When Flying Was a Thrill

Hugh Pickens writes writes "Bob Greene writes that flying, with jammed-to-the-groaning-point cabins and torture-rack legroom; fees for everything from checking your bags to being handed a paltry package of food; and the endless, we'll-X-ray-you-to-within-an-inch-of-your-dignity security lines, is too often such a dreary, joy-sapping slog that it's difficult to remember that it was ever any other way. But back in the 1930s, '40s and '50s — even the 60s, flying was a big deal. When a family went on vacation by air, it was a major life event. 'Traveling by air in those years wasn't like boarding a flying bus, the way it is today,' says Christopher Lynch, author of "When Hollywood Landed at Chicago's Midway Airport," a celebration of the golden years of commercial air travel in the United States. 'People didn't travel in flip-flops. I mean, no offense, Mister, but I don't want to see your toes.' The trains were still king in those years and the airlines wanted to convince people that flying was safe. 'People were afraid to fly,' Lynch says. 'And it was expensive. The airlines had to make people think it was something they should try.' That's where Mike Rotunno came in, photographer-for-hire at Midway Airport in Chicago where cross-country flights in those years had to stop to refuel. His pictures of Hollywood stars as they got off the planes made air travel seem to be glamorous, sophisticated, civilized, and thrilling. 'Think of his photos the next time you're shoehorned into a seat next to a fellow who's dripping the sloppy innards of his carry-on submarine sandwich onto your sleeve,' writes Greene. 'Air travel was once a treasured experience, exciting, exotic, something never to be forgotten. You, too, could travel like Elizabeth Taylor.'"

Comments

It was a tremendously big deal.

[dtmos]

We would look forward for weeks to a flight, and wear our best clothes. There was no security hassle, and you waited in the departure area for your flight to be called, then walked outside to the gate in the chain-link fence that led to the planes. Somebody pointed out which one was yours, and you went up the stairs and got in. The rest of your friends and family who were there to see you off stayed behind the fence, and waved at you, and watched the door close, the engines start, and your plane taxi away. If it was a reasonably small airport your friends could wait and try to identify your plane as it took off.

Ah, those were the days. (Sniffle.)

Not all that long ago

[NetDanzr]

You dont have to look that far into the past. Back in the 1980s, I was flying about once or twice per year between Prague and Lisbon and back. Always used Czechoslovak Airlines. The plane was largely empty, so I got to sit in the front, in facing seats with a table between them. Even when I had to sit in the "regular" class (I hesitate to call it economy, because it was nothing like today's cattle pens), we got a stewardess taking orders for drinks and snacks. And we got linen napkins with the main meal...

Ok, enough nostalgia. I'm now at the stage where speed is secondary to comfort. I want my zeppelins back!

the USA needs high speed trains

[circletimessquare]

if the tea party losers would shut up for a moment, you can get DOWNTOWN point A to DOWNTOWN point B in very fast time, faster than a plane taking into consideration the taxi to the two airports of point A and point B, and very luxuriously since the cost of another 5 feet of leg room contributes negligibly to the cost of moving the tons of steel

asia, europe, beyond the idiots in my country who want to live shorter lives and pay more for healthcare insurance so some insurance asshole can make more crony (not capitalist) profit, your high speed trains is what i admire about you the most. rail used to be something amazing in my country. we let it rot

granted, the USA is a lot less sparsely inhabited in the middle, but on the East Coast, and on the West Coast, it's dense enough to warrant high speed rail. hmmm.... and that's not where the tea party losers dominate, there's a chance just yet...

you want to talk about China beating the USA? salivate over this:

http://articles.philly.com/2012-08-19/news/33273369_1_bullet-train-train-crashes-wenzhou

BEIJING - With its sparkling domed skylight, polished granite floor tiles, grand piano, and string of retail outlets such as Timberland and Nautica, the Beijing South Railway Station could compete with the world's finest for modernity and cleanliness.

It was here in December that we boarded China's new high-speed bullet train that whisked us off to Shanghai, more than 800 miles to the south, in just five hours. For efficiency and comfort at a relatively low price ($185 round-trip for second-class seats that were nicer than those on Amtrak's Acela), you can't beat it. Cruising at about 185 m.p.h., the bullet train provides a smooth, quiet ride through China's eastern industrial corridor as it snakes south through four provinces before reaching its terminus at Shanghai's Hongqiao Rail Station. This is like leaving Philadelphia's 30th Street Station at 10 a.m. and arriving in Atlanta by 3 p.m.

tea party morons: please shut up and die and allow the USA to become a modern country. thanks

Re:I don't want thrills...

[demonlapin]

High speed rail will not work in the US outside of the Northeast Corridor because nowhere else has the kind of density needed to make it work. 1000 km in the US is a quick trip - the example he gives, Denver to SF, is more than double that. And rail requires a large and expensive infrastructure, one which is going to have to be duplicated (because our existing rail system is optimized for freight hauling, at which task it is one of the most efficient in the world). It's a cool idea, and in some places it makes sense. But not here.

All driven by price, duh

[argStyopa]

When it costs the same as bus fare, the experience is much like, well, a bus.

The fact was that air travel used to be extraordinarily expensive. IIRC a Washington-Cleveland ticket was around $100 in the new, cheap "coach" class...which is like $900 today.

Now I can get that flight for $100 2012 dollars.

I guess my comment to the writer is that if he wants to travel comfortably, then he needs to pay for first class flights which have surprisingly not changed much over time (aside from inflation). Of course, most people think those are stupid expensive.

Here's An Idea

[BlueStrat]

How about we use this wonderful network of tubes to set up a method and system for organizing and grouping people who want to fly from point A to point B and combine their travel money to schedule/hire chartered flights?

A project for Kickstarter, maybe? Crowd-sourced?

I'm not sure precisely how it would work, but I see this system where you can use your phone or computer to post proposed charter flights and/or browse existing proposed charter flights by origin/destination/schedule/price looking for one that fits your travel plans that has openings.

Handle the airlines (and the TSA) like how the internet was originally designed to handle damage...route around them.

Strat

Re:Just some unwanted advice.

[Anonymous Coward]

I started wearing flip-flops when they started requiring that I take off my shoes at the security checkpoint. The "get your shit together" area beyond the checkpoint just wasn't designed for everyone to screw around with shoelaces. Hell, it was already strained by everyone putting their belts back on and re-packing their laptops and such. Flip-flops and sweatpants let you breeze right through that crap, and I'll continue wearing them at the airport until the security rules change.

Re:You can still fly this way if you want to

[dywolf]

I love flying. sure I hate it when some sweaty fat guy/gal didn't buy two tickets or get put next to an empty seat and is half in my lap. sitting on the tarmac in the heat, sucks too.

But its got its good points too.

Always get a window seat. I stare out the window. I watch the towns drift past. I name the cities and geographic features I see. If I spot something interesting one of the first things I do once i get to a computer is fire up google maps and figure out what I saw.
-Did you know the Mississippi river is down so low, the river thats a mile wide for a huge portion of its length, is down so low right now from teh drought, that flying over memphis and other portions of it, it looks like over half its width was dry as bone sandbars? Thats the drought were in right now....the mississippi, the river that drains ~80% of the entire countries watershed.
-approaching Pheonix on a lfight from 29 Palms to Dallas, about 30 minutes west of pheonix (at altitude and speed, so ~300 miles or so, near the border with cali) was a quarry/pit mine in the middle of the desert. One that was absolutely HUGE from 30000 feet up. Dont know what theyre mining, but from google, and flight, it appears to be over a mile deep, the central pit. And a few miles wide. The civil engineer side of me looks at that and thinks, wow, thats a feat. Thats awesome.
-I see hidden lakes and rivers and creeks near places Ive lived for years, that I never knew existed.
-On flights out of San Diego, LA, and San Fran, when they have to loop out over the ocean before turning back inland on takeoff, I've seen whales, scores of them, swiming along. Big ones (grey or fin?) and small (dolphins and orca). Often only a mile or so from shore.
-Flying into (and out of) turkminstan and afghanistan on my deployment, I swore I was flyinig across portions of nevada, the desert terrain is so similar. And again, there is no much hidden greenery around little water seeps, rivers and lakes. Bagram is in the middle of nowhere, thats why theres a base there. Just a few ridges over its like a huge valley oasis (relatively, for a desert), and naturally that's where the people, mostly farmers, are concentrated. They dont show you much of the rugged beauty and scenery of the place when they show the news. Everyone thinks its just sand and camels, but its familiar territory for anyone who's lived int eh southwest.
-Flying across the desert of new mexico, I seen white sands test range
-flying across so cal, i seen the muroc dry lake, with its giant rose compass, and the dry lake "runway" the shuttle landed on. as a aviation buff, that place is magic land anyway
-had a flight once fly over near the tonopah test range and airfield due to storm forced divert. didnt cross the airspace, but apaprently we got pertty close to their flight paths over there, cause in a couple successive flashes of lightning, i saw a flight of F117s crossing our line of flight, a few thousand feet below us.

There's magic out there still in flying.

Re:AMTRAK

[darkHanzz]

MMm, both the German ICE and the French TGV work just fine, allowing one to quickly travel large distances in comfort. Comparing that to Great-Brittain, it seems that railway systems fare better in 'socialist countries with strong government.