Details

Back in 1988, JetFlix Founder Henry Tenby contacted the Los Angeles office of VARIG Airlines to inquire about doing an article on their Lockheed Electra L-188 Ponte Aerea “Air Bridge” operation for Airliners Magazine. VARIG management were more than happy to assist with the request, and a 24 year old Henry Tenby spent the better part of the summer of 1988 in Brazil, travelling in connection with the pursuit of the article, visiting many cities within the country, meeting with airline management, taking photos and compiling information for the article.

A key component of the article was the desire to stage an air-to-air photo shoot of the VARIG Lockheed Electra, so that very high quality kodachrome images could be taken specially for the front cover of Airliners magazine.

VARIG’s then Director of Maintenance Osvaldo Ribeiro wanted the Electra to be immaculate for the photo shoot, so it was decided that we would photograph Electra PP-VJW when it completed overhaul at the airline’s Porto Alegre maintenance base, which was planned for late August or early September of 1988. As is often the case in the maintenance and overhaul of vintage airliners, time lines can often be over ambitious. To condense a very long story, Henry Tenby had to make three trips between Los Angeles and Brazil in order to pull off the much anticipated air-to-air photo session.

The photographic sortie was flown in the vicinity of Porto Alegre and the nearby Atlantic coastline, with VARIG training pilots crewing a twin engine Piper as the chase plane. From start to end the photo session lasted close to an hour, during which time some 40 minutes of video was taken from the chase plane.

VARIG’s PR Manager Carlos Bueyes coordinated the chase plane and had the amazing foresight to bring a VHS video camera along for the photo shoot, the footage of which was presented to Henry Tenby back in September of 1988. Sadly, the VHS video tape was not of the highest quality, and the ravages of three decades of passing time degraded the video footage even further. So the resultant video that we are able present here is hardly up to today’s HD standards. But it can be considered as a treasured, long lost video that is no seeing the light of day for the viewing enjoyment of airliner buffs.

Henry’s 35mm slide film cameras (two Nikon FE2s) were equipped with MD12 motor drives, and the sound of the drives hammering away is very much audible on the video. Also conversation between Henry, Mr. Bueyes and the pilots of the chase plane is also clearly evident in the footage.

Given the important historical significance of the footage, and the fact that it is the only video that exists on planet earth of a VARIG Lockheed Electra air-to-air, we felt it was well worth presenting, as so many people today are fascinated by this famous VARIG Lockheed Electra operation. And of course having it digitized and presented insures the footage will live on in perpetuity without further breakdown in image quality, while the original video tape deteriorates even further in coming years. We believe the footage well deserves to see the light of day, and we hope you agree.