I think every other year the trip home was free and one year my dad found out we could go all the way around first class for the same money as the usual layover in Europe, so it was Cathay Pacific and Singapore Airlines up front Riyadh Hong Kong Manila Singapore Taipei Honolulu Portland or something like that. Sometimes upstairs, sometimes down. I recall driving the electric model car we bought in Hong kong back and forth across the area in the nose ahead of the first row for 13 hours into HON. It would hit the wall, then flip over and drive back.
PanAm had a direct DHA to LaGuardia or similar and one time it had about 30 people on it. They turned the lights off for the rear 1/3 of the plane and we just slept back there, one person to a row in the middle 5 seat section with the armrests up. Those seats also fold forward and make a pretty good card table. A different time in London they boarded us then said uh we have a mechanical issue and kept us on the plane at the gate for 5 hours while they bolted an extra engine on one wing. There is an extra pod built in for ferrying engines around. So we flew across the atlantic with three engines on one wing and two on the other, to MSP or somewhere. Probably the most enduring 747 memory I have is waking up in Frankfurt watching the nose of the NWA 747 I was supposed to be on backing away from the gate. Unfortunately or fortunately as it turns out my dog was on the plane and the gate crew lady who had redone all the dry ice freight scheduling to accommodate the dog in the hold on that flight was still standing at the gate. She took one look at me and started hollering into her walkie talkie in German "the dog!! The Dog!". They brought it back. I was like 15 wearing the same suit I graduated from 9th grade in about 18 hours before. Man I got some puzzled looks walking onto that plane. When I think about the stuff my parents did with us it seems kind of crazy now. On Sun, Jul 18, 2021, 5:10 AM Mitch Haley via Mercedes < mercedes@okiebenz.com> wrote: > Back in the 1950s, my dad had to babysit a couple of nukes we gave to > the Brits. Being of low rank and high security clearance sometimes gets > you interesting, if unwanted, duties. > Somewhere between Barksdale and the UK, they had to land on an island > base for refueling. > Their emergency plans for "if we go off the end of the runway into the > ocean" included a member of the flight crew (navigator I think) chucking > the triggers out the door on dry land. Pilots got the plane stopped with > dozens of feet to spare. > > > On 2021-07-17 01:44, Clay via Mercedes wrote: > > I got to watch the test flights out of Paine Field in winter 1969. > > Had a number of voyages on them over the next four five years. Most > > terrifying was the landing in Guatemala where one end of the VERY > > shorty runway was a 400 year old aqueduct, the other a plunge down a > > ravine. Touchdown was maybe 65 meters in from the ravine and you had > > to brake hard over the next 2050 meters or you bump the aqueduct. No > > longer booked flights on them after Teneriffe. > > > _______________________________________ > http://www.okiebenz.com > > To search list archives http://www.okiebenz.com/archive/ > > To Unsubscribe or change delivery options go to: > http://mail.okiebenz.com/mailman/listinfo/mercedes_okiebenz.com > > _______________________________________ http://www.okiebenz.com To search list archives http://www.okiebenz.com/archive/ To Unsubscribe or change delivery options go to: http://mail.okiebenz.com/mailman/listinfo/mercedes_okiebenz.com
