DWN3GRN

The 'good ole days'



In the age of the 707

Those were the good ole days. Pilots back then were men that didn't want to be women or girlymen. 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 harrassment 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 mongolhordes asking for a 'mu-fuggin' 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 symetrical curves, not a bunch of ugly vortex generators, ventral fins, winglets, flow diverters, tatoos, rings in their nose, tongues and eyebrows.

Airlines were run by men like C.R. Smith and Juan Trippe who had built their companies virtually from scratch, knew many 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

Dashdog

and they didn't sit around on the internet whining about the good old days either. Shouldn't this be in the "Hangar Talk" forum?

contrails

If you wanna talk about hot young FAs and passengers who dressed up even for coach class, I agree with that part.

But the fact of the matter is, there has never been a better time to be a business/first class passenger. You could never go from NYC to Shanghai nonstop before, or Charleston, SC to Dubai with just one quick plane change and then have a lie-flat bed.

Winston Smith

There are still plenty of pilots flying the "good ol' B-707" (aka KC-135).

And we're praying every time we climb on board that that POS 50-year-old aircraft doesn't kill us.

Remember...for some folks, these are the "good ol' days."

p.s. exactly what was the mortality rate for pilots in the "good ol' days" compared to now? Pretty damn high. I'll take good (almost perfect) odds on landing safely vs. sitting in a Nicotene-coated, uncomfortable, tyrant-run cockpit any day.

LeftWing

They also died younger. So it is somehow manly to eat junk food? .....which would make a personal trainer even more necessary.

Now pilots wear massive watches that compensate for feelings of inadequacy.

With today's scheduling (no longer staying on the same tail number) and with today's expansive terminals, those "real men" would be "real men" with tennis elbow out on medical leave.

Oh yeah, the "good ol' days" of no CRM.

Oh yes, lets just turn back the clock on sexual harassment.

The "good ol' days" of all WASP passengers? Last I checked, to read, speak and understand English is a requirement for pilots, not passengers.


I gotta hand it to you here. However, all things considered, more pollution (CO2 and noise) and inefficiency are not really "good ol' days"



No argument here.

For the most part, good riddance to the "good ol' days".

B727DRVR

Funny and true, DWN3GRN...

My folks both flew in that era... But I love the "gangsta rap", because it's all about rising up against tha' man... something pilots do pretty well on a few rare occasions.

Did you write that yourself?

In Unity,

B727DRVR

VmoMmo

DWN3GRN....you can be my wingman...anytime.

Sure times have changed but look at the attitudes of the drivers back than compared to today. Whatever happened to "we're in this business because we love to fly" and whining was left for the barstool? And yes, I whine with the best of them. As far as CRM, it's a great tool when properly used, but it sure is tough to swallow sometimes when I'm told I have to ask the copilot for his two cents when the crap hits the fan and he has a 500 hour blank stare...mostly VFR or under the hood. And who knows maybe the mortality rate was a bit higher back than because the pilots were actually flying the airplane while actually listening to a navaid, pumping the gear, smacking the copilot....hell who had time for CRM?

DYNASTY HVY

Well put DWN3GRN , some guys nowadays would have never made it .
I learned a helluva lot from those ol,guys and would rather fly with some of them compared to what we have today !

alarkyokie

Never flown an EWO mission, huh?

Crews are STILL bad-mouthing their bread-and-butter...without a clue as to WHAT keeps them flying! Good Maintenance by GREAT people!

MD10PLT

Oh brother, spoken like a true dinosaur. Or the new term ND.

21 years in the AF, 10 as an active flying IP, one thing I can say for sure; the next generation is better than we were. They have better equipment, training and education. And before I get totally chastised remember this, if you're a captain or IP and your students aren't better than you were, when you're done with them, you have failed as an instructor and mentor. Every generation takes it up one notch. If you're a ND and still living in the past and refusing to keep up with the young ones; there's the door.