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My very first flight was on Braniff. I flew from Nashville to NYC. I was 14, on my first European adventure and had new tweed pants just for the event. I flew a Pan Am 747 from NYC to Frankfurt. I was amazed at the size of that plane. Movies and everything in there. I shared the whole center row with a gentleman going back to Yugoslavia for his mother's funeral. He and his buddy rowed out of Yugoslavia in a canoe on the Adriatic when he was 14, made their way to Canada, then the U.S. He had not seen his mother since, and he was 40-ish. I was on the adventure of a lifetime, sitting there talking with this gentleman. We made a nice bed for ourselves on the center row-our heads met in the middle and we shared a pillow. What a life he had led.

I liked the L1011. I flew from Atlanta to London in one and found it to be very comfortable. Very reliable and dependable. I always thought the mounting of the rear engine on the tail looked odd, but you could always pick out the Tristars at the airport.

I flew exclusively Delta for years because on their long haul flights I could go on a Tristar, as opposed to a DC-10. I, personally, had a problem with the DC-10s. I never stepped foot on one, and refused to fly American for years because they flew them. One time my step-mom bought me a ticket to fly from Florida back home to Dallas/Fort Worth. I had driven to Florida with my dad. It was on American and I had a fit. I told her she would be driving me home if I got to the airport and they put me on a DC-10. Of course the flight was not on a DC-10, but it was the principle.

I used to love to fly-my husband would drop me at the door 15 minutes before my flight and I was off. I absolutely hate to fly now. We recently flew from Dallas to Little Rock. We could have driven in the time it took to fly. I detest having to take my shoes off.

Nicest security people I've ever encountered were in Birmingham, England. They made me completely empty my purse, which had about 8 fountain pens in it. They guy was amazed at my pens and struck up a conversation.

Most amusing flight I was on was from Birmingham, UK to Chicago in 2002 (on a 767). England was playing in the World Cup that day, and the plane was about half full, and most of them were Brits. They asked the flight attendant if the pilot could get the score for them. The pilot gave an updated score about every 15 minutes. There was a lot of drinking and yelling on that flight. It was quite entertaining!
 
Remember when?

How many of you are old enough to remember when flying was an event...?

Remember when dressing in your "Sunday Best" was standard...when wearing anything less was unheard of?

Having been born and raised in Seattle I've always been partial to Boeing and remember the day that the first Boeing 747 was rolled out at the Boeing Plant in Everett, WA.

When I lived in Germany I would fly home twice a year for two weeks and would alternate between Pan Am and Lufthansa, and have some very fond memories of both.

Sadly, the last time I flew on Pan Am in the late 80s was a disaster, which soured me from ever flying with them again...
 
In the UK our "flag carrier" British Airways no longer serves Britain! It's a few weeks now since they scrapped their final long haul flight outside of London (Manchester to New York JFK). Luckily we still have Delta and Continental (for now at least) to take the rest of us non-Londoners us over the pond!

Lufthansa recently took over our second biggest airline BMI and now all their long haul trans-Atlantic flights will be based in London after they decided to axe the non-London services. It is getting beyond ridiculous here to fly anywhere other than Europe without having to fly to London and face the hell on earth that is Heathrow to catch your main flight!
 
Braniff flew to Omaha, and I remember seeing some of their wild planes coming into town. (We lived in the flight path) I flew them once, and I remember the bright colored uniforms, and how the girls changed parts of them during the flight. The cabin interiors were really mod also.

Being an unaccompanied minor at the time, I was often put up in first class so the stewardesses could keep an eye on me, and one time I remember playing cards with a first class stewardess while she had a smoke. It was night, and seems like everybody else was sleeping or something. I liked her because she gave me some really good caramels. I don't think she was supposed to be smoking, but I didn't care. Everybody smoked back then.

I'm not sure what carrier that was, but it was a weird flight: Omaha to Chicago to DC to LaGuardia, if I recall correctly. I liked it because I liked all the takeoffs and landings.

I'm sure the food was really good, but I remember it as being "grown up" food: Boring for a kid, but that was a kid's lot in those days. You either ate what you were given, or you didn't.
 
The L-1011 was considered the most advanced airliner in the world when it debuted in 1972. Some of it's features were:

The first US made airliner certified for fully automatic landings.

Instead of window shades the windows were polarized. You turned a knob to darken or lighten the window from full dark to full brightness. Unfortunately these were relatively high maintenance and within a few years the mechanisms were ripped out and window shades were installed.

You were never more than 1 seat from an aisle, even in coach!
The seating was 2-2-2-2 across the cabin. In the middle between the two seats was a small closet for you to put your belongings in at each row. Later on the airlines figured you could put another seat in there and the seating became 2-5-2.

I got to jumpseat on the L-1011 a bunch of times and loved the plane. I liked it better than the DC-10. While I never had a chance to fly one, (I did get some DC-10 time for about a year) my sister flew as a F/A with TWA and she got to fly on them. She liked to work them.

Planes I have flown:
CV-580, DC-9(all versions), 727, DC-10(F/O), 747(F/O) and the 757 which I currently fly. I was up for 787 training, but with the merger I doubt that will happen.
 
Dress for sucess

I too remember the days when people used to dress up for a trip.
Men in suits or at least dress shirt and tie and nice slacks. Nowadays if you see someone dressed nicely, they are probably an airline employee non revving.
I can't believe how people dress these days to fly. Shorts, flip flops, T-Shirts, halter tops. It's not too bad in Coach, but if you dress like that in Business people WILL look at you.

I have heard of a few people that have been refused first class because of inappropriate dress. But that usually happens on the foreign carriers.

Plus if you dress nicely and the plane is overbooked you might just qualify for an upgrade from Coach to Business. Remember, when you are flying business, you are supposed to look like you belong there.

What people need to remember is that in the unlikely event of an emergency shorts and flip flops are not going to offer you any protection from things like fire, flying debris and the emergency evacuation slide, which has the consistency of burlap. Slide down one of those in shorts and you'll leave the skin off of the back of your legs on the slide. And I'm not kidding!
 
Great topic

Being from the Air Capital of the World, it's one of my favorite subjects.
A little history I actually just learned. I knew Wichita was the Air Capital, but I always thought it was because we had Boeing, Lear, Beech, Cessnea, Ryan, and bunch of other avaiation related businesses centered her. In actuallity, we are the Air Cap because in years past before the advent of planes that could go coast to coast. Every single plane that was going cross country landed in Wichita to re-fule.

As for the big airliners, the 747 is a favorite. I personally love the '37. Powerful, roomy, cost efficient. Can't wait to finally see the new 87 "Dreamliner". If it ever gets off the ground that is. I fear the FAA is going to dog it like the did the Beech Starship. The FAA just doesn't understand composits still and are requiring added weight, and added supports nullifying the design of the light weight composits.

Speaking of the Startship, what a wonderful plane. No other plane in the world sounds like the Starship. I am told it was easy to fly and impossible to stall due to the front kennards. A wonderful plane and the first composite to be certified. Being the Rolls of the aircraft industry the Starship suffered from high maintenance cost. I was told by a man at the Kansas Avaiation Museum of the 205 built there are only three still flying. Citing maintenance costs was it's demise. $75,000 to replace the front kennards motors which is required every two years. The added weight the FAA required for braces nullified the weight advantage the composite plane would have had and thus damaged it's fuel efficiency, again making it a costly plane to fly.

http:// www.kansasaviationmuseum.org/
 
"Student" Cards

I got one in 1970, when the lines were regulated. It allowed you to fly "standby" for very little. I used it often and I don't think I ever got bumped because of capacity. Mine was from TWA, but it was accepted by all other lines. I used to fly Allegheny to PA and United or Branniff to TN. Once in awhile I ended up in 1st class (free drinks at 20! Woohoo!). I recall on the Eastern Shuttle to D.C. or Boston, you would just walk up and board the plane like a bus. The stewardess would ticket you at your seat.

I do remember when you ticketed at the counter, they would ask you your birthplace. Never understood what that was for.

Nowadays when I'm standing in my stocking feet waiting to be "scanned" or "sniffed", behind people wearing dirty clothes, hoping I don't have too much cologne stuffed into my quart-sized baggie, I realize where the glamour of flying has gone: into thin air...
 
Enjoyed looking through Kansas Aviation Museum page, thanks for posting the link!

Here is a link to the Museum of Flight here in Seattle, and a picture of the first 747 a BA Concorde, and a few other historical aircraft, including an early Air Force One taken near Boeing Field in Seattle.

http://www.museumofflight.org/about-us
11-13-2008-11-31-38--kenb.jpg
 
Laundress:

I am going to have to be careful not to write too much here here as you've touched on another big hobby of mine (note my e-mail address which indicates my favorite aircraft).

You may be glad to know that a handful of PanAm's B747-121s are still flying around, though perhaps not for much longer. A number of them were converted to freighters after the PA collapse, and about a half-dozen or so went on to serve very long, distinguished careers with UPS as package carriers. They are being replaced right now by new deliveries of 744Fs, but I think one or two are active until after the Christmas rush. They are over 35 years old! Evergreen had a similar number also, and may still have a couple active. Kalitta and Polar had a couple also, and I know of at least one that was recently put into storage at Marana, AZ.

Carrying freight is not the glamorous use as it was to carry pax in the 70s, etc, but neither is carrying pax today what it once was. It's nice to see an early 70s '741 fly into Charlotte on the occasional freight charter. I'm glad that at least someone is using the aircraft.
 
Ken -

Thanks for the cool pic of the Museum of Flight!! What's odd to note is that B727 #2 (it's either #1 or #2) is up there somewhere being restored to flyable status, but is not considered part of the collection which has the prototype 737 and 747 as you pictured, and instead they have a late-build 727-200 which was donated by American.
 
I also have steered clear of DC-10's and have never set foot on one. I always thought the Tri-Star's rear engine looked better secured than on the DC-10's. As we found out in 1979, I believe, it was the wing mounted engines on the DC-10's that were the real problem. Just way too many wrecks or incidents with the DC-10 for me to go anywhere near one.

I used to love to fly in the age of regulation and the C.A.B. You just knew the redundancies of aircraft design and the integrity of every airline employee were things you didn't need to question. These days, I wonder if the thug types slinging baggage into the cargo hold even care about making sure the hatch is securely closed. I hate flying anymore, and am really glad California voters approved high speed rail last week.

I did a lot of flying to Mexico on Hughes AirWest back in the 70's. The fleet of flying bananas, predominantly DC-9's, some of them really old and small. We'd hop our way down, drinking free champagne the whole way, stopping in Phoenix, maybe Tucson, La Paz and Mazatlan before reaching our destination. It was fun back in those days as I was not yet 20 and enjoying all the take-offs. Now I just want to fly non-stop and get the whole thing overwith.

Hughes Airwest also inherited some funky old stock from the various small airlines that combined to form it. Locally we had old Fairchild F-27's with the high wings making short hops. I flew on them a couple of times to Reno and back. The Rolls Royce engines sounded like a power drill flying overhead as they prepared to land. Inside they were seriously loud and not very comfortable, but since they cruised at around 15K feet the flight to Reno afforded some nice close-up (but not too close) views of the high Sierras with no wing blocking things.

The best thing to happen to modern flying for me has been Southwest's move to letting me print up my own boarding pass so it's a little bit less of a cattle-call now.
 
rp2813 - You needn't worry about flying on any DC-10s anymore unless you're on an obscure charter airline, a military KC-10 opp, or a troop transfer from the middle east. Northwest was the last major US operator when they were removed from service about one year ago.

You say that the Tristar's appearance looked better, but nearly every DC-10 built has outflown nearly every L1011, and continues to do so, whereas the VAST majority of Tristars are either scrapped and gone or parked in the desert. Many DC-10s have passed the 100,000 flight hour mark, which is quite a testament to the robustness of McD's design.

The engine loss in Chicago that you mentioned was related to American's engine/pylon removal procedures, NOT the structure of the plane, however pylon re-design was done anyway to prevent maintenance damage in the future. That was 1979 - there hasn't been a similar issue since.

The majority of the 400+ DC-10s built continue to serve, many as freighters, and will for a long time to come.
 
Gordon, that UA 721 is over on the other side of the field next to the Comet. Supposedly under restoration. I certainly hope so-----especially that Comet. When I was last there you could put your fist through the belly it was so corroded.
 
Gordon, thanks for the info on the DC-10's. I think the reason the Tri-Stars were retired early by the airlines is because not enough of them were included in their fleets and, if you use Southwest's philosophy, it made more sense to have fewer types of aircraft and manufacturers contributing to a particular fleet in order to keep maintenance costs down.

I think it was 1980 or 81 when I took my Tri-Star trip from SFO to Chicago. It was on TWA. I don't think too many other airlines ordered them. PSA had a couple but didn't hang onto them for long. What I remember about that TWA plane was that it was one of the last to still have the old TWA paint and logo scheme with the orbs around the lettering. By that time, most TWA planes had received the boring red tail look. The classic logo on the tail just added to the fun of hearing that droning sound it made. Closest I'll ever get to flying on a Constellation, I guess.

Ken, keep those reasons to travel up to your neck of the woods coming!

Ralph
 
The DC-10 turned out to be more popular because it was designed to be "stretched" into other versions from the beginning. OTOH, the L-1011 was designed just as one airframe without consideration to stretch it. In order to accomplish this feat, Lockheed had to redesign the wing which was costly to do. This caused the stretched versions to arrive late to market, hence airlines ordered the DC-10 because they needed aircraft then and now.
The DC-10 sure did have enough teething problems but after about 10 years MD got them fixed. And the MD-11, based on the DC-10 design didn't meet the airlines specifications, but cargo carriers love it. So you see those mainly with FedEx, KLM Cargo, etc.

Little known fact. The area where that AA DC-10 came down in 79' at Chicago O'Hare is now supposed to be haunted. More than just a few people have run into "people" asking how to get to the terminal building only to have them disappear into thin air. Some people who live in the area have said that they have heard moaning in the air.
Also around gate K-11 (where that flight departed from) some people have said they have seen a businessman talking on a pay phone. The he finishes his call and heads into the departure lounge at K-11 and disappears into thin air. For more read my link

I wouldn't hesitate to get on a DC-10, but I would hesitate to get on any airline with a flight number of 191. American, Delta, Comair have all had fatal crashes with that flight number.

http://www.prairieghosts.com/flight.html
 
Steve -

I saw a fairly lenghty report (don't remember from where but it was a PBS-like presentation) recently that talked about United's 721 at the museum. I didn't hear anything about the specific belly corrosion, but I did hear that they were having issues with missing parts that United had removed once the plane was delivered there. To remedy that, they bought a Fedex 727-22C to be used as a parts donor and the two were recently photographed nose to nose, work on-going.

I hope it happens - I have many memories of seeing United's 727s, one after another, at DEN-Stapleton in concourse B - nearly new 727-222As parked next to very early 727-22s, etc. I still get to see a 721 occasionally as Roush racing has three here, two of which are active during race season. They were the three that were flown by MGM Grand Air.

G
 

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