Philadelphia to Minneapolis-St. Paul via Detroit on Northwest Airlines Flight 1061 10-Sep-2005
It was Saturday 10-September-2005. Vacation time, it was the end of summer and I was headed out to Minneapolis-St. Paul to see some of my friends. I booked flights on Northwest and at Philadelphia Gate E6, sits this fabulous classic of an aircraft, McDonnell Douglas DC-9-41. What a treat this was! I booked the rear seats near the engines and I had a window seat. This would be the first leg of the trip which would take me to Detroit for the connecting flight a Boeing 757-200 on to my destination.
I had some time to walk around the concourse and take pictures of the surrounding aircraft. I took a different angle of N752NW. The aircraft was delivered new to the SAS Scandinavian Airlines back in May1968. It was the Erling Viking with reg. LN-RLK. At the time this photo was taken, this aircraft was clocking 37 years or more of airline service. In addition to SAS, this aircraft served Swissair briefly and went back to SAS before being acquired by Northwest in Apr 1991. These planes were built like tanks and could handle, with maintenance and upgrades, all the times and cycles. When Delta Airlines acquired Northwest Airlines 2008, they received this aircraft and flew it till November of 2010 and broke it up the following year. This is according to the data I found for N752NW on planespotters.net.
Below are some of the aircraft I managed to get pictures of while waiting for boarding.
As far as I remember, the boarding went smooth and uneventful. I was in the 2nd to last row and my view was that aft of the port side wing and the forward portion of the intake cowl.
For some reason I did not capture the engine start, taxi, and takeoff. I can describe it. When starting Pratt & Whitney JT8D motors, it sounded like a vacuum and some kind of alarm would go off. It was really cool and different from the any other aircraft engine start phase I have ever experienced. This was my first time on a -41. The 40 series had motors slightly more powerful than the -30 series. The takeoff was impressive and loud. I did not have a good video camera at the time so no video.
I am not sure exactly what the circular object is between the nav light and the static wick. It seems to be slightly different than what you would find on the DC-9-30. With all the internet, I just could not find the reason for the revision.
Not to far after this image Detroit Metropolitan came into view and we began our initial descent.
Man, Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport is huge, and full of aircraft. At the time this was one of Northwest Airlines hubs. Here I saw their 747-400 series aircraft, countless DC-9s, DC-10s, Avros, Airbus A320s and others. It was different from Philadelphia in that there were so many large aircraft, gates, and airport land. It was quite the site as you will see. I knew at the time, that many of the aircraft I would see are classics, high on cycles, and limited on time. I just knew that some of these aircraft would not be around much longer so I embraced history essentially.
The approach to DTW is fun and exciting. Flaps extended, gear down, aircraft slowing down. Approach, landing, taxi to gate, is like the climax of the flight for me.
When the flaps were extended, the power was applied to the jet motors to maintain the approach profile. Any flap setting beyond 0 degrees increases drag and lift requiring a higher thrust setting. The thrust adjustments and sync of the engines was music to my ears. If the engines were out of sync, the acoustics seemed to have that little chu-chu train that could sound combined with the vacuum sound at different pitches which I thought was cool. All the mechanics of the aircraft I find quite fascinating. It could be anything from an actuator, valve, motor, or pump that would be cause for some conversation at some level.
So it will be a few minutes and we meet make the final, to what I believe to be DTW Detroit Metro 22R. We were cruising through the descent. The engines were humming making their sound. It was awesome! In just a few minutes we would be on the ground.
Touch down was firm enough to where you know the wheels have touched the payment and the plane shutters slightly. It was an awesome flight. This would be the last time that I would ever get to fly with the classic DC-9 aircraft. The aircraft went on the fly for Northwest then Delta and would be subsequently broken up. Below are some aircraft pictures captured incidentally during taxi to the gate.
I made it to Detroit following a spectacular flight aboard a classic aircraft which are difficult to find in commercial air service for passengers in the USA. I really enjoyed the flight and was looking forward to the next one. I was in between flights so the mission was to find the facilities, dining, and the next gate for the next segment of the flight. So, I am going to conclude this post and go to bed for now. We still have some photos from this layover to post containing some interesting aircraft at the time. Then we have the 757 service flight to Detroit next. Thank you, Be sure to share because sharing is caring. Bookmark my homepage for new posts. Comment below if you have any thoughts, questions, statements regarding this discussion.
