Airline Flying 85 years ago

[turboplanner]

Snippets: The HP-42 | Fleet Air Arm Association of Australia

[skippydiesel]

Thank you for this very interesting bit of aviation history.

 

One minor point - it is true there was no second/tourist/economy class. There was no first class either. In fact I am not sure that the concept of First and other classes had occurred to the airline operators of the time

 

The overnight stays in very nice hotels meant that long distance air travel was a truly wonderful experience, by todays rushed & cramped standards.

 

This very pleasant situation continued (at least with BOAC in Boeing Stratocruisers, Super Constellations and possibly the DH Comet) until about the mid 1950's (my earliest recollections of flying).You had to be wealthy or a senior public servant (my Father) to be on one of these marvelous aircraft. I dont know when other Classes were introduced, it just seemed like one day I was in economy (the taxpayer had woken up)

 

If my memory serves me well the Stratocruiser had a bar downstairs and Constellations often shut an engine down in flight (the joke was it was to conserve fuel). I have an old 8mm movie of an engine shut down en route from Cape Town, somewhere over the Indian Ocean. In those days this sort of occurrence was considered normal - no histerical mention in the media.

 

 

[skippydiesel]

Capt Wally - 1930's ???

 

My recollection of "no class" flying is definitely the 1950's. My father, a baby in the 30's, didn't get to fly his family around the world (courtesy of the taxpayer) until the early 50's onwards. We flew predominantly BOAC and only on rare occasions other national carriers.

 

Sea travel, as an A-B transport, was still very active in the 50's. In about 1957, my family did a sea trip, from Naples to Sydney in the SS Orsova ( other legs were flown) - Steerage was chocka block with migrants & their children - I escaped into this crowded world & had a great time. My parents & ships crew, who searched for me for many hours, were not amused.

 

 

[IBob]

This isn't intended as a criticism, but I think we talk ourselves down by focusing on some of the negative aspects of flight travel.

 

For about 3 years in the early 70s I did a great deal of international airline (passenger) travel for my work, and I loved it. I seldom do that now, but when I realised a couple of years ago how much my attitudes had changed, I decided to try and rediscover part of that feeling. So I try again to make it the wonderful thing it was and is: I pay for a window seat and I look out the window. I don't much use the inflight entertainment. I'm not watching some screen in any place.

 

While I travel in economy, I don't think of it as cattle class.

 

And it's working: I'm flying.

 

 

[facthunter]

Check the cost of a seat in the mid 30's for Sydney-Melbourne. Only the very rich could fly. Todays prices mean the plane has to be packed full or it's losing money but they are cheaper than they have ever been by a large margin. Gone a bit too far on cutting corners I feel at times. The good days of flying were less safe but far more interesting and demanding. We take a lot for granted. It's still high tech stuff and needs to be done well or the standard drops. Nev

 

 

[derekliston]

Check the cost of a seat in the mid 30's for Sydney-Melbourne. Only the very rich could fly. Todays prices mean the plane has to be packed full or it's losing money but they are cheaper than they have ever been by a large margin. Gone a bit too far on cutting corners I feel at times. The good days of flying were less safe but far more interesting and demanding. We take a lot for granted. It's still high tech stuff and needs to be done well or the standard drops. Nev

The only thing I can think of that has come down massively in price, not just in real terms but in actual dollar numbers over the last fifty or so years!

 

 

[planedriver]

I remember looking over an HP42 at Croydon Airport as a little fellah, though I never flew in one.

 

From where I lived you could hear them warming up the engines for ages before they took off and climbed out, normally going over our house.

 

The majority of the flights were with DC2' & 3's and a few DH82 Dragon Rapides.

 

In those days they flew direct London to Paris etc: I'm told that when radar and flight corridors were introduced, if an aircraft went missing, it narrowed down the area where they had to look for the broken bits. Probably not true, but that was the story going around at the time.

 

I remember Croydon well, and as a kid when they had an open-day was talked into doing a simulated parachute jump off the top of a hangar where a tough-looking soldier controlled the brake of the fixed line after I jumped. When I got home my Dad asked me how my underpants were?

 

 

[pmccarthy]

During the gold mining boom thirty years ago I travelled around Australia business class every week with Ansett. The Golden Wing Club points built up quickly. I felt that I owned seat 1A as I usually got it. For me, that was the golden age of airline travel!

 

 

[Frankus1aust]

What a great link. I'm wondering if once at cruising alt, the pilot would hand over to the first officer and order a G&T?