Video: An Airplane Trip by Jet

For a change of pace, how about a little commercial aviation nostalgia.

I came across this video on YouTube, and I just love it. It is an old 'educational film' about travel by jet airplane. In the film, two children called Bob and Sue go on a trip (as unaccompanied minors!) on a United Airlines DC-8. The process of air travel was so much simpler in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Everything depicted in the film -- the aircraft, the airport, the uniforms -- is evocative of the nascent days of the jet age, when everything about traveling by air was a novel experience. (One of my favorite bits is about the "huge moving corridor... called a jetway," said with a hint of awe.)

Originally a 16mm Encyclopedia Brittanica Film, An Airplane Trip by JET was restored and converted to video by Ira Gallen. The video is about 10 minutes long, but worth watching.



If the video does not play or display properly above, click here to view it on YouTube.

Tip of the hat to Ira Gallen, known on YouTube as iraRona.