Days gone by...

[joea]

In the age of the 707

Those were the good ole days. Pilots back then were men that didn't want to be women or girlymen. Pilots all knew who Jimmy Doolittle was. Pilots drank coffee, whiskey, smoked cigars and didn't wear digital watches.

They carried their own suitcases and brain bags like the real men that they were. Pilots didn't bend over into the crash position multiple times each day in front of the passengers at security so that some Gov't agent could probe for tweezers or fingernail clippers or too much toothpaste.

Pilots did not go through the terminal impersonating a caddy pulling a bunch of golf clubs, computers, guitars, and feed bags full of tofu and granola on a sissy-trailer with no hat and granny glasses hanging on a pink string around their pencil neck while talking to their personal trainer on the cell phone!!!

Being an Airline Captain was as good as being the King in a Mel Brooks movie. All the Stewardesses (aka.Flight Attendants) were young, attractive, single women that were proud to be combatants in the sexual revolution. They didn't have to turn sideways, grease up and suck it in to get through the cockpit door. They would blush and say thank you when told that they looked good, instead of filing a sexual harrassment claim. Junior Stewardesses shared a room and talked about men.... with no thoughts of substitution.

Passengers wore nice clothes and were polite, they could speak AND understand English. They didn't speak gibberish or listen to loud gangsta rap on their IPods. They bathed and didn't smell like a rotting pile of garbage in a jogging suit and flip-flops. Children didn't travel alone, commuting between trailer parks. There were no mongolhordes asking for a "mu-fuggin" seatbelt extension or a Scotch and grapefruit juice cocktail with a twist.

If the Captain wanted to throw some offensive, ranting jerk off the airplane, it was done without any worries of a lawsuit or getting fired.

Axial flow engines crackled with the sound of freedom and left an impressive black smoke trail like a locomotive burning soft coal. Jet fuel was cheap and once the throttles were pushed up they were left there, after all it was the jet age and the idea was to go fast (run like a lizard on a hardwood floor). Economy cruise was something in the performance book, but no one knew why or where it was. When the clacker went off no one got all tight and scared because Boeing built it out of iron, nothing was going to fall off and that sound had the same effect on real pilots then as Viagra does now for those new age guys.

There was very little plastic and no composites on the airplanes or the Stewardesses' pectoral regions. Airplanes and women had eye pleasing symetrical curves, not a bunch of ugly vortex generators, ventral fins, winglets, flow diverters, tatoos, rings in their nose, tongues and eyebrows.

Airlines were run by men like C.R. Smith, Bob Six and Juan Trippe who had built their companies virtually from scratch, knew many of their employees by name and were lifetime airline employees themselves...not pseudo financiers and bean counters who flit from one occupation to another for a few bucks, a better parachute or a fancier title while fervently believing that they are a class of beings unto themselves.

And so it was back then....and never will be again.

[Captgrumps]

Joe

Ah yes, but the author left out C.E. Woolman. Guess the author never flew for a DC-8 water in;jectin airlline.

Doug

[joea]

Showing my age here, but I did fly British Viscounts that had water injected Rolls-Royce engines.

Sure made a lot of noise when on injection but you could sure feel the difference as well.

[Roger Anderson]

Joe

Ah yes, but the author left out C.E. Woolman. Guess the author never flew for a DC-8 water in;jectin airlline.

Doug

As a controller at ZLA in the late 60s, working the LA arrival and departure areas, the two most gutless machines flying out of there were the TWA B707 water haulers and United's B720As. Neither could take normal routing out of the LA area and be able to top the mountains. We would have to vector them all around to get high enough to escape LA basin. Now, the other extreme was Continental's and Western's B720Bs. They were like a Lear getting up and out.

[Paul Agaliotis]

The current executives at my airline couldn't tell a 707 from a Mr. Potatohead. What a shame.
Paul

[Captgrumps]

Roger

We used to race some of those 720B's east bound out of LA with the Convair 880's--it was a dead heat until decent then the 880 took the lead usually at about Mach .884 or the barber pole at lower altitudes. if I get to 100 mph in my Champ It reminds me of M.884 especially if there is a Cub in the area.

Doug

[Roger Anderson]

Doug,

What years were you flying out of LAX? I'd forgotten about the 880s. I'm trying to remember who were flying them then. United, was Delta on the Delta/American interchange flights, TWA??? I think about the fastest back then were the few 990s that actually were operating. Were they up in the .91 range? If you were going east out of LAX you would turn left direct Seal Beach-Thermal-Parker or Blyth then J routes. Or northeast initial heading 070 until gaining mountain clearing altitude, then turn left heading 045, direct Hector when able. By the way, my sweetie who you daughter introduced herself to is now checked out on two radar positions and continuing to do great...and her husband is now a D side trainee at ZTL. Time has flown so quickly. I'd like to see 100 in my Chief someday. 90s about it.

roger

[Captgrumps]

Roger

Began flying out in and out of LAX in 1962--DC-8 and CV-880. Before that DAL/AAA on the ATL/DAL portion of the interchange on DC6B/7. End the tenure on the L-1011 in 1986 ATL/DFW/LAX. We used to race the American 720B's from LAX to DAL/DFW with the 880's.
My grandson (the son of daughter who is controller) is just beginning his D side training at ZTL.

Doug

[Roger Anderson]

Roger

Began flying out in and out of LAX in 1962--DC-8 and CV-880. Before that DAL/AAA on the ATL/DAL portion of the interchange on DC6B/7. End the tenure on the L-1011 in 1986 ATL/DFW/LAX. We used to race the American 720B's from LAX to DAL/DFW with the 880's.
My grandson (the son of daughter who is controller) is just beginning his D side training at ZTL.

Doug

I'll be darn. Well, we've spoken to each other many times then. I was ZLA for 6 years from '68. I worked the LAX departure sectors that took the right turnouts towards the NE and the left turnouts toward the east. We worked you almost right off the ground. I never could figure out exactly what LAX departure control actually did since they didn't keep you but for about 10 miles or less. I was sitting on the northeast departure D side training someone that terrible evening when a VFR Marine F4, doing a vertical climb out of the Pomona mountains area, plowed through the belly of a Hughes Airwest DC9, taking it and 54 people down.
I also worked the Downey arrival sector, ZLA's busiest and most famous sector. We worked you out of FL240, down to 14,000 initially, then down to 7,000. We lined you up on the 25L loc, 5 miles in trail, 170 kts, at a point about 45 east of LAX, where we handed you off to LAX approach.
I later moved back east, doing 8 years of 6 day weeks at ORD TRACON from '82 until '90. Retired as a staff/manager puke at Nashville in '01. And now your third generation is a controller. Excellent. roger