This is the second article on the BBC charts of the 3rd January 1970, as this was a chart that started in the
1970s it obviously had a great amount of music from the end of the 1960s, so
that why on this one occasion we have two postings for the weekly chart.
We now countdown the charts from no.10 to no.1. Jumbo time This is the year that the impossible happened as we did see an Elephant fly, well a Jumbo, well a Jumbo jet really that came to the UK, and has been part of the world of aviation ever since. The original Boeing 747 was produced by the Boeing Company, and this was the year that the Jumbo jet actually flew commercially.
The wide body plane had two levels, allowing having the huge amount of passengers or huge payloads. The
design and manufacturer started in the mid-1960s, and was developed from ideas by the American
Airforce and the then President of Pan AM Juan Trippe
, who really believed this had to be the future of passenger airlines, and he even linked it to world peace too. Pan Am ordered 25 planes, so he was putting his money where his mouth was. In Seattle the factory was set up and the planes grew. And in January 1970 the wife of President Nixon christened the first Pan Am plane as Young American, later changed to Clipper Victor in Washington, and the first flight from New York to London Heathrow was January 22
nd 1970, but a substitute plane had to be used as the first one overheated.
The first flight to the UK carried 332 passengers and 20 crew and around 30,000 pounds of cargo, and was watched by the world as it touched down in London, although 30 passengers did not show for the journey, as the flight had been delayed by six hours, and those people either cancelled or got another flight to the UK. The captain on the flight was Robert Weeks who flew the 225
foot, five storeys high Jumbo across the Atlantic on the maiden voyage, and landed at 14.14 GMT. The Jumbo was
now here and the Brits had placed an order for eleven and soon it would be a huge financial success as it would be very cost effective, as carrying so many passengers than over
air planes meant a quicker return.
Within six months the Jumbo would already reach its One Million passengers, and within one year it would be seven million and have seventeen airlines using the amazing Jumbo jet. In August the Jumbo had a hijacking en route to Cuba from New York. When it landed
at Cuba even
Castro came out to look at this huge plane on his land, and even had a meeting with the airline pilot Captain Watkins. Castro was concerned that when the hijacking was over that the plane would not be able to take off on such a small runway. Luckily it did, and it flew back to the US with all problems sorted. The most famous Jumbo incident was not until the late
1980s when a Jumbo jet was flying over Lockabie in Scotland, when a bomb went off on board and killed everyone on the flight. 259 on board and 11 on the ground. This was Pam Am flight 103, and years later Gaddafi and Libya were found to be responsible for the bombing.
No. 10
Without You by
Tom Jones
Sex bomb
Tom Jones born in 1940 was so huge in the 1960s and would be a huge star
in the 1970s, especially with his TV shows.
Article about Tom Jones This week Tom appeared on the BBC singing "Delilah" in "Pop Goes The Sixties".
