GE "Airliner" Range

[launderess]

General Electric made some nice ranges in their day.

https://milwaukee.craigslist.org/app/d/milwaukee-ge-airliner-retro-vintage/6801139444.html

 

[hippiedoll]

oh wow!!

I can't believe a GE stove of this era has the knob heat settings instead of the usual pushbutton heat settings!?
That is so cool!
)

 

[circlew]

The range pictured is a 1948 or earlier model, as it uses GE's pre-war syle cabinet. The Airliner and other models were restyled for 1949, but even the later models of the less expensive ranges had knobs instead of pushbuttons. The Leader, Stewardess, and Airliner were the ones with knobs, and the Speedster, Stratoliner, and Liberator had pushbutton controls for 1949.

 

[hippiedoll]

Interesting...

I didn't know stoves this vintage had knobs. I thought the knobs came out on the stoves from the early 70's.

Thank you for that interesting information CircleW.
)

 

[tomturbomatic]

There were knobs before buttons. According to the ads at the time, buttons enabled you to use a surface unit with just one finger, not your whole hand. On the more deluxe ranges, the heat settings were lighted!

 

[pulltostart]

My grandmother had a 1947 Stratoliner and the knobs were backlit with colors, which changed with each heat setting.

 

lawrence

 

[tomturbomatic]

Telecook lights

 

[hippiedoll]

WOWZERS!!

The color-lighted knobs sound so cool!
Was that a pretty durable feature on these vintage stoves? Or was that a touchy feature than normally ended up breaking/giving out?

 

[daveamkrayoguy]

Well, in a brochure, I saw long ago, featuring '50's General Electric ranges,  it showed what I thought was the entire electric range line (forgot exactly when & where) otherwise, maybe it was an appliance ad, though from the early-'60's & introducing the Americana double-decker that I'd seen...

 

In which case the Airliner (not to be confused w/ Montgomery Wards Airline electronics) was definitely the bottom-of-the-line...

 

Concerning pushbutton ranges, particularly by GE, here is a thread that I'd started on them--the introduction of, to the discontinuation, (unless 'touchpad controls' count as the comeback)...

 

 

 

-- Dave

https://www.automaticwasher.org/cgi-bin/TD/TD-VIEWTHREAD.cgi?77004

 

[firedome]

Clear pushbuttons with colored lighting

on higher end GE and Hotpoint ranges were used for at least 10 years, and each button lit up a different color, which was really neat, red usuually being for the highest heat iirc. The '57 to early '60s models used what GE called "piano key" buttons for the burners mounted on top of the "floating" backsplash, and at the back of each button was a clear lens that had the various colored lights behind them that lit when that button was pushed. The left hand control was a slider for the "Sensi-Temp" burner and the other 3 units were standard button units. At least on our '56 and '58 models they were highly reliable, never had any problems. Here's a pic of our '58, you can sort of see the slider and 3 button controls on top of the backsplash, sorry you can't see the lenses behind the buttons behind lit up in colors (one at a time of course), they do very cool. We're still hoping to find a 40" model, we shouldn't have parted with this one, it's our favorite GE range!

 

[firedome]

btw...

being on top they ARE easily turned on by climbing kitties, one of our cats almost burned the house down on this very range. We returned home once after a shopping trip to find smoke starting to fill the kitchen, and the cast iron skillet left on that large R rear burner (fortunately) becoming cherry red. Luckily cast iron can take more heat abuse than aluminium or steel can, and while scorched badly it didn't melt down, we had gotten home in the nick of time to avert disaster. After that we put a board across the top when going out. Just one of the reasons top-mounted buttons went out of fashion.

 

[ea56]

Westinghouse also used burner switches with color coded lights to indicate the temperature. We had a 56’ Westinghouse electric stove top in the home my parents bought in 62’. The switches showed red for high, red orange for med high, orange for med, yellow for med low, green for low and blue for simmer. I loved the look of those burner switches. My favorite aunt alos had one of these same Westy stove tops in her kitchen too.

And I also had a cat the would get on my stove top, not to turn it onm but to piss on the stove when he was pissed at me! He learned his lesson the last time he backed his rear onto a burner that had been recently turned off and burned his butt! Ouch! That was the last time that Orange Tabbie peed on my stove, LOL.

Eddie