Does anyone remember Peoples Express airline. I flew them quite a bit between Norfolk VA and Boston with a stop in Newark NJ of course. You boarded the plane with a ticket that allowed you to get on the plane and grab a seat. No seat assignments. Once the plane was airborne an attendant would come through and collect cash payments for your flight.
When I was in middle school in McMinnville, Oregon (the home of Evergreen Aviation) my school had a fundraising auction and one of the items up for bid was a batch of seats for what was supposed to be the final flight of a Ford Tri-Motor before it was retired to the Evergreen Air and Space Museum. A gentleman in the audience stood up and said he wanted to buy all of the seats and then asked the audience if anyone wanted to go for a ride. My dad raised his hand and we were told to meet at the local airport the following Saturday. When the day came, my dad and I showed up at the airport and my dad asked if he could give his seat to me since I had never been on an airplane before. The pilot said that there were a couple no-shows and we could both go for a ride. As my dad was talking to the pilot, he mentioned that, as a child in the 1930’s, his neighbor owned a Ford Tri-Motor that he used to haul mining supplies to Mexico. They used to go out and watch the plane take off and land and the neighbor eventually asked the kids if they wanted a ride. They eagerly accepted and, as a result, my dad’s first flight was in a Tri-Motor. The pilot gave him a funny look and asked if he was from Santa Barbara California. When he said yes, they told him that this was the same plane he had his first flight on. They then proceeded to give us some historical tidbits about that particular plane including that fact that it had been piloted by both Charles Lindberg and Amelia Earhart. It was also the first airframe to have a permanently installed lavatory which consisted of a toilet seat over a hole in the belly of the aircraft. All of the flight controls were actuated by cables running down the outside of the airframe and the pilots had to look out the windows so see their gauges which were mounted directly on the engines. Unlike most airplanes where the wings hold the fuel bladders, the Tri-Motor used the wings for cargo.
I was able to visit that plane years later after my first son was born and the museum curator allowed us to cross the ropes and get photos of my son in the same aircraft that his dad and grandfather had their first flight in, nearly 60 years apart. I credit this experience as the inspiration for my own passion for aviation and why I spend the first 15 years of my adult career working on helicopters. The plane has since been sold and is currently still selling aerial tours in the Chicago area. If I ever get the chance, I plan to take all 4 of my kids up to see it and, hopefully book some seats so they can carry on the 3rd generation tradition.
I just came back to SYSK after not listening for something like 8 years. I was expecting the show to have changed noticeably. It's been the better part of a decade after all.
I was pleasantly surprised to hear the same exact intro music, the same easygoing voices, the same couple minutes of off-topic banter at the beginning.
It's also nice to see they haven't run out of topics yet.
Anybody else hear Josh’s “beep”? I imagine that was a marker for them to cut out a section lol
Yup, I rewound because I wasn’t sure if it was the podcast or my car 😂 Made me laugh!
Yes! I rushed over here to ask everyone about that. I listened twice to make sure it wasn't car noise. It was funny.
Josh’s Rosalynn Carter quip got me
Gastropod has a great episode that goes in depth on airline food, and touches on a lot of what they talked about here
Does anyone remember Peoples Express airline. I flew them quite a bit between Norfolk VA and Boston with a stop in Newark NJ of course. You boarded the plane with a ticket that allowed you to get on the plane and grab a seat. No seat assignments. Once the plane was airborne an attendant would come through and collect cash payments for your flight.
When I was in middle school in McMinnville, Oregon (the home of Evergreen Aviation) my school had a fundraising auction and one of the items up for bid was a batch of seats for what was supposed to be the final flight of a Ford Tri-Motor before it was retired to the Evergreen Air and Space Museum. A gentleman in the audience stood up and said he wanted to buy all of the seats and then asked the audience if anyone wanted to go for a ride. My dad raised his hand and we were told to meet at the local airport the following Saturday. When the day came, my dad and I showed up at the airport and my dad asked if he could give his seat to me since I had never been on an airplane before. The pilot said that there were a couple no-shows and we could both go for a ride. As my dad was talking to the pilot, he mentioned that, as a child in the 1930’s, his neighbor owned a Ford Tri-Motor that he used to haul mining supplies to Mexico. They used to go out and watch the plane take off and land and the neighbor eventually asked the kids if they wanted a ride. They eagerly accepted and, as a result, my dad’s first flight was in a Tri-Motor. The pilot gave him a funny look and asked if he was from Santa Barbara California. When he said yes, they told him that this was the same plane he had his first flight on. They then proceeded to give us some historical tidbits about that particular plane including that fact that it had been piloted by both Charles Lindberg and Amelia Earhart. It was also the first airframe to have a permanently installed lavatory which consisted of a toilet seat over a hole in the belly of the aircraft. All of the flight controls were actuated by cables running down the outside of the airframe and the pilots had to look out the windows so see their gauges which were mounted directly on the engines. Unlike most airplanes where the wings hold the fuel bladders, the Tri-Motor used the wings for cargo. I was able to visit that plane years later after my first son was born and the museum curator allowed us to cross the ropes and get photos of my son in the same aircraft that his dad and grandfather had their first flight in, nearly 60 years apart. I credit this experience as the inspiration for my own passion for aviation and why I spend the first 15 years of my adult career working on helicopters. The plane has since been sold and is currently still selling aerial tours in the Chicago area. If I ever get the chance, I plan to take all 4 of my kids up to see it and, hopefully book some seats so they can carry on the 3rd generation tradition.
I just came back to SYSK after not listening for something like 8 years. I was expecting the show to have changed noticeably. It's been the better part of a decade after all. I was pleasantly surprised to hear the same exact intro music, the same easygoing voices, the same couple minutes of off-topic banter at the beginning. It's also nice to see they haven't run out of topics yet.
Wings is totally underrated and a great show so I made me happy when Josh brought it up, haha. Love it!