Remembering my first airline trip:

Not quite so glamorous.

Continental Airlines Convair 340 from Albuquerque NM to El Paso, TX.

Was pretty young but knew that it was a 340.

It was parked next to a Frontier Airlines (the original Frontier, not the one flying now) DC-3.

Also a TWA Martin 404 and a Connie.

Was amazing, I thought... best day of my life so far.

 

What a great thread! I had to think a bit about my first commercial flight and it was a DC-6 in 1952 when I had to fly SEA. to Shreveport, La. to see my critically ill dad. I remember spending a lot of time in the aft end in the comfortable lounge area reading and having a drink while the " stewardess" played on her ukeleli ( spl) . My seat was over the center section and soon my feet went numb from the vibrations. We had to stop in Tucson for fuel and also El Paso. Then in 1959 I was able to fly on a Western Airlines DC-4 on my way to the Rose Bowl game when Washington U. beat the Big Ten champs. I believe that I won the tickets in some kind of raffle and saw a fantastic game. The flight down the coast couldn't have been much higher than 3 or 4 thousand feet, maybe less. But it did go down the coast and I remember seeing the pulp mills in operation that are no longer there. My first jet flight was on a NWA 707 for Boeing where as a flyer in tourist class I was served a steak and and champagne for lunch. I don't care to fly anymore.
Switches

 

1973, I was 6 years old on the #1 observers seat on a DC-10 bound for Rome. Pretty cool still to this day.

Time flies..........

 

In the early to mid-1960s we'd regularly fly between our home in Reno and my grandparents' place in Los Angeles.

We'd either fly a United DC-6 or a Western Lockheed Elektra. My mom liked the Elektras better because they were newer and faster; I thought their prop-jet whine was sort of scary. The DC-6 had real curtains instead of plastic sliders over the windows. United's magazine was called "Mainliner."

I loved to watch the smoke from the engines at start-up and see the propellers start to turn. I also remember how huge the LA airport was and to this day remember the overwhelming smell of jet fuel. The planes were also much louder than they are today.

A few times the Captain would let me look around the cockpit, and I recall getting a set of "junior pilot" wings to wear on my shirt.

Lastly, I don't remember any security procedures. Hijackings began popping up in the late 60s.

Those are some of my random memories of air travel in the 1960s.

 

Wow, I was a little kid in 1957, it was my first flight in a plane. It was a silver DC3 from Des Moines to Kansas City where we boarded a triple tailed constellation (Connie) to Phoenix. We landed in Albuquerque first because of engine problems and were laid over six hours or so. What a great adventure, I still remember we parked next to the original silver metal tower in Phoenix and they rolled the staircase over to the Connie.

 

Damn!

 

Mine too was on Eastern Airlines, and also in 1960. Our family flew from (I think) Newark to Sarasota, Florida on a Lockheed Electra for our annual vacation. This was the Series 1 Electra, the one that was later grounded after suffering several catastrophic wing spar failures due to harmonic vibrations from the engine mounts. Fortunately, we made it there and back again alive.

 

My first flight was from Denver, CO to Washington, DC. We (Mom, Sister and I) flew on Piedmont Airlines. Coming into DC, they constantly played the recording "Your seat cushion is also a flotation device." It was about 3 months after the Air Florida hitting the 14th St bridge and went into the Potomac River. The flight had a layover in Chicago.

On the way back, we were stranded in Cincinnati due to a snowstorm. We sat on the runway for 8 hours. Oh were we mad!

That wasn't my worst experience flying. I have had 3 others that have made it so I will never again fly Southwest, Continental or Quantas.

 

My late sister was a scheduled passenger on the Air Florida flight that went into the Potomac but she missed it by 5 minutes. Upset at her tardiness she went into the lounge and ordered a scotch. When they announced that Flight 39 had crashed into the river she ordered another scotch and forgot her anger. She died several years later of other causes.

 

WTF!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!

Are you serious?!?!?!?!?!? Wow...

I grew up and spent a number of months at a time at my grandma's house. She lived under finals into LAX, so the roar of 727s, DC-8s, 747s, you name it were just overhead at hundreds of feet. My parents (bastards) never once took me the two miles up the road to ever watch planes land even though they knew I was obsessed with airliners. All I had was my grandma's house, my Dyna-Flites and Matchbox Skybusters, and that was it.

First flight finally came at age 13 on Jet America out of LGB to LAS, 2 months before they transitioned to Alaska Airlines.

Side note - my former partner who is an aviation nut, was on inaugural flights for PSA L-1011, and the Pan Am inaugural flight from JFK to LHR on the 747-100. We never did fly Concorde (still kicking ourselves), and cockpit seats during take off and landing (at least on International flights) are no more thanks to a certain group hiding out in Afghanistan.

Last side note - my son is named Braniff. That's another story...

 

I do not remember, the first time I flew on an airplane.


As a young boy, I used to look for airline postcards all over the airplane. I still have several old Delta postcards of DC-8's and a Convair 880. I actually flew on a Convair 880, with Delta !

 

And this is what those stainless-steel steps to the Connie SuperC's looked like.And what the passengers might wear when traveling...Mom with a big Montaldo's hat box[no way that fits in the overhead] and Dad along with Henry&Dell going to a market in NYC probably...mid 50's.
cheers,
RE
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727 from Norfolk VA via Charlotte NC to Tampa FL, in 1987. I remember being a little scared, but I loved the takeoff.

I was more afraid of the possibility (at least I thought so) of being irradiated by the baggage X-ray. Yes, I was a wiener when I was a little kid.

 

My first flight was also on a DL CV880. PHL - MSY - HOU at age 11. Years later when I went to work for DL as a mechanic I used to love hearing the old farts ***** (with great fondness) about the 880's.

My personal favorite,as a mechanic, was the DC-8 both 61 and 71 series. Rigging that beast was a true challange.

 

I have no idea! Either it was from SAT to DEN? or SAT to CLT? I do remember going on a 747 at a very young age into New York City at some point. I think it was from CLT? Do 747's even do domestic flights in the states? or would they have back in 1993ish?

 

I flew transatlantic on Swissair Convair 990s at least a couple of times. Very smooth and quiet, as I recall.

 

This is easy. It was 1978 or so. I was flying From DC to Vegas for pleasure. I'm in a Boeing 727 seated near the engines on the port side taking off upriver and the sun is on the other side of the plane. I see the shadow of the plane going across suburbia. I am totally comfortable with flight.

All of a sudden I hear a terrible sound from the engines! I see the shadow of a huge black cloud coming from the plane! I know this isn't right. The plane is loosing altitude. It is sick for sure.

I'm thinking about the safety announcements and thinking I might become a statistic.

The noise subsides. The plane stops that sinking feeling.

After a short time the pilot comes on and fills us in. One of the engines had gone into reverse in mid flight and was not reconfigurable and had been powered down. We returned without further incident.

 

Not my very first, but one of the first. I was a student spending a year abroad in the late 60's and took a KLM Comet from London to Amsterdam. I thought the plane looked rather interesting at the time. It wasn't until some years later that I learned they were death traps.

 

Only the very early ones. You were quite safe in the late 60s.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Havilland_Comet