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Summer Session Kansan
Friday, July 12, 1963
Trip in a Tin Goose Writer Says, 'Enough'
(Editor's Note; UPI's aviation editor rode a restored Ford Trimotor across the country last week in a re-enactment of TWA's first transcontinental flight from Los Angeles to Newark. The following dispatch gives his impressions of the trip back into time.)
By Robert J. Serling
By Robert J. Sering
WASHINGTON — (UPI) — All the way across the country, at every refueling stop, people kept asking in mingled awe and disbelief:
"What's it like to fly it?"
This is what it was like.
INCREDIBLE PHYSICAL discomfort from wicker seats that feel like iron spikes after one hour. Gasoline fumes reeking through the cabin until you reach cruising altitude and the primitive ventilation system—metal tubes sticking through the windows on one side of the plane—starts to work.
No smoking in flight because of the gas tank runs smack through the center of the cabin ceiling.
Engine noise so bad that normal conversation is impossible and your ears still ring hours after landing, plus vibration like that of a giant reducing machine.
HOURS OF boredom on each flight segment, culminating in such massive fatigue that you pray for a refueling stop.
This was air travel 33 years ago—and the only salve for the physical torture is the feeling that you're being awfully brave. Eventually, the worse you feel, the delusion of raw courage becomes so sharp that you want to strut when you get off at every stop and you see the photographers.
But for every ache and for every hour of lost sleep to make 5 a.m departures, there are 10 magnificent memories.
THE FORD mechanic in Parker, Ariz., who wouldn't take any money for fixing an oil leak because he said he had worked on trimotors in Detroit years ago.
The ramp agent in Amarillo who shook his head in utter disbelief and said: "I knew TWA was having financial troubles but this is ridiculous."
The first time we saw our pilot monchalantly open a cockpit side window, reach forward with a rag and clean the front windshield-at 4,000 feet doing about 85 miles per
hour.
THE DISCONCERTING occasion when we saw automobiles on a Kansas superhighway below going faster than we were.
The little sign just below the throttles in the cockpit that read "intentional spinning prohibited."
A TWA hostess in Pittsburgh who got off a Convair 880 Jet, walked over to the trimotor and asked in complete innocence: "Does it fly?"
THE SIGHT of a small Indiana town from 500 feet above, so quiet and peaceful in the early morning sun that you want to land, get out and visit awhile.
The way the nose came up three feet every time somebody walked toward the tail and down three feet if anyone approached the cockpit.
The way they put baggage in—cranking down a bin located in the underside of the wing.
THE COMRADESHIP and friendship that grew among the five passengers who stuck with the trip all the way—sharing mutual misery and laughs in equal proportions.
The affection you wind up bestowing on the old "Tin Goose"—even when you're numb with fatigue and swell you'll never gripe about three-abreast coach seats on any airliner again.
The somewhat alarming occasion when you first notice that all the control cables are on the outside of the ship, and you can hear them vibrate through the thin windows.
THE WAY YOU eventually start cheering every landing and applauding every takeoff because even as laymen you begin to realize it takes skill to pilot this old bucket of bolts and corrugated aluminum.
The moment we landed in St. Louis and discovered American Airlines' restored trimotor on display . . we all went over to look inside and wistfully noted such luxury items as upholstered seats and lights inside the cabin . . . we also felt braver than ever.
TWA staged this re-enactment of the first transcontinental flight to dramatize aviation's progress. It achieved the purpose. It would have impressed anyone who spent even an hour aloft in a trimotor. For those of us who spent more than 25 hours in one, we were not only impressed but amazed.
NEW APARTMENTS
$75.00 and $85.00
One or Two Bedrooms
We are presently decorating these units. Tenants renting now may select wall colors. .drapes. .etc.
All Units Air. Conditioned Carpeted and Have Disposals. Provincial Furniture Available Swimming Pool Will Open About July 1.
PARK PLAZA SOUTH Ph.VI2-3416 1912 W.25th Day or Night
Snooker.
Billiards, and Pool
TOURNEYS at the JAYBOWL.
Snooker and Billiards July 17.
Pool一
July 16.
Elimination Tournament-Trophies.
Sign up at the JAYBOWL.
- Sponsored by SUA
C.C. Summer Theatre
presents
SEPARATE TABLES by Terence Rattigan
Monday-Friday, July 15-20 at the EXPERIMENTAL THEATRE Curtain time-8:00 p.m.
$1.50-Regular admission Student I.D.admits you free Phone K.U. 591 for reservations.
Coming: ROMEO & JULIET - July 25 & 26
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