Red and Rover by Brian Basset for May 02, 2012

It’s all downhill from plastic wings, Red!

Sad but true Red – SAD BUT TRUE!

Red they gave you something???

Soon they will be paper wings. You used to get a plastic toy in crakerjacks…now they are made of paper.

My first flight in 1937 I got nothing.

I got stewardess wings, also metal, on my first long flight back in the fifties. And I got to pass out gum to the passengers so their ears wouldn’t pop.

Now you just get a pat-down.One time recently, my kids were invited to look in the cockpit. It was as people were boarding and we were not moving or in the air, so I doubt it would have happened otherwise. But it was a nice experience and I was pleasantly surprised.

About 1952 (8 yrs old), I was flying back from Milwaukee to Grand Rapids with an interim stop at Muskegon with my folks. After take off from Muskegon and the seat belts came off, the “stew” asked if I would like to go up to the cockpit. Went up and the pilot let me stand the whole way until the lights of GR came into sight (night flight). Spent about 30 min. in that cockpit of a “Dizzy 3” (DC3) Never a chance of that today. Ah, for the good old days.

Every time is hear these stories I remember the Airplane! movie and get shivers down my spine. (And if you know what I’m talking about chances are you are getting shivers down your spine too.)

Yah, and you don’t get a meal anymore either. . . .

My first flight was on a ROTC field trip on a AF-KC135 Stratotanker. They let me take some pictures from the refuling slot. My friends said I got the best pictures.

Yeah, I have my TWA wings from 1972. Real metal, and sharp enough point to qualify as a deadly weapon. These days, TSA would have to confiscate them.

haha

Thanks for the early fight memories.

When I was Red’s age, my family all got PanAm free “carry on shoulder bags” when we came back to the USA from Brazil in 1966.

And got decks of playing cards from just about every airlines we flew for the next 10 or 15 years.

Red you will need to learn to call them flight attendents.

1963 this little girl got stewardess wings, and gave them back and told them I wanted pilots wings like my hated brother. One stewardess was patient and fulfilled my request and my brother hated me for it even more. I actually took flying lessons while he never flies anywhere and has not one speck of adventure lust while I go on cruises and fly whenever I can. Boooooo to sexism!

Linda: Back then, there was even an active Caterpillar Club!

C-119 flying Boxcar, San Francisco to Hawaii to Wake Island to Guam, much of the way through thunderstorms we couldn’t get above. Note that two of those flights were longer than the listed operational range of the aircraft.

38 hours from San Fransisco to Guam.

Two years later the return trip was in a Boeing 707, refueling in Hawaii, about 12 hours.

Now poor Red would get nothing but felt up at the gate!

re: your response to @Tree11

XD !