WEBVTT - A Brief History of Air Travel 0:00:01.480 --> 0:00:07.240 Welcome to stuff you should know, a production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:11.160 --> 0:00:13.600 Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's 0:00:13.760 --> 0:00:17.240 Chuck and Jerry's here too. If you put us all together, 0:00:17.560 --> 0:00:18.880 you get the cast of Wings. 0:00:21.040 --> 0:00:22.720 I watch a little bit of Wings, but not much. 0:00:23.600 --> 0:00:26.680 It was actually one of those I don't want to 0:00:26.680 --> 0:00:29.200 say unsung because it was pretty big when it was out. 0:00:29.280 --> 0:00:32.960 But I think in retrospect a lot of people who like, 0:00:33.040 --> 0:00:35.520 say like Friends or something like that are missing out 0:00:35.600 --> 0:00:36.800 on a really great show. 0:00:36.880 --> 0:00:37.680 Yeah, yeah, I watched. 0:00:37.920 --> 0:00:40.040 I don't know why it never got its hooks in 0:00:40.159 --> 0:00:43.720 me because I did watch a little bit of it, 0:00:43.760 --> 0:00:48.040 and the cast was great. Tony Shaloub, Stephen Webber. 0:00:47.760 --> 0:00:50.080 Tim Daily, don't forget Tim Daley and Crystal Bernard. 0:00:50.120 --> 0:00:51.519 Yeah, Tim Daily and Weber. 0:00:51.760 --> 0:00:57.720 Yeah, Stephen Webber the Man. So yeah, anyway, go watch Wings. 0:00:57.720 --> 0:00:59.480 But that's not what we're talking about today. That's not 0:00:59.480 --> 0:01:04.160 the point of episode. This episode is tangentially related. That's 0:01:04.200 --> 0:01:06.080 why I brought Wings up in the first place, because 0:01:06.080 --> 0:01:08.679 we're talking about the history of air travel, and it 0:01:08.720 --> 0:01:10.680 was actually a lot more fascinating than I thought. 0:01:10.800 --> 0:01:15.360 Chuck, really, because I just I'm fascinated by this constantly. 0:01:16.200 --> 0:01:19.840 There's chunks of it that I love and am fascinated by, 0:01:19.959 --> 0:01:23.800 but overall is a whole concept. I was I was 0:01:23.880 --> 0:01:26.720 impressed by how fascinated I was by it. 0:01:27.080 --> 0:01:30.080 Yeah, big, you were impressed by your own fascination. 0:01:30.640 --> 0:01:33.480 Yeah, I was like, Wow, there did it go? Josh, 0:01:33.600 --> 0:01:35.200 you really did fascination right. 0:01:35.520 --> 0:01:39.320 Uh So, thanks today for help with this one. And 0:01:39.560 --> 0:01:40.920 you know, we're kind of just going to walk you 0:01:41.200 --> 0:01:46.160 in the timeline sort of way through passenger air travel. 0:01:46.480 --> 0:01:52.160 Uh not you know how planes work or not, plane 0:01:52.200 --> 0:01:55.680 crashes and hijackings and stuff like that. But what was 0:01:55.680 --> 0:01:59.360 it like from the very first moment human beings stepped 0:01:59.400 --> 0:02:03.880 on a plane in for a commercial type flight, and 0:02:03.920 --> 0:02:07.600 how that's changed over the years, from food to bathrooms 0:02:07.640 --> 0:02:12.679 to smoking to like the terms we used to talk 0:02:12.720 --> 0:02:16.040 about the people who work there, Right, So we should 0:02:16.040 --> 0:02:18.160 probably start if we're going to talk about this to 0:02:18.320 --> 0:02:23.480 the very first passenger airline flight, which was a flight 0:02:23.560 --> 0:02:27.160 of one human being on January first, nineteen fourteen, from 0:02:27.200 --> 0:02:29.079 the Saint Petersburg Tampa Airport. 0:02:29.520 --> 0:02:29.880 I'm sorry. 0:02:29.919 --> 0:02:34.720 Airboat Line was a company. They flew across Tampa Bay. 0:02:35.200 --> 0:02:38.720 Three thousand people came out to watch this twenty minute flight. 0:02:39.880 --> 0:02:43.040 The airline was around for three months, flew about twelve 0:02:43.120 --> 0:02:45.680 hundred people. And if you're wondering how much that costs 0:02:45.680 --> 0:02:49.120 back then, about five bucks for a one way ticket 0:02:49.160 --> 0:02:50.240 and ten for a round. 0:02:50.120 --> 0:02:53.120 Trip, which is a million dollars today. 0:02:52.840 --> 0:02:54.080 To fly over Tampa Bay. 0:02:54.840 --> 0:02:57.200 But no, but get this, at the time, it was 0:02:57.240 --> 0:03:01.079 a two hour steamship ride or a ten hour train ride, 0:03:01.480 --> 0:03:04.480 So a twenty minute flight was not bad. I would 0:03:04.480 --> 0:03:06.760 have coughed up some money for that to save that time. 0:03:07.760 --> 0:03:10.880 I thought it was more like a proving ground for 0:03:10.960 --> 0:03:14.160 the guy who created the planes. Yeah, but that did 0:03:14.280 --> 0:03:17.840 kind of establish this concept that people would pay you 0:03:17.960 --> 0:03:21.680 to fly them around in these new fangle airplanes. I 0:03:21.760 --> 0:03:25.000 don't know how much it would have, like, like how 0:03:25.080 --> 0:03:27.200 long it would have taken to really kind of gain 0:03:27.280 --> 0:03:31.880 ground had it not been for the postal service, though, 0:03:32.280 --> 0:03:35.400 because like with a lot of things, the US government 0:03:35.880 --> 0:03:38.880 kind of took the biggest risks and absorbed the biggest 0:03:38.920 --> 0:03:42.920 initial costs in researching and figuring out how to establish 0:03:43.440 --> 0:03:44.320 commercial flight. 0:03:44.520 --> 0:03:49.080 Essentially, the first international flight was also from Florida and 0:03:49.120 --> 0:03:52.120 it went to Cuba and just put a pin in 0:03:52.120 --> 0:03:54.280 this flight because this will come back. It was Aero 0:03:54.440 --> 0:03:57.720 Marine Airways and they ran for about four years in 0:03:57.720 --> 0:04:01.400 the early nineteen twenties in wicker plane seats, and I 0:04:01.440 --> 0:04:04.360 was just curious, are you scared of those? 0:04:06.280 --> 0:04:06.440 Oh? 0:04:06.600 --> 0:04:08.760 Good question. I saw a picture of them, and no, 0:04:08.920 --> 0:04:10.320 I would have been okay with these. 0:04:10.520 --> 0:04:13.360 So it's strictly wicker wheelchairs wheelchairs. 0:04:13.400 --> 0:04:16.080 Yes, it's the combination of the two, so old timing 0:04:16.200 --> 0:04:16.839 wheel chairs. 0:04:16.920 --> 0:04:19.240 So walking into a peer one doesn't freak you out. 0:04:19.360 --> 0:04:22.120 No, no, okay, it makes me think I'm a promin 0:04:22.200 --> 0:04:23.320 about to have my picture taken. 0:04:23.400 --> 0:04:24.520 Okay, all right, great. 0:04:25.120 --> 0:04:29.239 So, like you said, the Saint Petersburg Tampa airboat line 0:04:29.600 --> 0:04:34.640 folded in a few months, Aeromarine Airways folded in four years. 0:04:35.720 --> 0:04:39.000 And I mean the fact that planes had been invented 0:04:39.000 --> 0:04:41.200 by then. Eventually they would have gained enough ground that 0:04:41.320 --> 0:04:44.640 we would have commercial aviation like we do today. But 0:04:45.080 --> 0:04:47.120 who knows how long it would have taken had the 0:04:47.200 --> 0:04:50.160 US government not gotten involved, Because, like with a lot 0:04:50.160 --> 0:04:53.039 of other major technologies that we have today, the government 0:04:53.080 --> 0:04:56.520 stepped in and took on the risk and the initial 0:04:56.560 --> 0:05:00.479 costs in developing commercial aviation, and they did it under 0:05:00.480 --> 0:05:02.239 the auspices of the postal Service. 0:05:02.560 --> 0:05:06.640 Yeah, airmail Baby. May fifteenth, nineteen eighteen is when the 0:05:06.680 --> 0:05:10.640 first air mail flights took off, servicing at the time 0:05:10.720 --> 0:05:14.760 only DC, Philly and New York. And little side note 0:05:14.800 --> 0:05:17.480 that's kind of fun. The very famous stamp. I know, 0:05:17.560 --> 0:05:20.240 we talked about it in stamp collecting, the inverted Jenny. 0:05:20.520 --> 0:05:23.200 There was a printing error in this plane was upside down, 0:05:24.200 --> 0:05:26.239 and that was a very limited run of these upside 0:05:26.279 --> 0:05:28.239 down stamps. So it's one of the most valuable stamps 0:05:28.279 --> 0:05:30.680 in the world. But that was commemorating these first air 0:05:30.760 --> 0:05:33.920 mail flights. It took a couple of years and they 0:05:33.960 --> 0:05:37.159 opened it up to across the country, so by nineteen 0:05:37.200 --> 0:05:40.479 twenty you could airmail something from New York to California. 0:05:41.320 --> 0:05:45.080 And it was a big success through the nineteen twenties 0:05:45.920 --> 0:05:48.120 such that they eventually were like, all right, now we 0:05:48.160 --> 0:05:49.280 can go private with this. 0:05:50.640 --> 0:05:55.479 Yeah, they handed over the job of delivering the mail 0:05:55.520 --> 0:05:58.800 to private companies. So now we had commercial aviation, but 0:05:58.880 --> 0:06:02.680 it was all mail and cargo, right, But eventually that 0:06:03.000 --> 0:06:06.800 evolved into also moving people from place to place. So 0:06:06.920 --> 0:06:09.960 that's where commercial aviation, at least in the United States, 0:06:10.000 --> 0:06:13.520 but kind of around the world really finds its footing, 0:06:13.560 --> 0:06:16.920 like that's where it grew from. I just find that fascinating, 0:06:17.040 --> 0:06:20.280 Oh totally, And I wasn't expecting to find it fascinating. 0:06:21.240 --> 0:06:24.440 You really let yourself down, huh. Yeah. 0:06:24.480 --> 0:06:27.479 So, like you said, in the nineteen twenties, they said, hey, 0:06:28.800 --> 0:06:31.479 why don't we start flying rich white people all over 0:06:31.520 --> 0:06:35.000 the country, because that's exclusively what it was for a 0:06:35.040 --> 0:06:37.320 long time, a round trip from New York to LA 0:06:38.000 --> 0:06:40.560 And this is not NonStop. There are lots of layovers 0:06:40.560 --> 0:06:43.080 to fuel up and stuff like that. It was two 0:06:43.200 --> 0:06:48.040 hundred and sixty bucks in the nineteen twenties, which amounts 0:06:48.400 --> 0:06:52.039 to our friends at the West Egg Inflation website to 0:06:52.720 --> 0:06:57.200 about forty six hundred bucks today. That back then that 0:06:57.240 --> 0:07:00.039 was half the price of a new car, and so 0:07:00.120 --> 0:07:03.080 it was rich people. They only flew about six thousand 0:07:03.080 --> 0:07:08.200 people in the year nineteen twenty nine, which you know, 0:07:08.360 --> 0:07:10.280 it was very exclusive. 0:07:10.320 --> 0:07:10.800 At first. 0:07:11.400 --> 0:07:14.920 You had to fly low because the planes weren't pressurized, 0:07:15.000 --> 0:07:19.200 so it was a very rocky, turbulent flight. They were 0:07:19.360 --> 0:07:23.960 very cold because the planes were insulated. They were incredibly loud. 0:07:24.000 --> 0:07:28.120 I think the tri motor ten goose and if you're 0:07:28.160 --> 0:07:31.800 a well I was about say, if you're an aviation enthusiasts, 0:07:31.800 --> 0:07:34.520 you already know these planes. But I encourage people to 0:07:34.560 --> 0:07:39.119 become aviation enthusiasts because there's nothing more fun than looking 0:07:39.200 --> 0:07:43.240 up these old planes like the ten Goose. I don't 0:07:43.240 --> 0:07:45.360 know about how rare, but I haven't seen that many 0:07:45.360 --> 0:07:48.400 tri motors in my day. Sure, so it was kind 0:07:48.400 --> 0:07:53.480 of cool. It carried twelve people and flew at one 0:07:53.560 --> 0:07:57.360 hundred and twenty decibels decibels at takeoff. 0:07:57.880 --> 0:08:00.720 Right, which I saw a chart, And that is louder 0:08:00.760 --> 0:08:03.080 than being at the front row of a rock concert. 0:08:03.760 --> 0:08:07.200 I just assumed they were accepting Dinosaur Junior from that. 0:08:08.200 --> 0:08:10.960 Yeah, yeah, and mud honey, I can vouch for that 0:08:11.000 --> 0:08:11.560 one too. 0:08:12.000 --> 0:08:14.760 Right, So it's still really loud, loud enough that the 0:08:14.880 --> 0:08:19.680 stewards had to communicate with the passengers using like megaphones. Yeah, 0:08:19.720 --> 0:08:21.720 like the old timey ones that they used to use 0:08:21.760 --> 0:08:24.640 at pep rallies and you know the old Yale days 0:08:24.680 --> 0:08:26.040 at the turn of the last century. 0:08:26.120 --> 0:08:27.520 Right, no diet coke. 0:08:29.120 --> 0:08:33.560 Right, So, as you put it, flying was really awful. 0:08:33.640 --> 0:08:35.920 It was not a fun affair. It was just so 0:08:36.200 --> 0:08:38.520 novel that people still put up with the cold and 0:08:38.559 --> 0:08:43.800 the noise and the pukiness. But train travel was still 0:08:43.840 --> 0:08:47.520 like it was more affordable, it was more reliable because 0:08:47.520 --> 0:08:50.480 there are tons of plane breakdowns at the time. Basically 0:08:50.480 --> 0:08:52.920 some things never changed is what I took from that. 0:08:53.920 --> 0:08:55.880 But trains were still kind of like the way to go. 0:08:56.040 --> 0:08:59.520 It was just flying was just so luxurious and such 0:08:59.520 --> 0:09:02.120 a novel that actually people used to come out and 0:09:02.160 --> 0:09:06.080 watch planes take off at the airport. I guess LaGuardia 0:09:06.160 --> 0:09:09.079 had like a skywalk where people would come and watch 0:09:09.120 --> 0:09:12.040 the planes take off, and there would be more people 0:09:12.320 --> 0:09:15.600 during the like a single day that frequented the skywalk 0:09:15.880 --> 0:09:17.760 than flew in or out of LaGuardia. 0:09:18.520 --> 0:09:20.760 Yeah, and that's that's still a fun thing. I think 0:09:20.800 --> 0:09:25.160 a lot of cities have either municipal airports that have 0:09:25.960 --> 0:09:30.240 like bars nearby. We have one here in Atlanta. The 0:09:30.320 --> 0:09:33.320 fifty seven Spider Group is so great World War two 0:09:33.400 --> 0:09:36.800 themed restaurant and bar where we shot some video stuff 0:09:36.920 --> 0:09:37.480 years ago. 0:09:38.040 --> 0:09:38.640 But it's cool. 0:09:38.679 --> 0:09:40.800 You can go sit out on a bar patio and 0:09:40.840 --> 0:09:43.720 watch the planes take off and it's a lot of fun. 0:09:43.800 --> 0:09:44.320 I enjoy it. 0:09:45.080 --> 0:09:46.920 That was from our TV show where we were doing 0:09:46.960 --> 0:09:47.680 Cloud seating. 0:09:49.160 --> 0:09:51.679 Oh, I thought it was one of those interstitials. 0:09:52.440 --> 0:09:54.880 I'm pretty sure it was the cloud seating part. Yeah, 0:09:54.960 --> 0:09:57.040 with the with the baseball game where it rained or 0:09:57.040 --> 0:09:57.719 the softball game. 0:09:57.800 --> 0:09:59.760 Oh, you know what we did both. 0:10:00.400 --> 0:10:02.880 We did cloud seating for the baseball game because we 0:10:02.920 --> 0:10:05.920 faked being in a biplane and flying when it was 0:10:05.960 --> 0:10:08.560 in fact just sitting on the ground. And we also 0:10:08.800 --> 0:10:11.640 I remember went over there to shoot an interstitial on 0:10:11.880 --> 0:10:15.400 Japanese stragglers because we were at one point wandering through 0:10:15.400 --> 0:10:17.640 the bamboo on that problem. 0:10:17.760 --> 0:10:20.520 Yeah, that's right. They have like World War two jeeps 0:10:20.520 --> 0:10:21.440 and stuff there. 0:10:21.320 --> 0:10:24.560 And we probably did that because our good buddy Chad 0:10:24.600 --> 0:10:27.800 who made that show, could like shoot there for one hundred. 0:10:27.520 --> 0:10:28.240 Bucks or something. 0:10:30.679 --> 0:10:35.679 So anyway, trains, like you said, were reliable, they were comfy, 0:10:36.000 --> 0:10:39.800 people could afford it. Planes travel wasn't really hitting it 0:10:39.920 --> 0:10:43.960 big at that point, but this is when it started 0:10:44.000 --> 0:10:45.680 becoming a thing. So like, hey, we need to know 0:10:45.679 --> 0:10:48.439 how to talk about this stuff, and so they kind 0:10:48.480 --> 0:10:52.760 of borrowed from steamships as far as the terminology goes, right. 0:10:53.400 --> 0:10:56.280 Yeah, and one reason, so yes, you have stewards that 0:10:56.320 --> 0:10:58.720 were we call flight attendants today. But that's just like 0:10:58.760 --> 0:11:02.880 on a ship. There was the captain of the plane, 0:11:02.960 --> 0:11:06.640 not the pilot. They call them airlines, very similar to 0:11:06.720 --> 0:11:09.640 calling them cruise lines. I even saw a picture of 0:11:09.679 --> 0:11:12.600 an early plane and they had straight up portholes for 0:11:12.760 --> 0:11:16.120 the windows on the plane. So I'd never noticed it before, 0:11:16.160 --> 0:11:18.640 but it did borrow a lot of terminology, and I 0:11:18.679 --> 0:11:20.520 think the reason why is because a lot of the 0:11:20.600 --> 0:11:27.800 early planes were airboats. Essentially, they were like LaGuardia Is 0:11:27.840 --> 0:11:32.840 on the water because it it was originally like a 0:11:32.880 --> 0:11:36.000 marine airport, like for airboats to fly in and out. 0:11:36.080 --> 0:11:36.640 Did you know that? 0:11:37.520 --> 0:11:39.520 I did not know that, but I'm not surprised. 0:11:40.000 --> 0:11:41.240 I found it fascinating. 0:11:41.640 --> 0:11:41.840 Yeah. 0:11:41.880 --> 0:11:44.240 Well, that very first flight company in Tampa was called 0:11:44.240 --> 0:11:47.000 an airboat exactly right. 0:11:47.640 --> 0:11:51.360 Yeah, so there was like kind of like a distinction. 0:11:51.400 --> 0:11:53.800 I think. Also they were like, see, everybody likes cruising 0:11:53.840 --> 0:11:56.200 on steamships. This is basically the same thing. We're just 0:11:56.559 --> 0:11:58.880 the words are essentially the same. So there you go. 0:11:59.040 --> 0:12:01.520 Yeah, but these can't to the ocean. They'll just fall 0:12:01.559 --> 0:12:03.880 from the sky and maybe land in the ocean. 0:12:04.320 --> 0:12:06.079 Yeah, it's a two fer. 0:12:09.760 --> 0:12:10.720 You mentioned Stewarts. 0:12:10.720 --> 0:12:14.840 That was what the terminali changed over the years from Stewart, 0:12:15.720 --> 0:12:21.320 eventually to Stuart S because the first stewards were exclusively male. 0:12:22.000 --> 0:12:24.720 In the nineteen thirties, a woman named Ellen Church came along. 0:12:25.440 --> 0:12:28.320 She was a nurse from Iowa who wanted to be 0:12:28.360 --> 0:12:30.959 a pilot but was not able to because it was 0:12:31.960 --> 0:12:34.360 in the nineteen thirties and she was a woman. So 0:12:34.360 --> 0:12:36.720 she said, all right, I want to change the way 0:12:36.760 --> 0:12:39.079 the game is on the plane then, and let's get 0:12:39.160 --> 0:12:43.600 rid of these male stewards and bring in the Stewart s, 0:12:44.200 --> 0:12:46.720 which was a name that lasted all the way up 0:12:46.920 --> 0:12:50.720 until the late nineteen seventies when the term flight attendant 0:12:50.760 --> 0:12:53.959 came along. But as someone who grew up in the 0:12:54.000 --> 0:12:57.040 seventies and eighties and nineties as you did, it was 0:12:57.120 --> 0:12:59.920 not It took a while for flight attendant to catch on. 0:13:00.640 --> 0:13:02.760 I would say it took a good twenty five to 0:13:02.800 --> 0:13:05.400 thirty years before it was. You just did not hear 0:13:05.440 --> 0:13:06.760 the word stewardess anymore. 0:13:06.880 --> 0:13:10.520 Yeah, and you'd still hear it occasionally from some of 0:13:10.559 --> 0:13:11.760 our boomer relatives. 0:13:12.760 --> 0:13:15.920 So Ellen Church, she was a pioneer, a groundbreaker. She 0:13:16.120 --> 0:13:19.400 worked for Boeing, which became United. Didn't know that answers 0:13:19.400 --> 0:13:24.520 a lot of questions though, and she hired Boeing's first 0:13:24.679 --> 0:13:29.560 eight stewardesses. She only flew for I think like eighteen 0:13:29.600 --> 0:13:30.920 months a year and a half because she was in 0:13:30.960 --> 0:13:34.200 a car wreck and went back to nursing. But she 0:13:34.520 --> 0:13:36.920 that was it, like the genie was out of the bottle. 0:13:37.000 --> 0:13:38.840 Because I think we talked about this in our Flight 0:13:38.880 --> 0:13:43.200 Attendant episode. The premise was if you were on a 0:13:43.280 --> 0:13:45.400 flight and there was a woman there, she would have 0:13:45.440 --> 0:13:48.640 a calming, homie influence. But also there was like a 0:13:48.679 --> 0:13:50.760 subtle dare like are you going to be such a 0:13:50.800 --> 0:13:53.680 sissy that this woman is able to fly and you 0:13:53.840 --> 0:13:57.640 can't because you're scared? Come on? So like all that 0:13:57.679 --> 0:14:00.520 combined just opened the door for stewart is from that 0:14:00.559 --> 0:14:03.640 point on, but not women pilots, not for a long time. 0:14:03.800 --> 0:14:04.000 Yeah. 0:14:04.000 --> 0:14:07.240 And one thing that we didn't mention that is a huge, 0:14:07.320 --> 0:14:10.120 huge deal was not only was Church and nurse, but 0:14:10.559 --> 0:14:14.360 she recruited other nurses. And all of those first eight 0:14:14.400 --> 0:14:18.200 stewardesses were nurses, and almost all the early flight attendants 0:14:18.200 --> 0:14:21.800 were nurses. And you know, the idea again not just 0:14:21.920 --> 0:14:24.760 you know, besides being a woman that can help reassure you, 0:14:25.160 --> 0:14:28.120 but a nurse that's on board is really going to 0:14:28.160 --> 0:14:32.240 help reassure you because they just have that. A nurse's 0:14:32.240 --> 0:14:34.880 got to have a good demeanor, got a good bedside manner, 0:14:35.000 --> 0:14:38.440 or in this case, first class seat side manner. 0:14:38.960 --> 0:14:41.520 To me, I find it less than reassuring. It's like, well, 0:14:41.520 --> 0:14:43.720 what all goes on planes that you need a nurse 0:14:43.760 --> 0:14:45.040 on them at all times? 0:14:45.640 --> 0:14:47.160 You know you're overthinking it. 0:14:48.120 --> 0:14:49.960 I would have back then too, I would have old 0:14:50.000 --> 0:14:51.000 time you overthought it. 0:14:51.480 --> 0:14:55.120 Yeah, So those were the early flight attendants, these these 0:14:55.120 --> 0:14:58.680 women who were nurses. But again Church could not become 0:14:58.680 --> 0:15:02.200 a pilot because they didn't allow that. For She's probably 0:15:02.240 --> 0:15:04.440 another forty years after she came along. 0:15:05.040 --> 0:15:08.240 The first woman pilot commercial airline pilot I could find 0:15:08.840 --> 0:15:12.520 started flying in nineteen sixty nine. Her name was Terry Whideroo, 0:15:13.760 --> 0:15:17.600 who flew for Scandinavian Air Systems says, and then four 0:15:17.680 --> 0:15:21.280 years later in the United States, Emily Howell Warner started 0:15:21.320 --> 0:15:24.680 flying for Frontier and Bonnie Tobersie in the same year. 0:15:24.720 --> 0:15:28.760 In nineteen seventy three started flying for American and Warner 0:15:28.800 --> 0:15:32.000 became the first captain, not just pilot, I think in 0:15:32.080 --> 0:15:35.600 nineteen seventy six. So it took a little while for 0:15:35.680 --> 0:15:39.560 women to make it out of the cabin to the cockpit. 0:15:39.920 --> 0:15:43.440 Yeah, and we should point out too that Bonnie Tobersie 0:15:43.840 --> 0:15:47.240 that was her name, right, Yep, she was a pilot 0:15:47.360 --> 0:15:57.200 at twenty four years old. That's disturbing to me. That 0:15:57.880 --> 0:16:00.720 disturbs me today. Then it would disturb me even or 0:16:00.720 --> 0:16:03.720 maybe it would have been more believable back then. But definitely, 0:16:03.840 --> 0:16:05.840 I'm not trying to be ages. But if I see 0:16:05.840 --> 0:16:08.080 a twenty four year pilot getting on my delta flight, 0:16:08.400 --> 0:16:12.480 I'm just inherently a little bit freaked out. It's probably 0:16:12.480 --> 0:16:16.000 wrong of me, probably showing my age. I just want 0:16:16.040 --> 0:16:17.440 a little bit of experience, you know. 0:16:18.400 --> 0:16:20.960 Yes, but I think the ages are different. I think 0:16:21.000 --> 0:16:23.760 back in nineteen seventy three, twenty four year old was 0:16:23.800 --> 0:16:28.400 akin to like a fifty year old today. No, I'm 0:16:28.400 --> 0:16:29.760 just trying to make you feel better here. 0:16:29.840 --> 0:16:30.640 Well, how would you feel? 0:16:30.680 --> 0:16:32.400 I don't all of a sudden, I feel like I'm 0:16:32.400 --> 0:16:34.440 a twenty four year old and age is jerk for 0:16:34.520 --> 0:16:36.640 worrying about that. Would do you think most people or 0:16:36.680 --> 0:16:37.720 would you worry about. 0:16:37.480 --> 0:16:41.200 That if they were like the captain, Well, she was 0:16:41.200 --> 0:16:42.000 a pilot at the. 0:16:41.960 --> 0:16:43.360 Time, the pilot at least. 0:16:44.480 --> 0:16:46.440 I mean, if there were other people who were older 0:16:46.480 --> 0:16:48.360 in there, i'd feel better. If it were just the 0:16:48.400 --> 0:16:50.800 one twenty four year old, i'd be nervous. Yeah, they 0:16:50.800 --> 0:16:52.520 brought there and we have little to do with them 0:16:52.560 --> 0:16:55.280 being twenty four. But there's only so much experience you 0:16:55.320 --> 0:16:56.960 can cram into those twenty four years. 0:16:57.040 --> 0:16:58.520 That's what I'm talking about. It's experience. 0:16:58.560 --> 0:17:00.720 I have nothing against twenty four year olds, but unless 0:17:00.720 --> 0:17:04.360 they're like, no, they started flying you know, Promes when 0:17:04.400 --> 0:17:05.880 they were seven, Yeah. 0:17:06.600 --> 0:17:08.720 Right, their child air prodigy. 0:17:09.040 --> 0:17:10.960 Anyway, twenty four seemed young, and I just thought that 0:17:11.040 --> 0:17:11.399 was funny. 0:17:12.119 --> 0:17:15.560 Have you realized that we haven't taken a break yet? 0:17:16.000 --> 0:17:17.480 No, but it's a perfect time too. 0:17:18.280 --> 0:17:19.359 Yeah, it's fascinating. 0:17:19.400 --> 0:17:21.080 All right, I'm gonna go think about what I've done 0:17:21.080 --> 0:17:22.080 today and then we'll be. 0:17:22.160 --> 0:17:22.760 Right back. 0:17:34.320 --> 0:17:38.840 Learn and stuff with Joshua job stuff. 0:17:38.960 --> 0:17:58.120 You shine up, so chuck. Believe it or not, we've 0:17:58.119 --> 0:17:59.720 only made it to the nineteen thirties. 0:18:00.280 --> 0:18:00.520 Wooh. 0:18:01.119 --> 0:18:03.840 The whole thing really kind of started in the twenties. 0:18:04.600 --> 0:18:07.000 And get this, so you said in nineteen twenty nine, 0:18:07.359 --> 0:18:12.160 six thousand people flew in the entire year. Yep, less 0:18:12.160 --> 0:18:15.280 than a decade later, nineteen thirty eight, more than one 0:18:15.320 --> 0:18:20.600 point two million Americans alone flew every year, So it 0:18:20.680 --> 0:18:23.480 had really started to open up in the nineteen thirties, 0:18:23.880 --> 0:18:27.439 but it was still business travelers typically and wealthy people. 0:18:28.359 --> 0:18:28.679 Yeah. 0:18:28.720 --> 0:18:31.040 Absolutely, and the planes, you know, and this is why 0:18:31.119 --> 0:18:33.280 people started flying more and things got a little bit better. 0:18:34.280 --> 0:18:36.240 Still cost a lot of money, but it was a 0:18:36.240 --> 0:18:39.600 little more comfy. And thirty three, Boeing came out with 0:18:39.680 --> 0:18:44.560 the dual prop two forty seven gorgeous plane. This had 0:18:44.560 --> 0:18:46.760 an insulated cabin, it was the first one where you 0:18:46.760 --> 0:18:51.880 weren't freezing, had twelve cushioned upholstered seats, it had hot 0:18:51.920 --> 0:18:54.840 and cold water, it had food service, and it was 0:18:54.920 --> 0:18:56.679 just it was a step up. And this was in 0:18:56.760 --> 0:18:57.640 nineteen thirty three. 0:18:57.920 --> 0:19:00.400 Yeah, yeah, And I think you're right. I think that's 0:19:00.440 --> 0:19:03.679 why air travel became more popular because the planes just 0:19:03.680 --> 0:19:08.679 got nicer. After Boeing released the two four seven niner, 0:19:09.400 --> 0:19:12.840 Douglas Aircraft Company came up with the DC three, which. 0:19:12.600 --> 0:19:13.639 Is what's a niner? 0:19:14.520 --> 0:19:18.240 It's just an air airline lingo thing cbka. 0:19:19.119 --> 0:19:21.000 Oh I thought it meant nine, it did. 0:19:21.840 --> 0:19:24.000 I just added it because I can't say Boeing two 0:19:24.080 --> 0:19:26.359 four seven without adding a niner. 0:19:26.720 --> 0:19:28.400 Okay, But to be clear, it's not the two four 0:19:28.440 --> 0:19:29.240 seven nine. 0:19:29.160 --> 0:19:32.919 No, it's just the two four seven niner slash niner. 0:19:34.800 --> 0:19:37.080 So you don't even have to be an airplane enthusiast 0:19:37.160 --> 0:19:39.399 to be like, I've heard of the DC three before. 0:19:40.280 --> 0:19:44.280 That's because by the end of the nineteen thirties, ninety 0:19:44.400 --> 0:19:47.879 percent of all the airplanes flying around in the world 0:19:48.080 --> 0:19:51.639 were DC threes, and even Boeing, which remember had its 0:19:51.680 --> 0:19:56.119 own airline that became United, basically flew with DC threes 0:19:56.160 --> 0:19:57.920 even though they were the ones making the two four 0:19:58.040 --> 0:19:59.120 sevens niners. 0:19:59.200 --> 0:20:00.400 Yeahbsolutely. 0:20:01.080 --> 0:20:05.560 Thankfully, the Douglas Aircraft Company gave us the DC stands 0:20:05.560 --> 0:20:09.280 for Douglas Commercial. The Douglas Commercial three had twenty one seats, 0:20:09.760 --> 0:20:13.560 had an actual kitchen, a little mini kitchen galley, carried 0:20:13.560 --> 0:20:15.480 a lot more fuel, and it was the first one 0:20:16.000 --> 0:20:18.399 that could go NonStop from New York to Chicago at 0:20:18.400 --> 0:20:22.360 that point. And it was did you say the percentage 0:20:22.359 --> 0:20:24.480 that ninety percent were DC threes? 0:20:25.040 --> 0:20:28.280 You bet I did. I said nine or zero percent, right. 0:20:30.000 --> 0:20:31.719 And I found this fun little story I sent to you. 0:20:32.000 --> 0:20:34.639 The DC three is just a gorgeous plane. And there's 0:20:34.680 --> 0:20:37.320 one that is at least a few years ago. I 0:20:37.320 --> 0:20:42.840 couldn't find any update. But in twenty twenty one in Finland, 0:20:42.840 --> 0:20:46.200 to Finish air brought out a DC three that was 0:20:46.280 --> 0:20:49.480 eighty years old, restored it for service and it did 0:20:49.560 --> 0:20:54.199 forty member flights over that summer and their plan and 0:20:54.240 --> 0:20:57.040 their goal was for that thing to just keep it 0:20:57.080 --> 0:20:59.560 going and so it eventually would hit one hundred year mark. 0:21:00.440 --> 0:21:01.040 Very nice. 0:21:01.720 --> 0:21:03.080 That's like a would you go on it? 0:21:03.520 --> 0:21:07.040 No, okay, no, I'm not even afraid to fly. I'm 0:21:07.080 --> 0:21:07.560 just smart. 0:21:08.720 --> 0:21:10.880