The way it was

[red750]

Here is an interesting walk back through time to the glamorous age of flying, when meals were served on china, carved in front of you, and you could smoke to your heart's content.

 

 

The golden age of flying.

[facthunter]

Give it about 6/10.  That's better than a lot. Today you get passengers getting ON drunk and  you are loaded tight as a cattle truck and treated as such. A race to the bottom on price alone. People buy expensive shoes but the cheapest airfare they can find?  Nev

[onetrack]

I must admit, the era of wicker chairs, white suits, and boaters in aircraft, was one I enjoyed.

 

 

[facthunter]

You'd have to be ancient to have done that.  It's ALL wood.  Nev

[kgwilson]

I remember my first commercial flight in a DC3. I was about 12 years old and it was deafening. Heading to Europe in the early 70s everything was pretty good except for the smoking. Airlines in Asia and middle east were atrocious. In India they had people, chooks, and goats in the passenger cabin & the aircraft were dirty & didn't look maintained at all. This was on the internal airline Indian Airways. Almost all of the people of Asian & Arabic descent smoked like chimneys. I flew BOAC, BEA, TWA, & Pan Am & they were good other than smoking.

 

I am glad I travelled over land coming home 3 years later. I had planned to fly with Indonesian airline Merpati from Denpasar to Darwin but the stories I got from Aussie surfers about crashes, luggage disappearing, delays, cancellations  etc put me right off.

 

We might be crammed in like sardines now but flying is infinitely better now than whatever the golden days were.

[onetrack]

Yes, the "Golden Days" were full of some dreadful airline disasters, many of them weather-related in the days of inadequate forecasting, and inadequate pilot aids for bad weather. And many were just plain foolish "press-on-itis", and poor flight planning.

[facthunter]

The weather forecasting hasn't improved much. Jet engines are far more reliable than any piston engine is by a factor way above 10. That's in hours. Distance makes it even better.  A 300 mile diversion is not a lot of time because you are doing about 480 Knots.  Nev

[pmccarthy]

I sat next to a Frenchman who drank and smoked cigars all the way from Paris to Melbourne. Took days to recover.

[440032]

How does one drink a cigar............

[Litespeed]

If you smoke one next to me on a aircraft, I will demonstrate.

 

1, smack throat with open palm.

2, mouth flexes for breathing.

3, shove cigar down throat.

4, pour their drink down throat to extinguish 

 

 

Simple really, mind you I am normally much nicer than that. Just my wicked imagination.

 

 

[facthunter]

Chain smokers are the most difficult to clean up after. I couldn't find a link to it either.  It's easy to get hooked though.  Nev

Edited December 31, 2023 by facthunter

[Garfly]

The way it was ... and (for General Aviation) the way it's gonna be, just as soon as the war is won:

 

 

 

 

 "... this dream of flying-for-the-millions in the Family Car of the Air, is coming true for all of us."

 

 

 

Yep ... a pilot in every home. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[onetrack]

Definitely a case of the marketing dept making claims that the engineering dept can't deliver! - certainly not in their lifetime, anyway!

[Garfly]

1 hour ago, onetrack said:

Definitely a case of the marketing dept making claims that the engineering dept can't deliver! - certainly not in their lifetime, anyway!

 

Yes, nor in ours.  But maybe a century on from Cessna's aerial-car dreaming, something akin might arrive.

 

But it probably won't require, or allow, any hands-on sky-driving as in the 1940's imagining.

 

And it looks like Cessna won't be the one leading the charge. 

 

(For the loser now
Will be later to win)

 

 

Edited December 31, 2023 by Garfly

[facthunter]

Down playing the difficulties of flying. Just like a car but when you stop, you fall. No seatbelts, maps and not a hair out of place. Doesn't need a bloke there, either.   Nev

[facthunter]

A sky full of flying cars. What more could you wish for? No skills needed, Similar theme to  the Cessna one. Fly through a flock of birds, or Hail or even heavy rain and you will be $#!tting yourself big time.  This YEAR is nearly Over. Have a good NEW year, forumites ALL.    Nev

[planedriver]

 

However, I bet they paid a lot more than a $99 fare to Melbourne.

Edited December 31, 2023 by planedriver

[onetrack]

Planey, your uploaded image is non-functional.

[facthunter]

Link STINK?  Nev

[Bosi72]

Whether we liked it or not, the AI is getting more and more into cockpits. It won't be too long until airliners become single pilot ops (and mostly as an observers). Once that happens, the cars will fly, and drivers will be the passengers telling computers where to fly. 

Happy New Year !

Edited January 1 by Bosi72

[facthunter]

Some have been saying that for a long while.  Management has always hated having to pay for skilled people.  Nev

[Garfly]

 I guess noise nuisance will be the main fly in the ointment for flying cars; more so than safety and efficiency which are more easily sorted.

[onetrack]

I could go one of those personalised 1 or 2 person dedicated air transports once they get the bugs out - but I reckon it will be decades before any even remotely viable flying car is a commercial success - simply because movement on the ground and movement through the air, are at diametrically opposite ends of the spectrum. You get bingles and scrapes in cars in every car park, so you'd have to keep right out of areas where physical contact is possible, so this is a major drawback.

 

The Chinese are not missing the boat either, and you can see them trying to integrate phone and tablet technology with personalised flying transport.

However, to get real commercial success, someone has to produce a totally reliable and effective method of avoiding gravity taking total control of your "flying car".

I like the port and starboard lighting in this thing, someone has actually thought about identifying the direction of travel of other craft.

 

 

[facthunter]

Vectored thrust is not  really flying. A helicopter is actually a rotary WING and can retain control with no engine Power with collective set to autorotate and you FLARE with Blade inertia. Nev

[Garfly]

12 minutes ago, onetrack said:

However, to get real commercial success, someone has to produce a totally reliable and effective method of avoiding gravity taking total control of your "flying car".

I like the port and starboard lighting in this thing, someone has actually thought about identifying the direction of travel of other craft.

 

 

 

Ha, ha ... presumably see-and-avoid (esp. by way of ye-olde nav lights) will be long gone by then.    ;- )