Now Let's Talk About Planes/Airlines

[sudsmaster]

I remember World Airways fondly because they usually had the cheapest fares going to/from Hawaii/Oakland during the brief time when they actually had scheduled service. I understand they their heyday flying troops and others back and forth to the Indochina war theatre during the Vietnam War. World moved from Oakland to DC in the late 80's.

The acceleration rush I experienced on my first jet flight in the late 60's may well have been on a 707-20 or a 720. I have never really experienced acceleration like that again, except on a motorcycle ;-). Part of it may have been the surprise of the first time experience, but I remember being disappointed on subsequent flights by the relative slowness of the take off. It's also possible the pilot was trying to avoid some hazard and had to accelerate at wide open throttle.

In terms of handling, the most fun flights were the inter-island Hawaii hops. I remember one time the stubby jet rose suddenly and then the pilot banked it over steeply. The stewardesses were kind of po'd as they were in the aisles taking orders and one of them said "He promised he wouldn't do that any more!"... lol... I got the impression the pilot was some sort of hotshot former fighter pilot from the way he flew that jet. Wings flapping the whole nine yards.

 

[whirlcool]

You are right, takeoffs are a lot more boring than they used to be. Most modern jetliners have FADEC controls which has a computer that controls the takeoff thrust. You just enter the runway length, the weight/balance information and then push a button when you are ready to go. The computer calculates the required thrust for takeoff. This saves a LOT of fuel during takeoff, and that's were about 30% of the fuel needed for the entire trip is used.
We once non-revved on an American 777 out of DFW a few years ago. We were very lightly loaded and were assigned DFW's longest runway. When we took off, the acceleration was actually very boring. A 737 would have been exciting compared to this plane. Of course we used almost the entire runway, but it was a very economical take off for AA.
And from time to time pilots do manual takeoffs just to keep in practice. Mostly short field takeoffs. On those you really get a kick in the pants. If you ever want to feel this, just take a 757 flight out of Chicago MDW. Short runways, heavy loads (unless its too hot, then you get load restricted) equals maximum thrust!

Aeroflot was the last airline to allow smoking on board, and about 2 years ago they stopped that too. Air France gave it up about 5 years ago, they were also one of the last.
Some of our F/A's who work the DC-9 say that even though the interiors have been totally replaced several times, they can sometimes still smell cigarette smoke on them. It gets into everything!

 

[sudsmaster]

Might be that the guys doing the re-upholstering were heavy smokers...

 

[rp2813]

Brownies or cookies

. . . are the easy solution to lighting up regardless of the mode of transport since smoking isn't allowed on trains or buses anymore either. Next long flight we take, that will be the plan.

Rich, next time you swing by we'll have to budget some time to get adjusted and BS for a while before you head home.