Aviation (The Age of the 707)

[Hunted]

The Age of the 707
That smoke is from the 1,700 pounds of water injection the J 57s used for take off.
(Note where the airplane is. Go to the overrun and suck the gear out from under it.)

Those were the good ole days. Pilots back then were men that
didn't want to be women or girly men. 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 harassment 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 Mongol hordes asking for
a 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 symmetrical curves, not a bunch
of ugly vortex generators, ventral fins, winglets, flow
diverters, tattoos, rings in their nose, tongues and eyebrows.
Airlines were run by men like C.R. Smith and Juan Tripp
who had built their companies virtually from scratch, knew most
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!

[Soar]

Great post Hunted.

[Blewvane]

I've got a large original black and white photo of the Qantas 707 that did a barrel roll on its first flight. Its tail number is VH-EBA, city of Canberra. I was stunned to see the video footage of it because i didn't think that a comercial aircraft was capable of that kind of manouvre. These aircraft are absolutely beautiful to look at and were considered to be the finest passenger aircraft of their day. A few years ago VH-EBA was found and fully restored then flown from its would be gravesite in England, back to Australia. It made a few stops along the way and on one of the stops John Travolta had flown his ex Qantas 707 to the location so he could get a few photos of the two planes together.

[Azimuth]

Beautiful aircraft.

[smackem]

Good read!

[Soar]

I once saw Travolta bring his 707 in.

[Blewvane]

Google 707 barrel roll and you can watch the prototype 707 in a demonstration flight doing a roll. Fucking crazy! I wonder if a 747 or an A380 can do it.

[Soar]

That would be frickin insane watching the 380 do it.

[lost]

Great post and in 100% agreement.