photo found at Dave Gelina’s Flickr page
When we moved to Baltimore in 1965, the local airport was a lot busier than the one in Iowa had been. But that’s still not saying much, as sometimes a half hour or 45 minutes would go by between a landing or take off. hard to imagine now.
And these are the kinds of planes I saw from up there: Lots of United DC-6s, and other similar prop planes like this Eastern Air Lines DC-7. And of course an increasing (but still modest) number of jets, like this United DC-8. My favorite one was a TWA 707 that always spent the night there. it would have looked like this:
Although I had formed an attachment to the DC-8 after flying one to the US in 1960, I couldn’t help but notice that the 707 was simply the better looking of the two. That was probbaly in large part to its many more small windows making it look sleeker and bigger. And its nose was a bit cleaner too. Of course the big windows of the DC-8 made for stellar views, something long forgotten.
I LOVED the Observation Deck at Friendship Airport!!!! (aka BWI)
My Mom & Dad have home movies of me at about a year old, crying over the loud noise of the planes, but as I got older I couldn’t wait for my Dad to take me there to do plane spotting. To this day, I still look up when a plane flies over to see what it is.
My very first plane ride ever at the age of 14 was to San Francisco aboard a TWA 707 almost exactly like the one in the picture. I say almost, because by 1974, the engines on those 707(s) were updated to the turbo-fans (not yet hi-bypass mind you), and not those very loud*, smoke spewing turbo-jets as on the pictured bird.
* No wonder my little one year old ears couldn’t take it. (Born in 1960 ;o)
I am old enough to have flown on piston engine airliners, in the days when almost any little kid on the flight would be walked up to see the pilot and come back with some wings pinned to the shirt.
I also recall the outside staircases that would roll up to the plain for passengers to enter or exit. Yes, those days are gone for good.
And I remember the 707 as the quintessential modern airliner – it had a starring role in the 1970 film Airport. So how surprised was I to read back in the mid 1980s that by then there were more DC-3s in the air than 707s.
I still have the TWA pin given to me by the pilot of that 707. It’s somewhere in the house, anyway.
Ironically, my first flight in a piston engine plane wouldn’t happen until 2004, when I went up in a 1942 Stearman powered by a 220hp Continental R-670 7-cylinder Radial.
Can verify that American Airlines would still give the wing pins to kids (and let them get a photo in the cockpit) as late as 1993. Oh how things have changed in 25 years!
Boarding stairs are still very much in use at smaller airports, both in the US and internationally.
Are they? I’ve been surprised by how some really small airports I’ve been to are equipped with jet bridges. Like La Crosse, Wisconsin, which at the time had a grand total of three gates, all of which had jet bridges.
The few airports that still use stairs in the US that I know of are all in places that have nice weather year round, like Southern California — Burbank and Long Beach airports still use them, as does Kona, Hawaii.
But yes, stairs do seem to be more common internationally. I know in Europe Ryanair specifically avoids using jet bridges to save money.
Most low cost airline sin Europe will use portable steps at the rear doors of a 737 and the built airstairs at the front. An airbridge is an unusual luxury
I fly to KOA regularly and what I especially like about using the stairs instead of a jetway is that Hawaiian and Alaska (maybe others), open an aft door as well as the forward one. Sitting in the last row, I was the first one off. Using the rear door also made boarding much quicker.
Jackson Hole, WY still uses air stair trucks too. It’s a surprisingly active airport that typically has several large jets in simultaneously.
The airport in New Bedford MA still uses them.
When they were young I used to take the kids to watch the planes take off and land at Midway Airport in Chicago. Depending on which corner they were using, there was a grassy hill right outside the wall where we sat and watched. Mostly 767s every five minutes, with smaller planes and the oddball older jetliner. We saw one mess up the approach and have to circle around and try again. A couple of times there was an unmarked white 727 (I think) that came. Something secretive/governmental I figured. Anyway, good times.
And the irony is that they used the piston engine noises in the movie for comic effect and to emulate the old movies. That movie is stuck in my mind for so many great comic sight gags and cliches that were skewered so well it hurt.
So, Jimmy, do you like gladiator movies?……
You’re thinking Airplane!, not Airport. Airport was an action drama. Airplane! was amazing.
Yes, but BOTH movies had the Boeing 707 as the star!
As George Kennedy said at the end of Airport upon tapping the fuselage of the damaged plane, “Nice Going Sweetheart”.
Or as Robert Hayes’ character says in Airplane!: “This plane has four engines. It’s a different kind of flying all together.”
Surely you can’t be serious.
I am serious. And don’t call me Shirley.
In Airplane!, the 707 was shown with a piston engine/propellor soundtrack. I laugh every time.
They also used to give away little plastic replica airplanes, about 2” long and usually molded in solid white – my brothers and I would pester Dad to bring us some whenever he traveled.
Ed – I have about ten of those that I have picked up over the years. Mine are all gray, not white. I believe the scale is 1:475.
My fleet includes Viscount (with “Capital” lettering on the wings), Martin 4-0-4, Convair 440, DC-7 and, of course, Lockheed 1049 Super Constellation.
Lots of stairs in use in Hawaii JPC, along with open air walkways to get to the gates.
I suggest you and Mrs JPC do some field research there 🙂
Or even the main Bangkok airport, Suvarnabhumi (pronounced “Suwanaboom”) — it’s just over ten years old, but some local airlines still use the bus’n’stairs routine, and not just because they’re using ATRs.
I’m often going up or down external stairs at San Jose and Portland, either for dual entry/exit or the smaller turboprops.
I like them because it really feels like I’m riding in a vehicle. I can see and touch the outside and climb in. With jetways it’s almost as if I’m going from one chair-filled room to another through a narrow hallway.
When I used to fly to Aguadilla PR for work, they always used roll up staircases to board and deplane. It was a small airport, but it had the longest runways in the Caribbean, since it used to be Ramey AFB. I loved going there, but not the 2 AM departure times to Newark.
I flew in a Luftwaffe 707 from Berlin to Moscow in 1982. It was in pristine condition, but it was older generation by then.
The large airports in many German cities, including Berlin, Frankfurt, and Munich, still uses the boarding stairs for lot of planes the size of A320/B737 and smaller at the aprons further away from the terminals.
Same here. In 1959 my family flew from Montreal to London in a Super Constellation. It was a 10 hour eastbound flight, and longer still (a refueling stop in Ireland) on the return trip. A visit to the cockpit for kids seems to have been standard in those days.
The Connies were (still are) beautiful aircraft. Air Canada, Trans-Canada Airlines in those days, started replacing them with DC-8’s in 1960. I’d have to agree that the 707 was a much better looking plane than the DC-8 though, especially in its iconic PanAm livery.
I guess I’m unlike a lot of car aficionados in that I have no particular interest in airplanes, to the point of not being able to tell one from the other. Planes are a lot like toilets to me – I use one when I need one, and I don’t care who made it.
Even though I am an airliner geek, Boeing retiree and currently work for LAX, I do understand. Modern jets mostly look alike and I cant always tell the difference, especially in the air with the wheels up.
In spite of all the electronics and greater efficiency, airliners fly no faster than the 707/DC-8 and work fundamentally the same. It takes just as long to go between New York and Los Angeles today as it did in 1959! It took 56 years from the Wright Flyer to the jets. It has been 59 years since then.
Growing up in the 1970s, my parents always made it a “day at the airport” whenever we had to pick up or drop off someone – generally at either BWI or Dulles. Watching the planes take off was a big deal for the whole family. Even my grandmother regularly went with us to see the airport and the planes.
Now access to various areas is very restricted. When we picked up my mother at Philadelphia Airport this past August, we waited in a large hall with no windows.
I was particularly disappointed when the first time I went to BWI after they took out the observation deck. Looking out the windows at the planes was just no substitute for being up high and getting that awesome view.
I think they even had an observation deck at the airport in Washington DC (I think it’s called Reagan now). I remember my Dad taking me to that one instead of Friendship one day to plane spot, and was fascinated by some mechanics trying to get the number 2 engine on an old Connie started up.
The Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport was originally called the Washington National Airport. For some reason, family members never booked flights that arrived or departed from that airport. They always used BWI or Dulles.
My wife grew up in Catonsville and under one of the flight paths for Friendship (it’ll always be Friendship to me) that was right over their house. One nice thing about that proximity was that we could land after a flight inbound, call her Mom, and she’d be there in about 15 minutes!
My first flight at age <1 (we lived off Loch Raven Blvd before moving to W. Towson-Riderwood) was out of Friendship in a DC-something to Boston to visit my Mom''s parents right after I was born. Don't remember that one!
We moved around a lot when I (and my parents/sibling) were younger…we flew a propeller plane from Pennsylvania to Los Angeles when we moved there in 1959…I guess jet fare was significantly more expensive but the propeller planes were much louder. At least turboprops seem to be used for some of the smaller airports still, I flew on one 2 years ago from Newark to Avoca airport in Pennsylvania for my Uncle’s funeral on United.
My Dad used to work for Westinghouse and transferred from PA to MD in the early 60’s…his office was at the Friendship airport, not sure why, maybe thats where the space was available….we also lived in Catonsville MD from early ’63 to June 1965 (we lived near the intersection of Route 40 and the Beltway). We were moving from Catonsville to Burlington VT (staying in a Holiday Inn near Catonsville) when my Dad was in an accident that totalled our ’63 Rambler wagon…he ended up buying a ’65 Olds F85 wagon at Val Preda’s in South Burlington Vermont (I remember being in a rental car, maybe a Buick, for the drive from Catonsville once we moved to Vermont.
My first 707 flight was to visit my best friend in July ’66 who left Towson in ’65 during his freshman year at Loyola HS to move to LA so his Dad could take a new job at Aerospace Corp. I had to dress up in a sport jacket and we had a full steak dinner enroute – things sure have changed!
The 707 is, and always will be, my favorite jet transport. It changed overnight the way we travel, and shrank the globe. Maybe I’m a little biased, my uncle Joe was a career 707 flight engineer, and when I was 13 or 14 I got to ride in the cockpit of one from MIA to San Juan, P.R. and back. I sat in the by then defunct navigator’s seat, and got to listen to the communications. Thank you Joe, It’s a memory that will last forever.
Ah memories! I was 7 or 8 in 1953-54 when my dad took me to Idlewild Airport (JFK). They had a huge observation deck that anyone could park and walk in! You could see most of the airport from the deck and all manner of prop planes.
Many, many years later, I was a communications engineer and would have to visit the rooftop of a 10 or 12 story building on the north side of the Belt Pky overlooking JFK. As luck would have it, one day we got to watch the Concorde take off. I’m still in awe of that!
The Eastern DC-7B makes an imposing rampside display; one can be seen currently at the Charlotte airport.
A private group restored a long idled DC-7B over several years and obtained a limited operating permit. The restoration took place at Opa Locka, Florida and the airplane was based there. In the early 2010s the airplane appeared at many shows – including the EAA at Oshkosh. It also flew private, chartered sightseeing flights. It blew an engine leaving Charlotte about five or so years ago, returned to the airport and has been sitting there since. It has not been repaired and is not airworthy but is on limited rampside display at a museum there.
I remember the mural of Daedalus and Icarus near the observation deck. I thought a depiction of the first recorded flight mishap at an airport was a bit unnerving.
As a kid in the 1960s, I’d go to Lambert International Airport in St. Louis with the family to meet relatives coming or going from the plane. We’d be down on the deck near the embarking stairs. It also had a neat terminal building with great observation decks (photo). Some years back (shortly before 9/11) I did contract environmental work at Miami International Airport which gave me access to just about everywhere except the runways/taxiways themselves and the customs area. Even then I had to go through a fairly rigorous background check plus a day of training. It was neat watching planes takeoff and land from so close, but it was a bit spooky driving a Toyota pickup behind clusters of idling jets at the gates. There was even a vehicle tunnel underneath one of the runways.
I was in graduate school ’67-69 at WashU & my fondest memories of STL in the terminal (now totally obscured by parking and concourses and jet-ways) was McDonnell Douglas taking F-4s off 2 at a time to ferry to Vietnam.
Dave
Did the training include a United Airlines film showing a truck being blown into San Francisco bay by 747 jet blast? My training did.
youtube.com/watch?v=TyMGLjo6Ojo
Yep, that film was part of the program.
Ah, the “good old days” when flying was fun. Vividly remember family trip as a youngster in 1962 aboard Icelandic Airlines DC-6B: NYC-Gander-Reykjavik-Göteborg-Copenhagen-Hamburg! About 22 hours, including 2 hr stop in Reykjavik to refuel both aircraft and passengers, who were bussed to a restaurant for fresh scrambled eggs breakfast. Other memorable stop was in Göteborg, where deplaned passengers could watch refueling up close from pretty patio cafe. Still remember the cyclical idle growl of the Volvo or Scania tanker truck.
Since we have a lot of 707 expertise here, maybe someone can tell me if the likely scenario here: we flew to London in 1960. I was 3 years old. I think, based on things I heard when I was older, like 6 or 7, that we took a train to Montreal and flew to London, with a stop in Gander. My sister thinks we flew from the midwestern US with a stop in Montreal. (We both remember the train from California to at least Chicago). Could a 707 with 1960 vintage turbojets go from Montreal to London non-stop, or would a Gander re-fueling have been needed?
A Boeing 707-320 (Pan Am had these) could’ve made it….
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_707#707-320
I looked it up to be sure, but I recalled that this version of the jet was designed for international use.
This site has a bunch of scans of old airline timetables from that era. I don’t have time to look through them at the moment, but that might help you figure it out.
http://timetableimages.com/ttimages/complete/complete.htm
Wow, what a resource. Thanks! But unfortunately it looks like there was no jet service on BOAC to London, so I may have all the facts wrong. Can’t find family pictures either. But BOAC piston engine planes (or at least propellor) did need to refuel in Gander. By 1964, our next trip to London, BOAC had 707’s and they flew US to UK direct.
The first generation 707s and DC-8s were not intercontinental, and refueled in Gander or Shannon, Ireland, where the DC-8 we flew to the US in 1960 stopped.
I found a Trans Canada Airlines schedule for summer 1960, which also shows BOAC transatlantic flights through Montreal and Toronto. The transatlantic page is at http://www.timetableimages.com/ttimages/complete/tc60/tc60-07.jpg
and shows BOAC flights originating in Chicago, flying to Montreal, and on to London, possibly shared with TCA.
It looks like BOAC was using Comets, Britannias, and 707’s at the same time (the ‘equipment’ is shown at the top of the page, and the legend is at http://www.timetableimages.com/ttimages/complete/tc60/tc60-01.jpg ).
So from Montreal in 1960 on BOAC, you may have had your choice – 6 hours in a 707, 7 hours in a Comet, or 10.5 in a Britannia (with a stop in Shannon)!
Some return flights, including jets, do have scheduled stops in Gander, but all the jets (even the Comet) seem to have been able to do London-Toronto non-stop, so it doesn’t appear to have been necessary.
Fuel stop in Gander, Canada depended on how strong the jet stream is when flying westbound from Europe to the United States. Flying eastboard is no problem since the planes often ‘ride’ the jet stream. My most memorable flight was Lufthansa Boeing 747-400 from Dallas to Frankfurt in late 1990s: the monitor showed the ground speed of 1,300 km/h, and we arrived in Frankfurt two hours earlier than scheduled!
The ‘vintage’ 707-120B can muster only 4,100 miles while the updated version, 707-320/-420 (Pratt & Whitney and Rolls-Royce respectively) extends the range to 4,320 miles. The 707-320B could do 5,800 miles.
My mum and I flew on Lufthansa Boeing 707-420 from Chicago to Frankfurt non-stop in the summer of 1974.
I have flown in a 707 only once in my life and that was in 1976 believe it or not. It was a charter flight to Europe from Los Angeles. The flight stopped in Bangor, Maine to refuel before heading off the Amsterdam.
Before heading off, as the plane made the final turn from the taxi way to take off runway, it lost one wheel off to the left side. I was at the window watching and said wait a minute before motioning over the attendant to take a look. For opening my mouth we got to spend 3 hours in the plane while the problem was corrected.
Only prop flown was a Lockheed Electra owned by PSA from San Diego to Los Angeles. A very rough flight that scared my sister half to death. In my 105 flights in a 747 the fastest was from NRT-SFO at 710 mph with the jet stream.
Westbound flights from Europe sometimes stopped in Gander, depending on their final destination in the Americas, or for extra fuel as necessary. Soviet-bloc flights to Cuba stopped there regularly (more than a few passengers managed to avoid reboarding).
Assuming it was a jet (and there still would have been some propellor planes flying the Atlantic in 1960), my guess would be that your eastbound flight was probably non-stop from Montreal, and the return trip possibly stopped in Gander if headwinds were stronger than normal.
The old Terminal One at Toronto was built in a circular pattern and we always tried to talk my dad into parking on the top floor which was open and tall enough you could pretty much see everything from there.
I miss old Terminal One. Used to go up there whenever I had the chance.
My most vivid memory of the 707 actually involves the military version, the KC-135 tanker used for in-flight refueling. There was a SAC refueling squadron based at Travis AFB when I was stationed there in the mid and late seventies. Even then it was obvious that the 707 was older technology than the C-141 and C-5 that the Air Force used for regular transport duties. You could always tell when a KC-135 was taking off; it was noisier than a C-141 by several degrees, and the engines produced copious amounts of black smoke as the flight crew used “maximum military power” to get off the ground.
To connect this thread to cars, I remember Mitchell Field in Milwaukee as always having the latest model Rambler displayed at the main entrance.
I remember “surprising” my father upon a return from his working with Lockheed in Atlanta in 1966. I parked my just acquired ’59 Lincoln convertible on the circular drive in front of the Friendship terminal, at a parking meter about 100 feet from the entrance! Upon seeing the Lincoln, he appeared to be much less impressed than I was.
The original LAX terminal building, about a mile east of the current 1961 complex, had an observation deck and rooftop restaurant called the Flight Deck. I remember seeing my grandparents depart for Mexico City from there.
The picture is probably from 1953, when Pan Am introduced Boeing 377 Stratocruiser service to Honolulu.