Ultra Swank - Retro Adventures

stewardess

Video

Let’s hop on the Japan express and head off to Tokyo for a weekend getaway in 1959. We will be flying with a Britannia airliner from London Heathrow airport to Tokyo and back. We will also make pit-stops in Bombay and Bangkok to take in the sights. Look at Life was a regular British series of short documentary films of which over 500 were produced...

Fly Me Friendly – What Air Travel Used to Be

To travel the skies today is as innate as sipping on a chai latte. Jetting across the world upon a chair suspended 30,000 feet above the ground, all while enjoying a dry Martini, has become the norm. Once reserved to describe the rich and famous, the words ‘jet set’ have entered our common jargon. However, air travel hasn’t always been painless and unstrained. Once upon...

Final Call – All Passengers Should be On Board

I remember as a child, the huge propeller driven airliners starting up at the Cleveland Airport. In the dark blue December twilight, clouds of fire and smoke bellowed from those huge radial engines as they cranked over. Machines as living creatures. Angry tethered dragons. With names like Douglas, Constellation, Viscount and Convair. These were the brothers of the thundering machines that had rained bombs on Hitler’s Germany...

Video

A one hour long documentary telling the story of how Pan American World Airways kickstarted the jet-age and shrank the globe. Real-life ‘Pan Am girls’ recall a high-life of luxury and glamour; rubbing shoulders with celebrity passengers, international romances and having to wear the now infamous girdle. Stars of the jet-age such as Robert Vaughn and Mary Quant remember the food, fashion and girls that...

Seven-oh-seven – The Jet Age Begins

Flying, as we know it, began with the Boeing 707. This was the airplane that leaped us into the ‘Jet-Age‘. Today’s millions of air-travelers can hardly imagine what a jump in performance, comfort and safety the 707 provided. At twice the speed of previous propeller driven airliners, the 707 also flew at almost twice the height. Far above the annoyances and hazards of the ‘weather‘...

Scandinavian Stewardesses Takes Us Into the Jet Age

Scandinavian Airlines (or simply SAS), was founded in 1946, when three Scandinavian transatlantic airlines merged. In the late 1950s, SAS was the first airline to offer round the world service over the North Pole via the North Pole shortcut Copenhagen – Anchorage – Tokyo. This “polar express” became popular with Hollywood celebrities and production people travelling to Europe. SAS entered the jet age in 1959 when its...

Scandinavian Airlines Boeing 747 – The Viking of the 1970s

The Boeing 747 was introduced in 1970 as a answer to handle the demanding mass tourism boom of the late 1960s. Built by the Boeing Corporation and guided by legendary Juan Trippe of Pan American airways – it allowed almost 500 people in its biggest configuration to be elegantly whisked around the world in style at 30,000 feet – without having to be a person...

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