Thread: Decades Old Airplanes You Have Flown.

The grand dad of the all the DC 3. Flown often in the early 50's, the last one I flew was in Burma about 1979.


Next up was perhaps the most innovative airplane ever built the British Comet. Flew this thing about a month before the first one blew up due to massive decompression.


Then came the DC 6, here is the " Flying Gazelle" that I used to come home from Arabia on. It had beds that folded out made by Pullman, quite the nice journey.




Lockheed Constellation.
This is the one my dad loved as it had a full stand up bar, and people used to drink more back then.


The Caravelle, this one for me was the most fun.



Flying used to be fun. You were treated well, ate well, and enjoyed having a little leg room. Not the same at all these days.

I hope there are more photos to be put up from our flying experiences.

those bloody DC3's , was ever so happy to see the back of them , replaced with pressurised Fokker Friendships in my neck of the woods , bye bye ear ache

Originally Posted by aging one

Flying used to be fun. You were treated well, ate well, and enjoyed having a little leg room. Not the same at all these days.

...even poor people

So enjoy bumping elbows with a planeload of chavish scummy bogans and sharing your holiday destination and hotel with them too.

Huh , wot happened to my reply ?

Damned DC3's was sure glad to see the back of them .

Replaced with Fokker Friendships in my neck of the woods and bye bye ear ache

I jumped out of a DC3 once.

My earliest commercial flight would have been a 707 or DC 8

When I was an air cadet I once flew a Chipmunk trainer for a few seconds.

So there.

Originally Posted by Mid

bye bye ear ache

No kidding, good weather and flying below 8,000 feet not a problem one, but turbulence and any flights above 10,000 feet kids did tend to get ear aches. Ouch. The DC 6 was pressurized though.

Necron had jumped out of one, and Moonraker was a pilot. damn.

Nice subject matter for a thread, AO..
Old vintage commercial aircraft.

Cheers!

Tiger Moth



there is still a bunch of enthusiasts flying them

I have a pre-war leather flying helmet for sale..... any offers

My first flight was in 1964. SYD-MEL in a 727

That was the first year it came into service, well done Tiz.

Originally Posted by aging one

Next up was perhaps the most innovative airplane ever built the British Comet. Flew this thing about a month before the first one blew up due to massive decompression.

Single bolt in the wrong spot at the top of the can iirc..


I always though flying the clipper route would have been an adventure.

Muslim immigrants leave their countries of birth because of civil and political unrest
created by the very nature of their culture.
It's the truth and ship them back because they don't have a clue how to deal with other people.

Closest I've been to flying was in Lightning Simulator at RAF Binbrook which I believe is now closed.

Originally Posted by Eliminator

Muslim immigrants leave their countries of birth because of civil and political unrest
created by the very nature of their culture.
It's the truth and ship them back because they don't have a clue how to deal with other people.

Mirror Mirror on the wall

Originally Posted by Eliminator

Muslim immigrants leave their countries of birth because of civil and political unrest
created by the very nature of their culture.
It's the truth and ship them back because they don't have a clue how to deal with other people.

Very small text for clever subliminal posting.

As you scroll past your mind subconsciously absorbs the anti-muslim rhetoric even though it is too small to comfortably read.

Originally Posted by Necron99

Single bolt in the wrong spot at the top of the can iirc..

I have heard and seen a few documentaries on how it was the large window size. They put the whole body of one under water and did stress pressurization tests. Seems the windows started the structural failure and then the skin just ripped. But it too is a theory. Could have gone either way but I am pretty sure it was a BBC documentary I have seen a few times. I was only 18 months old when my dad booked it and we flew it on a lark. London/Rome.

Originally Posted by aging one

The grand dad of the all the DC 3. Flown often in the early 50's, the last one I flew was in Burma about 1979.


Next up was perhaps the most innovative airplane ever built the British Comet. Flew this thing about a month before the first one blew up due to massive decompression.


Then came the DC 6, here is the " Flying Gazelle" that I used to come home from Arabia on. It had beds that folded out made by Pullman, quite the nice journey.




Lockheed Constellation.



The Caravelle, this one for me was the most fun.



Flying used to be fun. You were treated well, ate well, and enjoyed having a little leg room. Not the same at all these days.

I hope there are more photos to be put up from our flying experiences.

may be 100%wrong,but a pilot told me the comet had a roof window for the navigator to sight from,was square shaped,blew out causing de-compression

The early comets had square windows.
Page 3 - Tech wrecks: Lessons from some of the biggest hardware screw-ups - Slideshow | ExtremeTech

The Comet’s designers opted for large, squared-off windows because they looked more attractive than the simpler, round “porthole” style that had been more traditional. Unfortunately for the Comet, and for dozens of passengers who would die in several resulting crashes, metal fatigue was also not well understood. Stresses piled up around the square corners of the windows, and over time planes began to drop from the sky.

Since the crashes were at high altitude and often over water, it took time before the problem could be traced to the size and shape of the windows. The sleuthing wasn’t successful until after a full-size fuselage was repeatedly pressurized in a water tank — and it failed near the window corners. Once the flaw was uncovered, the fleet was pulled out of service. While the Comet was being redesigned with new windows and a thicker skin, Boeing’s 707 and Douglas’s DC-8 were introduced and became airline favorites. By the time the newly designed Comet 4 re-entered commercial service in 1958 it was too late. Primacy in commercial aviation had moved from the UK to the US, never to return.

The best birthday present I ever got was a one hour lesson in a Cessna 172 (? I think). Brilliant fun, and not as hard as you'd imagine.

Did an aerobatic flight in a Tiger Moth in Oz. Great fun. Looked behind and the next flight to land was a jumbo jet.

Flew Aeroflot and I noticed the planes were "sturdy". Saw Everest rising up from the clouds on a flight with them.

You used to be able to get flights over London and maybe to Le Touquet In a pre-war De Havilland Rapide. And I used to see a Ford or Fokker Trimotor crawling across the sky in London.

Orrens

I only took one return trip in one these Lockheed L-1011 TriStars from Jeddah to Cairo return in about 1996.
Never been so scared on a flight, I thought it was just going to shake itself to pieces over the Red Sea.