[This post was triggered by comments, exchanged, in my earlier B717 post]. I love mountains. And, I am also intrigued by small regional airlines and their history (whether within U.S. or elsewhere), more so, than the world-dominator global airlines...🙂...And, here is an Airline, that has long invited my fancy, and was actually the pre-cursor of the US Air (US Air would be later branded as US Airways, and, eventually, be absorbed by American Airlines).

The Allegheny Mountain Range (or the Alleghenies) is part of the vast Appalachian Mountain Range spanning across several states in the Eastern United States, a region I'm somewhat familiar with, from my past visits. The highest point of the Alleghenies is not high (< 5000 feet), but, in the early days of aviation, these mountains posed significant barriers to e.g. air-mail delivery. In fact, the airmail pilots, of the day, developed a coffin humor about this leg of the trip, which they called “Hell's Stretch”. More fatal accidents occurred in this region than any other part of the transcontinental route because of the unpredictable and constantly changing weather conditions near these mountains, such as, dense fog, overcasting clouds, sleet, freezing-mist, and heavy rain etc. In an open cockpit biplane, those trips must have been fraught with danger, and, frequently they were, indeed, also fatal.

So, that's the mountain...! Next, the Allegheny River, rising in north central Pennsylvania, runs for about 325 miles, in a (curious) zigzag course, across western Pennsylvania and New York. Years ago, I had a chance to visit the Allegheny National Forest, that incorporates, some of the most beautiful features of this region, for recreation and pleasure, including of course, the name-sake river that runs through it.

This was the birthplace of Allegheny Airlines..! Like many of the early-start U.S. airlines, Allegheny had originated (modestly) as a result of the U.S. Air Mail Service contracts. The Airline's network, In the 1950s, naturally, blanketed (the home ground of) Pennsylvania, and some of the nearby states. At that time, the airplanes of choice were, Douglas DC-2, Martin 202, and Convair models. The famous Fairchild F-27 (actually U.S. built F-27J version) would join the fleet in mid-60s. Allegheny, then, went on to operate 89 DC-9-30s between 1966-1979 (Side Note: Douglas merged with McDonnell in 1967, so, these Allegheny DC-9s would be correctly referred to as "McDonnell Douglas DC-9".) and, later, the airline operated 8 DC-9-50s between 1974-1978. The airline assigned names to some of their planes, as follows: F-27J (Vistaliner), CV-580 (Vistacruiser), DC-9-30 (Vistajet). You may spot this (Vistajet) nickname on the nose of the DC-9-30, in an image or two, of this post.

Allegheny Airlines was the first airline with a network of affiliated regional airlines, called the Allegheny Commuter system (similar to the SkyWest of today, but, 50 years ago, in the early 70s...!). Allegheny Commuter was extremely profitable. Below, I have shown, a screenshot of one historical (but actual) route (available on-line) of this Allegheny Commuter system. For this post, here, I've flown the (short) segment (CAK -> BUF) i.e. from "Akron-Canton Airport" to "Buffalo Niagara International Airport", via (Pittsburgh/PIT) - a route, I've taken IRL, by road, a couple of times, for visiting the Niagara Falls. During the days of Allegheny Commuter, there were no short-range jets available (a gap for which the DC9 would be the perfect future fit), and these routes would be flown by propliners (e.g. Beech 99). So, here, please excuse, yours truly, flying this (same) historic route, but, with an Allegheny DC-9-30 twinjet.

In October 1979, to shake off its "regional" image, Allegheny Airlines changed its name to USAir (sending message that it would now extend its network beyond its northeast "comfort zone" to distant parts of U.S.). Since, Allegheny's DC-9-50s had already left the fleet by 1978, it's only their DC-9-30s that would carry over to USAir (btw, this is the USAir DC-9-30 (maroon) livery, I'd flown via the (fictional) TFDi B717, in my earlier post). By the 1990s, the Allegheny, that was born, half-a-century ago, as a "fledgling" Air Mail Service, now, in the form of US Air, was already expanding routes to Frankfurt and London, and, in 1992, with British Airways, announced plans to form the world's largest alliance (Oneworld). In 1997, US Air would become US Airways, and, at midnight (12:01am) of Oct. 17, 2015, US Airways (as carrier of the long-held genetic roots from the original Allegheny) would (officially) cease to exist, having (already) merged with American Airlines, 2 years earlier, in 2013,...

So, hope you enjoy this bit of history, or/and these (bygone) Allegheny Airline DC-9-30 images, below, flying, today, on a short 250 nms flight, from Canton-Akron, via Pittsburgh VOR, to Buffalo (across Lake Erie, landing on KBUF's Rwy 05). BTW, for non-native folks, it's now "Fall" season, in that part of the country, with spectacular (RW) foliage colors, currently, at nearabout their peak glory (and, of course, here, for me, far-from-real "FSX" Fall,...🙂...but, hopefully, a much more realistic "MSFS" Fall in the future...),

Please also note that, for this post, I did not have any (applicable) payware scenery or aircraft (the aircraft, below, is just a freeware AI model of Allegheny Airlines DC-9-30, I could find, that I've adapted to illustrate my story...)...Nonetheless, it was all good fun...!

Thanks for your interest and any comments/notes....!!

Learned some things about my "local" airline. Thanks.

John

***Outstanding Post*** Didn't know about The US Air/AA Merger.....Love The Early Fall Landscape in your Brilliant Pictures as well.

I spent 13 years with USAir (one word btw.. USAir not US Air) and our DC-9s still had the VJ registration from Allegheny (VJ used for Vista Jet) until they were parked and retired. Some customers used to joke that USAir actually stood for "Unfortunately Still Allegheny In Reality".

2 hours ago, John F said:

Learned some things about my "local" airline. Thanks.

John

John:

Thanks a lot...!. Yes, I presume, you might have been actually closer to some of this history...(all these events being close to your local area)...🙂....Many moons ago, but, I do, clearly, recall, of my annual trips to Washington D.C., passing through PA, on I-76,  (Pittsburgh->Somerset->Breezewood->...etc.)...> on to -> Hagerstown (MD) and so on....miss those road-trips...with all these interstate travel restrictions, in force, now...

Though familiar with the Alleghenies, I'm more familiar with the Cumberland Mountains further South....used to visit there regularly...those were the days of pretty much no internet reservation...we used to stay at the same Motel 8,...🙂..., in TN,...maintained by a gracious couple...you would call and talk to them directly, on the phone, in advance, to reserve...and the gentleman, on learning that we would be arriving late, would just say, "Don't worry, we'll leave the Porch lights "on" for you, and knock on our door if you want a cup of hot soup..."...good old days...!

 

2 hours ago, Phantom88 said:

***Outstanding Post*** Didn't know about The US Air/AA Merger.....Love The Early Fall Landscape in your Brilliant Pictures as well.

Patrick: Appreciated the comments...!!

Yes, I forget, what stage is the Fall foliage, now, in Illinois...but, it is usually quite spectacular, as I recall,...around this time of the year...

 

1 hour ago, GACSavannah said:

I spent 13 years with USAir (one word btw.. USAir not US Air) and our DC-9s still had the VJ registration from Allegheny (VJ used for Vista Jet) until they were parked and retired. Some customers used to joke that USAir actually stood for "Unfortunately Still Allegheny In Reality".

Kerry: Thanks for chiming in. Good to hear from you. I recall you had made some interesting remarks in one of my earlier Regional Airline posts....And, yes, you're absolutely correct....🙂...it's USAir, indeed, just as on the livery.....I knew that, but, I clearly see several "faux pas" errors, above in my post...🙂...

And, I'm aware of some (customer) mentions of the type you describe, though not that one,...🙂..., also, same when, various (new) names were considered for the former "Allegheny"....but, nonetheless, these airlines were special...!

I didn't know "VJ" was maintained by USAir's (acquired) DC9s, in fact, you made me look up, just now, "N979VJ USAir. McDonnell Douglas DC-9-31 (cn 47372/513)" on-line...the same Registration I've used here, in this post. It leads me to some strikingly beautiful (RW) pictures of this specific DC9 (e.g. on Flickr in the USAir's Maroon (Metal) Paint)...the same paint I'd chosen to use for my B717 earlier...

Thanks again...!

Very interesting piece of American aviation history and pics, P_7878. I think, if we would dig deeper into the early aviation times, there would be many interesting tales waiting to be uncovered 🙂 

Several years ago, on a sabbatical from Alaska, I worked at KCRW and one of our privileges was jump seat rides with airlines.  Rode an Allegheny CV580 up to KPIT and back.  Great crew, great flight - this was just as the airline dereg was coming into effect and the airline world hadn't yet turned upside down.

As always, good info.  But if i may I'll add to that (1st two paragraphs acquired from Wikipedia)

After Allegheny Airlines rebranded itself as USAir, the company retained its earlier name for its Allegheny Commuter service until 1989 when it became US Airways Express.

Under USAir, which eventually renamed itself US Airways, the Allegheny name continued to be used by the parent company, keeping the trademark under US Airways' control. Suburban Airlines was originally headquartered at the Reading Airport in Reading, Pennsylvania, and flew a large fleet of Short 330s and Short 360s, being the launch customer for the Shorts 360. It had three Fokker F27s, and was the last US operator of passenger F27s. After replacing much of its Shorts fleet with de Havilland Canada DHC-8 Dash 8s, and retiring the F27s, it merged with another fully owned USAir subsidiary, Pennsylvania Airlines, headquartered at Harrisburg International Airport near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and the combined airline retained the historic name (Allegheny)until its own merger with another wholly owned subsidiary, Piedmont Airlines.   After retiring earlier aircraft, Allegheny, before and after its mergers, mainly flew De Havilland Canada Dash 8s to 35 airports in the northeastern United States, and eventually Canada, from hubs at Boston and Philadelphia.

In 2004, Allegheny airlines was then merged into Piedmont Airlines with their remaining 20 Dash 8 aircraft, at the time making Piedmont the largest Dash 8 operator in the US.
20 Allegheny Dash 8-100s
33 Piedmont Dash 8-100s
11 Piedmont Dash 8-100s
By the time the merger took place, Piedmont had returned its 20 Dash 8-200 to its lessors due to the lease payments becoming too expensive, since the 200 fleet was reduced from 20 to 12.  The 200s we operate mainly in the Florida market where they performed exceptionally well in the hot conditions, and they made good profits for Piedmont/US Airways.  September 11th events were the primary cause of the Florida flying coming to an end as payload numbers dropped significantly between Florida and the Bahama keys.

Regarding the US Airways/American merger, when AA files for bankruptcy a few years back, US Airways sort to overtake AA - hence creating the merge between the two relinquishing the US Airways name and keeping American Airlines.  I personally think the bankruptcy on AA's behalf was to allow for the merge as it was not really a necessity.

 

 

Cheers

I had an experience about 11 years ago which this post reminds me of.  I was flying a Piper Arrow from Charlottesville, Va to Rochester,Ny. I made an ILS approach to minimums at KPSB Mid State (Phillipsburg,Pa) to top off fuel because destination was hard IFR.  The sky was clear above 4000' but solid overcast below. At decision height, I saw a small hole in cloud layer with runway 13 numbers showing which allowed me to descend and land.

The airport was empty. Fortunately some DEC guys were at end of field and summoned airport manager who lived nearby. He was an elderly gentleman who told me that this used to be an Allegheny Airline hub. The airport had 2 beautiful intersecting 5000+ ft runways made of concrete. When I entered the FBO it was like stepping back in time. There was a wooden boarding sign leaning against the wall. On the walls were signs and pictures from the early 60's. Vice President Johnson shaking hands with the local mayor. The manager told me that the field was only used by the local autocross club a couple times a year. He then said he had to leave and to lock up when I left. I spent some time absorbing the atmoshere of the FBO before leaving. I couldn't help but admire the pilots of the past who navigated and landed in this area in the days before GPS and ILS systems.  Fortunately for me, I got my Instrument rating before GPS was common. So I can appreciate hard IFR flying steam guages. It made me sad to think that this beautiful airport is fading into history. 

Wonderful coincidence that you got to land there, in RW, and also for these reminiscences...

Such (unexpected) trysts with history are special, and, somehow, these must feel a bit different from visiting e.g. (normal) Museums such as for TWA/DELTA....I liked the part about, "He then said he had to leave and to lock up when I left"...so, you were left, by yourself, to ponder abut the past aviation and the past aviators....🙂...

Thanks for the comments...!!