Flying in the 70s

[aviationbook]

Good day Gents,

i am planning to write a book about the Airline community back in the 70s. I am kindly asking for some stories how it was back in the good old days. It is not required to mention names or specifics since i only try to understand the flair.
Just write down what you remember good or bad.

Thank you very much for your help

Pet Reaub
[email protected]

[Rachman]

I recall Hats, polished shoes, freedom, being jack-and-master-of-all-trades and, above all, FUN! Nowadays its just the polished shoes, and even they are on the way out!
Ex Dan Air DO, CWL/BRS/NCL 1976-1986
Will do some research and return with more info. Do you need photos?
Regards
Rachman

...oh, I nearly forgot, back in the 70\'s, passengers were human beings who did as they were told, expected little and frequently got much more in return.

Nowadays its the exact opposite. Passengers are animals, don\'t listen to a word you say, expect the world and get very little in return!

Rachman

[greybeard]

Well now,
The smell of AVGAS in the morning, the growl of a P&W R-1830, pax that would talk to you, open cockpit doors, boiled eggs for brekky as the sun came up, slide the window back, light the pipe, read the paper.
You were the refueler, loader, mail bag counter, ticket seller, oil topper-upper, loadsheet writer as well in a 20 min turn.
Picnics under the wing at remote stations, scones, cream, good crews, BIG nights on the stops with up to 20 crew in town, shared rooms, no aircon - all seems a dream at times.

Now in a lurching cave, paxing around in a security nonsense, pax are RUDE and their dress code even in J class is discusting.
SQ seem to still have some service of a good standard, but where has the roast, carved at your seat side, "a little more of the rare end ,sir??" gone?
I dont yearn for a return of all the old days, I might make the same mistakes all over again, but I do miss the freedoms we had.

C YA

The old greybeard

:ok: :ok:

[tinpis]

Having the experience of working with men who had a vastly different flying job in 1939-45.
Later in the 80's, flying with hosties who looked like they may have attended the same conflict.:}

[ShyTorque]

"You were the refueler, loader, mail bag counter, ticket seller, oil topper-upper, loadsheet writer as well in a 20 min turn."

If you include the daily checks and towing the aircraft in and out before and after your 13 hour shift - it's still pretty much the same on helicopters.

...so we're only 35 years behind the rest of the aviation world :\

[411A]

Let us not forget the 'reverse thrust' after landing.

Ah Captain, will that be four fingers or three?

Always choose four...with ice, thank you very much.:E

[Centaurus]

En route Manila to Hong Kong at night in an Air Nauru 737-200 circa 1977 Maybe 50 passengers aboard and four shy Pacific islander air hostesses. Terrible storms rent the sky - savage side ways gusts hit the 737 with hammer blows (horizontal vortices between storm clouds which I was trying to steer between). Screams from some passengers and I couldn't blame them, either. Copilot a bit white between the gills and me putting on a stern face but in reality real tensed up inside. Broke through the storms into clear night air leaving a maelstrom behind us. Even a Cathay 747 had sent out a Mayday that he was in violent turbulence.

Captain (self) desperately needs a leak and hands over to copilot.
Donning my captain's hat - disappears into front loo, to reappear in a minute to walk down length of cabin to smile confidently to frightened pax and give them the confidence of seeing this 5 ft 4 ins of handsome captain with four gold stripes nodding and smiling to each one of them. In those days the captain toured the cabin.

Feel six feet tall as I see their now relaxed faces. Arrive at second last row to smile down at little old English lady who beckons me over to whisper something in my ear.

I bend down to reassure her that she is in safe hands and she says in a loud whisper, heard by all around including shy hostesses, "Captain - I hope you don't mind me saying so, but your flies are undone!". My embarrassment knew no bounds made worse by the muffled giggling of the youngest hostess.

[barit1]

If you haven't already, give a read to Ernest K. Gann's "Fate Is The Hunter". His view is from the 30s-40s but quite intense between the bits of well-told humor.

Gann's "Band of Brothers" is almost in the same league. It's a work of fiction, but draws on real events in real places.

[what who me?]

and their dress code even in J class is discusting.If this has something to do with discus throwing, would that not be a 'discus thing'? :}

[HotDog]

1969, I think; my company bought a Convair 880 from CAT in Taiwan. It was a beautifully appointed cabin with carved teak wood bulkheads and dragon motive paneling. To make it comply with the rest of our 880 fleet, all this lovely interior was ripped out and replaced with the rather drab default furnishings. I was rostered to operate the first commercial flight after the refurbishment. On the Taipei-Haneda sector, I went in to the first class toilet to answer a call of nature. As I sat down, I received a very nasty static discharge shock in my nether regions. The following entry was made in the Maintenance Log: "Please check bonding of first class toilet bowl. Flight Engineer received severe static discharge shock whilst sitting on toilet". Defect No.2; "As a result of the above, please replace dislodged ceiling panels".

[aviationbook]

Thank you very much for your stories, please continue.
Pet Reaub :D
[email protected]

[ExSimGuy]

Oh those really were the days!

As a sim maintenance guy, taking oldest daughter to work of an evening and letting her "play with the 747" (after all the snags were cleared, ofcourse!), same as we did for the guys at the airport fire department. Daughter later went on to be a hostie (sorry - "effay" these days) with a certain US Air - line, until the repurcussions of "9-11" :( and loss of my ID90s and 75s :mad:

Doing "route trips" down to Southern Europe on the jump seat (so we could see just how the aircrfaft and crew really operate) on a VC-10. You "go on with the crew" but, because regs say you have to carry a ticket, come off with the pax, as they can take a whole bottle and "200" through customs, whereas crew only get a miniature and 40! (and getting paid for doing that!)

The "airline parties", with visitors dropping in from DFW on ID100s for the night, and strict adherance to the (then) "8-hour rule" (must consume until one minute before the 8 hours :\ )

The messages that got sent to unsuspecting Res Agents and ticket desks, or apparent "wobblers" on their screens. Res Agents in LON chatting up ticket desk staff in far-flung places (via the Res computer- no internet those days!): Slipping away on a "service call" to JER or Genoa, but really to atend someone's birthday thrash there. (yes, there really was a bulb blown on the town office keyboard :) )

I'm out of it now, but from what I hear around, life's just not so much fun any more :(

[The SSK]

I worked a year (1969-70) on BOAC check-in, LHR Terminal 3. About 10 blokes and 80 girls. Most of the girls were grounded stewardesses – guess there must have been an age limit of about 35.

Shift pattern was 2 lates, 2 days, 2 earlies, 3 off. Typical late shift (14:30-22:30) would be: get in, check roster, 3 flights to look after. Get sent for coffee until 15:00. Work each rostered flight from 90’ before departure to 30’ before. Have an hour for tea. Get sent home round about 20:00 – total eight hours' pay for 5’30 duty of which 3 hours’ work, 1’30 in the canteen and an hour just chatting with the girls in the back office.

Absolute heaven.

If anyone had asked in those days ‘how do I get an upgrade’ we check-in staff would have had a simple answer – ‘be nice to us’. We had quite a say in the matter and at that time it was straight from Economy to First.

One flight you prayed you would not be rostered on was the Sunday afternoon Syrian Arab departure. Always full and every single passenger – all 79 of them on a Caravelle – was continuing on to Delhi, and every one was trying to cheat on the excess baggage. Plus, about a third of them had guns. That is to say, they had been ‘selected’ to have a package loaded, under bond, in their name. We assumed they knew nothing about it and the packages got off in Damascus, but as conscientious check-in clerks we were obliged to deduct all these 8kg and 10kg packages from their baggage allowances and charge them excess. Trouble was, every passenger was mainfested under the name of Singh (or Kaur for women) and there might be five ‘V. Singh’ aboard, only two of whom had guns – we had to try and find out which two – then try to persuade them to part with their money.

[pigboat]

1969 or 1970, DC-3 bush operation. We were repositioning a load of guys who had been cutting slash on the right-of-way for a hydro-electric powerline in southern Labrador. These men hadn't seen a woman in a couple of months, and to say that our stewardess was buxom was an understatement. Right at the top of descent, the young lady came steaming into the cockpit, spitting nails.

"What's up?"
"There's some dirty :mad: back there jerkin' himself off!!"
"What?? What did he do when you walked by?"
"The dirty :mad: never missed a stroke!"
"Well whaddya want me to do, go back and give him a hand?" Looking back on it, that was probably the wrong thing to say, since I was now informed "I ain't going back there with those :mad: animals. You go back and see if their seat belts are fastened."
The young lady spent the rest of the flight in the cockpit. I saw her years later, after we'd both left that company. She had become a prison guard at a maximum security prison. We shared a laugh about the old days, and she told me that little episode was nothing to what she sees now.