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Aviation History
1959
1959 - 0877.PDF
436 FLIGHT "Flight" photograph THE ECONOMIST . . . at this was erased with a second thump as the seat in front of meflew back in similar fashion. This sudden abbreviation of the 34-inch spacing to which wewere entitled obviously could not be tolerated. We pressed the buttons and reclined our seats. The realization dawned that thiswas the real essence of economy-class travel; we were simply a triple sandwich of rearward-sloping goldfish. And now for the view. Looking from my aisle seat throughthe window, I gazed on the calm, sleek beauty of two Bristol Proteus cowlings sparkling in the sunlight. Every detail of thescene was clear; every Dzus fastener was correctly aligned. I am sure other passengers had an equally good view of Vancouver. Although Canadian Pacific's northern-route nights from Van-couver to Amsterdam are usually staged through Sondrestrom, Greenland, the winds on this occasion were such that we hadflight-planned to Goose Bay, and this first leg was expected to take 6 hr 40 min. I remembered a Notam pinned to the wall in themet. office where I had sat in on the pre-flight briefing. A man named Boiling was attempting a flight from Manila to Wichitaat this time, and the Notam read: "All aircrews are alerted to the possible danger of an aircraft flying in these areas with pilottaking occasional naps ..." I looked quickly out of the window. The cowlings were still in position. The passengers were amusing themselves in various ways. Thefact that we economists did not rate give-away literature was irrelevant; we had brought our own. As we approached themagnificent Rocky Mountains a woman sitting next to the window on the other side of the cabin opened her Reader's Digest andsetJid down to enjoy The Day My Son Drowned. Further forward, Fielding's Travel Guide to Europe rubbed elbows withThe Organization Man, as a large man pointed his expensive- looking 16 nun cine camera towards a window ("I don't knowanything at all about these things—I just bought it"). Two hours later tea was served, in the shape of open-topsandwiches dispensed by purser Harry Soukop from a trolley which he pushed up the aisle. Of course, I remembered, economyclass meant sandwich-class. And what had a New York B.OAC man said at the time of the big controversy as to what was andwhat was not a sandwich? Asked by the New York Press what ingredients the Corporation put into its sandwiches he had replied,"Oh, jam and that son of thing, you know." Well, we had luncheon meat and tomatoes. After tea, I gazed through the window once more at my twoProteus cowlings. Not that they meant I had no view of the ground. Far from it. By leaning forward, twisting my neck, andlooking across to the other side and back one row, I could indeed see the scenery. There were mountains and at least one prairie. Back in the economy-class cabin, passengers had realized theyhad not signed a contract not to move from their seats, and were now moving around and getting some exercise. A woman infront of me got up and walked back, barefoot. I examined the feet of the two men opposite me (well, it was a 5,000-mile trip—you try thinking of things to do) and was amazed to see that they, too, were shoeless. I was rapidly getting left behind in thegambits of economyclassmanship; this was obviously a useful and basic tip. But the tall chap's tartan socks were a bit much. Meanwhile there was a lot of photography still going on—akeen-looking young man asked purser Soukop to take a picture of his row, which he did—and a dear little boy in the front rowleaned suddenly over the back of his seat and shot a startled gentleman sitting behind with a brace of Lone Star Ranger six-shooters. Everything, in fact, was proceeding normally. Much of the flight was in fact quite normal and quite routine.I cheated as far as being a typical passenger was concerned by spending some time up front in the crew compartment (how manyof you passengers know that the most important item of naviga- tional equipment on board a transatlantic Britannia is the pencil- Crew members at Amsterdam: Purser H. Soukop, Copt. A. Yankee, Second Officer J. Robertson, First Officer N. Carey and C.P.A.L. Assistant Chief Navigator R. Little sharpening machine mounted in a prominent position in thecockpit?) Captain of the aircraft was Capt. Achille Vanhee; first office*: was Neil Carey and second officer Jack Robertson. Thetwo navigators were Tony Grist and Bill McLean (I had flown with McLean over the same route by DC-6B two years previously),and assistant chief navigator Bob Little was riding as check navigator on this trip. The cabin crew comprisea purser Soukop,steward B. Voehmer and stewardess Ann McDougall. Engineer Albert Fillingham and electrician Jack Duke, whose duties wouldnormally be carried out at Amsterdam, completed the crew. Between tea and supper most of the passengers in our compart-ment tried to get some sleeping time in, variously curled, sprawled and hunched in their seats—with the exception of the pistol-packing child in Row 1 who obviously had enough energy to keep going for a long time yet.At 7.30 p.m. Vancouver time supper was served, with the assistance of a supernumerary stewardess disguised as a passengerwho was following a spell on C.P.A.L.'s Canadian internal routes with a vacation trip to Europe. On the tray in front of me Iidentified egg slices, tomato slices, meat, cheese, radishes and a gherkin. Further investigation revealed, tucked away at the bottomof the plate and peeping coyly out from underneath the thick pile of goodies, a small thin corner of bread. It was a sandwich, after all.During our 90-minute stop at Goose I was able to make good progress with a strikingly attractive blonde whom I had firstnoticed earlier on the aircraft. Completely bilingual, she had been acting as an interpreter for a middle-aged Swedish ladysitting next to her, but the thing that had attracted my attention was her poise and die calm gaze of her ice-blue eyes. She was themost captivating girl on board for my money—as, indeed, I was forced to confess later to my wife. In the waiting-room at GooseI enquired whether she was travelling alone. She was, and the provocative twinkle in her eye seemed brighter than before. Aswe boarded the aircraft again I was carried away with thoughts of what might have been—if only I, too, had been six years of age.But yearning for my youth would obviously get me nowhere, and so on the seven-hour stretch from Goose to AmsterdamI settled down and tried to sleep. Sleeping economy-style, it transpired, was little different from trying to do the same tourist-class. I dozed awhile and men went up front again, but the crew seemed to have things fairly well under control.About four hours out from Goose the economists began to wake up, stretch, wash and move around. We had switched our watcheson by four hours to catch up with local time at the Labrador base, on which reckoning it was now about 7 a.m. This meant 11 a.m.in terms of local time at Amsterdam, but to purser Soukop it was simply time for breakfast.This meal—sorry, sandwich—proved intriguing. First came a standard ham, egg, tomato and cheese sandwich, served withcoffee. Then appeared three slices of orange, jellied, on bread. This was, of course, the obvious answer—serve a two-coursesandwich and keep both the passenger and I.A.T.A. happy. Soon we saw the Irish coast ahead. Up front, Capt. Vanheewas finishing his breakfast, his spectacles clipped to a neat gold chain; navigator McLean was delightedly listening to the Irishaccent of the Shannon radio operator. We were on the home straight now, and the Irish Sea and the Isle of Anglesey quicklypassed beneath us. Most of North Wales was under cloud, but we caught glimpses of Rhyl and Prestatyn as we approached thecoast. Ah well, travelling from Rhyl to London via Amsterdam would doubtless prove faster than a good many of the rail journeysI had experienced on the route via Crewe. At 1.15 Harry Soukop began to distribute Delft china minia-tures to the first-class passengers—who indeed deserved them, for they were paying some £85 more than we were for the one-wayfare. The economy-class cabin looked rather the worse for wear. It had that worn, rumpled air that goes with slept-in suits,sandwich-loaded stomachs and unshaven jowls. At 2 p.m. pre- cisely we touched down at Schiphol Airport. This, then, was economy-class travel—not as indicated bycurves on an airline expert's graph, not as advertised in the "cheap, cheap" song of the airline publicity birds, but simply theway it seemed to one of the passengers. What was it the small leaflet had said? We hope that you will not be inconveniencedby these few adjustments in facilities, and will enjoy the most comfortable of journeys. Obviously it had not been "the most comfortable" of journeys.But we had enjoyed an adequately comfortable trip, and those who paid their own fares had £85 apiece in their pockets whichthe semi-reclining, bags-of-leg-room-and-Delft-china boys at the back did not have. Economy class seemed a Good Thing. Weshould probably travel as economists again; in fact we might not object too strenuously if a few more frills were cut out and fareswere further reduced.
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