on the PI system. And oh the nicknames they had for the YS-11! Good times.
DB Coopers choice of aircraft. 727 back stairs that would open mid air😂you can't make this stuff up. I 100% believe he made it. No serial numbers from bills were ever found 😂 like anyone all over the world was looking for $250,000
@airpiedmont Thanks for the response ! Do you happen to know if it was done at the beginning of 1974 ? Were all the planes repainted at the beginning of 1974 ?
@@RobertDixon-sw3dz The repainting began in June of 1974. The first plane to fly in the new look was N753, the Yadkin Valley Pacemaker. It was a 737-200. They had a fleet of 48 aircraft in 1974 and all were painted in the new look by very early in 1975.
@airpiedmont I am from Kinston and my I flew from Kinston to Richmond on a 737 in July or June of 1974 . I have been trying to determine if the 737 on that route had been painted with the new design.
@@RobertDixon-sw3dz ISO was a great Piedmont station! It really is a toss up on whether you flew the new logo or the old. If it was June/July, odds are it was the old logo.
This video begins with the terminal as it looked in the 1950's and 60's in Roanoke, Virginia. It was called Woodrum Field. And the plane is a Piedmont Martin 404 which Piedmont bought used from TWA and Eastern. The 404 was built in Baltimore, Md by Glen Martin in the very early 1950's for TWA and Eastern. When they began to retire the model in 1960, if I remember correctly, about 36 went to Piedmont. Their loud and distinctive roar were regular features of the skies over Virginia, North Carolina and other states through the 1960's. The two engines were Pratt & Whitney R-2800 CB-16 which had 18 cylinders. The Convair 240 flown by American Airlines had the same engine and the DC-6 had four of them. I remember being impressed and thrilled riding next to the no. 1 engine on a night flight from Atlanta, Ga to Roanoke, Va in 1967 and sat for the duration of the flight listening to the roar and watching out my window the long trail of fire shooting out of the exhaust pipes on both sides of the motor. I was so fascinated by this airplane as a teen that several times I went to the Piedmont hanger in Roanoke where several 404's would be serviced and spent the night as their daily service would end in Roanoke. It was there I ask the mechanics questions about the plane and engines and still remember some of the details about those old aircraft engines. Also I was told that most of the 404's operated by Piedmont came from TWA and those has a red beacon light midway on top of the cabin but the planes built for Eastern had this light on top of the vertical stabilizer and that is a good way to tell if the Piedmont I'm looking at came from TWA or Eastern. In the 1950's when Piedmont flew DC-3s, Eastern had Martin 404 service to Roanoke. They called it Silver Falcon service. Piedmont also had a few F-27 propjets by about 1958 first joining the DC-3 fleet then in a couple of years, the Martin's replaced the DC-3's. Also it is stunning how in Roanoke you could walk right up to the outside fence in front of the terminal building and be within 30 feet of the plane or if it wasn't boarding, walk out to the plane and talk to the pilot as he walked around making his inspection and sometimes walk with him..... and walk right into the hanger behind the terminal and walk up to mechanics and watch their work and ask them questions. There were no Xray machines and no metal detectors then. I assume nobody gave any thought to someone putting a bomb on board or hijacking the plane in 1960. Virtually NO security other than a couple of security guards who stayed inside the passenger terminal. I flew to Atlanta, Richmond, Charlotte, Ashville and Washington, D. C. several times on Piedmont Martin 404's and don't remember any metal detectors there either but I could be mistaken. But I'm sure there were none then in Roanoke. My how times have changed!
The original Norfolk Airport looked very similar.
God, how I miss being a kid avgeek and Piedmont Airlines in the 70s and 80s. Thanks to Piedmont, lead to global avgeek trekking. But my heart still lies firmly with Piedmont.
Piedmont was the best company I ever worked for. Sad that the corporate money grubbers destroyed it. The 727's were the prettiest airplanes ever built by Boeing and she was a screamer.
When I was a kid Piedmont had a plane that landed at Raleigh County Memorial Airport (Beckley, West Virginia) on Sunday evenings around 7:30. If we were lucky we would get out of church around 7:00 or a little after and my dad would drive straight to the airport to "see the plane land". It was always a "race" to get there before the plane landed. More than once we would see it coming in for a landing as we were pulling up to the fence. We would sit there an watch the folks get off and on.......trying to figure out their story...where they were from or where they were going. Many times you would see a soldier get off or on the plan as this was during the Vietnam War. For a 7-8 year old kid it was a thrill to see such a "big plane". But the biggest kick was to stand at the fence and wait for the plane to make the turn to proceed to the runway for takeoff.....it would turn and that hot blast of exhaust from the prop engines would just about blow you over. Big thrill for a little kid.
I had the very best years with Piedmont. Mar 23 1964 - Mar 1994. After graduating from training, I was temporarily held in INT as a system reserve - which really meant that since I was the very last person on the seniority list, I didn't even get a base bid. I was sent wherever they needed a flight attendant - INT, ATL, DCA, TYS, ORF, ILM, ROA and everywhere in between. First held an actual base bid in DCA, then went to ROA for 4+ years before returning to my hometown, ILM where I stayed until the base was closed, then transferred to CLT.
One of my personal highlights was when I was assigned to a DC3 charter. PAI had held two 3s to be used for charters. I was so thrilled and remember every moment of it.
To go from a DC3 to being the Senior Lead Flight Attendant on a beautiful B767 on international flights was really something. 25+ years with the best airline in the world followed by the remaining time under USAir to complete 30 years. Best to worst, let me tell ya!
Piedmont employees loved to come to work, no matter which department it was. Piedmont was US, it was in our hearts - and still is.
I flew every type of equipment PAI had.
Wonderful memories! Thank you for sharing, Margie.
I flew the Martin for Piedmont out of Wilmington, N.C. for the last three years of the sixties before I became one of the first F/O's to bid the '737 out of Atlanta. After moving up in seniority over the years I flew as captain on the '767 for my last 5 years with the airline (the last four in a USAir uniform) out of LAX and CLT.
Ref the Martin, after WW II Eastern and TWA determined that their DC-3's needed to be replaced, whereupon they went to Glenn L. Martin for what ended up as the '404. Other airlines went to Convair, a renamed Consolidated which had built B-24's and PBY's in WW II, for the Convair '240 and its upgrades. Martin during WW II built the original B-26, the Martin Marauder, originally with too little wing, so that the jingle around the Tampa-St. Pete area in those days was "one a day in Tampa Bay." And they referred to the Martin B-26. After 3 feet were added to the wingspan, Jimmy Doolittle flew it and declared it safe, which put it back into combat, ending the war with the fewest shot down per sortie of any Allied bomber mainly due to the fact that it was the fastest.
Anyway, Eastern and TWA signed contracts with Martin just prior to the N. Korean invasion of South Korea, which necessitated that the Martin Company become involved in war production which delayed production of the '404. After the Korean War ended in 1953, Martin went to the two airlines and sought to renegotiate the contracts, since the price of aluminum and other things had escalated and building the planes under the old contracts would result in a considerable loss for Martin. I think it ended up costing them around $69 million. After the courts upheld the old contracts Martin was forced to do just that, build the airplanes at a loss.
After construction was complete Glenn L. with rancor decreed that the tools and jigs used to construct the '404s be buried behind a hangar so that any spare parts requested by Eastern or TWA would be extraordinarily expensive. This was the reason those two trunk carriers sold the planes while they had plenty of life left in them to Piedmont and Southern. The Martin Company also did all it could to supply spare parts at reasonable rates to the two regional carriers. I think Piedmont even got a set of wings for free.
When Tom Davis decided to buy the Nihon YS-11 to replace his aged Martins, someone in the chain of authority laid off the 92 mechanics who performed scheduled maintenance on them. I then during my last year out of Wilmington was in the right seat three times while the captains landed Martins with failed engines. At the end Piedmont stripped the instruments and radios and sold the hulls for $55 thousand apiece to race teams, car dealerships, and others who wanted to fly their executives and employees around in an old Martin.
Enjoyed the insight. I noticed after some checking a number of years ago that the Martin and the Convair 240 had the same engine; Pratt and Whitney R-2800, but the sound was different..probably because the exhaust on the Convair was at the back of the wing and the Martin version had the short pipes at the engine. As a passenger, the Martin was loud and as I noted in my earlier post, at night there was a stream of fire streaming out of the exhaust pipes. Was the engine noise prominent in the cockpit? Also the P & W R-2800 probably required a lot of servicing to keep it running well did it not?
And one of those Martins was sold to a company that flew people down to Florida to see real estate for sale out of Atlanta and the Martin crashed in Atlanta on the highway just after take off with double engine failure. This was in 1970. It turned out the young men who fueled the Martin thought it had turbine prop engines and put kerosene/jet fuel in the tanks. Just after take off, the gasoline was burned off and when the jet fuel began being introduced to the cylinders, the engines began to overheat and splutter and then quit completely resulting in the Captain landing on an Atlanta highway but the plane skidded into a bridge and was cut in half with some loss of life. You can read about it on the internet somewhere. But I was in Atlanta the rainy day it happened and was sadden as I loved the old Martins. We thought about going out to the crash site but the road was blocked well before the actual site so we turned back. They also blamed the crew for not noticing that the wrong fuel was put into the tanks.
I remember when Piedmont began getting the Boeing 767 and it was a thrill to see such a large aircraft in Piedmont livery. I think U. S. Airways had retired all of the Piedmont 767's now. Kudos for making it all the way to a Captain on a Boeing 767. That must have been a rewarding way to end your career.
My first flight was on a Piedmont M-404 from Roanoke to Charlottesville in 1968. The return to Roanoke was on their first B-727. It always struck me as odd that they would fly a 727 from New York to Charlottesville to Roanoke and then terminate in Asheville NC. It was an awesome experience and one I'll never forget.
Man do I miss the old days !
I forgot what a little hot rod the 737 was! I miss Piedmont! Flew them out of LYH all through the 80s.
Very cool footage, thanks for sharing! Really enjoyed the shots of the 737's taking off and landing in Greensboro. Right around the 10:30 mark you can see Piedmont's aircraft maintenance facility in the background. As of 2021 this building is now owned by HAECO Americas and is still in use today!
WOW!! Love the footage of the aircraft inflight basicallly so much to love about this post
Those were the days. REAL airplanes. Very cool footage.
Grew up being a "Piedmonster" best airlines, best family
The Piedmonsters just concluded their annual reunion today in Myrtle Beach!
727-100 favorite airplane and Piedmont my favorite Airline. Thank You!
Yes it was the fault of the pilot in the other aircraft. He was in the wrong place. the pilot and passengers of the light twin were drinking in the airport bar before they took-off. They hit the Piedmont 727 at around 7,000 ft' parts and bodies fell in a large area including a school yard. It was a sad deal. Piedmont's last fatal accident was here in Charleston WV. A Fairchild FH-227 (Fokker F-27) crashed on landing 1968. They never had another fatal incident after that, until they sold out to their arch enemy USAir in 1988.(the darkest day in airline history until 9-11-01.
Awesome! I remember DC-3s to M-404s, to F-27s, to 737s to 767! , Loved PI my neighbor worked for PI.
How could I have forgotten the YS-11s
@@tomb4568 The YS-11s were awesome. Such a distinct sound. I remember them most of all as they "whistled" above our neighborhood in INT.
@airpiedmont I never rode a PI YS-11 but rode many ex PI YS-11s at Airborne Express back in the 80s. Cool plane I still remember all the sounds and the sometimes strange sounds in icing conditions!
@@tomb4568 There are many great stories about the YS-11. Employees either loved them or hated them. But they definitely were a workhorse for PI and did what they were intended to do... get in and out of those tricky mountainous airports on the PI system. And oh the nicknames they had for the YS-11! Good times.
Thanks for sharing
Thank you for watching!
That airport bridge that is going over I-73 at PTI, Is that going to be a runway extention of runway 14/32?
GSO!!
I worked for PI a couple of years in ATL and rode the M-404 and F-27 any number of times. Those are good memories and good times.
Sweeeeeeeeetttttt.....
Miss the Pratt’s😊
DB Coopers choice of aircraft. 727 back stairs that would open mid air😂you can't make this stuff up. I 100% believe he made it. No serial numbers from bills were ever found 😂 like anyone all over the world was looking for $250,000
When did Piedmont change the logo ?
1974.
@airpiedmont Thanks for the response ! Do you happen to know if it was done at the beginning of 1974 ? Were all the planes repainted at the beginning of 1974 ?
@@RobertDixon-sw3dz The repainting began in June of 1974. The first plane to fly in the new look was N753, the Yadkin Valley Pacemaker. It was a 737-200. They had a fleet of 48 aircraft in 1974 and all were painted in the new look by very early in 1975.
@airpiedmont I am from Kinston and my I flew from Kinston to Richmond on a 737 in July or June of 1974 . I have been trying to determine if the 737 on that route had been painted with the new design.
@@RobertDixon-sw3dz ISO was a great Piedmont station! It really is a toss up on whether you flew the new logo or the old. If it was June/July, odds are it was the old logo.