American
Airlines Convair 990 N5605
(c/n 9)
Intrigued by claims that the Convair 880 had a noticeably higher
cruising speed than the Boeing
707, American went
ahead in August 1958 and placed an order for a number of them, planning
to
use them in an all first
class configuration. American's model was designated the 990 (the
type
as delivered to
Swissair, was also known as the Coronado, although AAL did not adopt
that name).
N5605 was the first of
American's 990s and is seen above in a General Dynamics (Convair) shot
blasting out of
Lindbergh Field, San Diego, in 1961. In the event, the Convair
was plagued by
teething problems and did not actually enter American service until 18
March 1962 when they
were used on the New
York - Chicago route. The 990 was a nice airliner as far as
passengers
were concerned
although overall sales were lacking. The narrow bodied fuselage
and limited
capacity attributes
outweighed the slight increase obtained in cruising speed
Most of American's
fleet of 20 were sold to Spanish carrier Spantax by the end of the
1960s, although N5605 went
to Modern Air
Transport. Below is a rare shot by William T. Larkins of a
CVAC 990 in service.
This aircraft, N5601 was actually given the
same registration as the prototype, although the aircraft
shown below at San
Francisco in October of 1965 is another, later one. It was not
delivered until
January of 1963, the original N5601 having been re-registered to NASA
in N711NA. This N5601
wound up with travel
club Denver Ports of Call in 1970.
Convair 990
N5601
(c/n 33)
