Go back in time with me to a different era of flight. I’ve been doing this for about 57 years, with conscious memories of airplane travel from about 48 years back. By the time I was four years old, I had lived on three continents! Now, between visiting Canada from Georgia and soon to return, I reflect a bit.
Even the word “airplane” was differently spelt and taught to me as a child in the early 1970s: “aeroplane”, just as I learned to spell “today” as to-day”. It’s true. British spelling? Maybe so. But languages evolve, and we either keep step with them or become an anachronism ourselves.
There was no internet then… no seat-back video screens to watch or hear anything on from thousands of choices. Not even any headphone jack. Really? What was there? One film PROJECTED onto a large screen for everyone to watch as best they could.
Smoking? There was a smoking section in the plane, but no way of magically keeping those noxious second-hand fumes from reaching the rest of us. What would there be, a low-level force field? That’s science fiction, I’m afraid. So glad that all planes worldwide are now completely smoking free. Sorry for you smokers, but only to a point.
The first flight I remember at all was my dad taking my sister and me on a short Cessna trip in Rhodesia, in the mid-1970s, a work trip piloted by someone else. The details are fuzzy, but I’m certain it’s true. First flight I was ever on? From London to probably Toronto, when I was about one-year-old. First international flight I remember? Lufthansa taking us from Rhodesia back to Canada in 1977 to settle there. I recall grinning with the effort of trying to resist the “g-force” of takeoff pushing me back into my seat. It was a 747, impossibly huge. Incidentally, “Lufthansa” comes from “luft [“air”] Hansa”, the old Hanseatic League of which Germany had been a part.
Back then they would open the door to the flight deck cabin, and you could meet the pilots and have a word. Since 9/11? Forget it: now there’ll be an armed marshal on board preventing this kind of access. The safety demos were all in person; many still are, but big-budget airlines are also trying recorded videos of this important item. The best one I’ve ever seen was by Malaysian Airlines and featured several Hollywood stars. Entertaining, funny and unforgettable.
Luggage allowances: 2 x 23 kg was standard check-in for international flights. Food was always free, if offered, and I have to say, always tasty to me.
My longest ever set of flights? 9 flights over three DAYS, going about 3/4 of the way around the world from Indonesia to mid-western Canada. Stops in Jakarta, Singapore, Helsinki, Portland, Seattle, Vancouver and I don’t even remember where else until disembarking, now forever more blasé about flying, in Edmonton.
I was only ever bumped up to business class from the usual economy: when my wife and I were going to from Georgia to Zimbabwe via Amsterdam. KLM, not knowing she’d had abdominal surgery recently, gave us the upgrade for the long flight down to Harare, really just when it was needed. Fabulous, a Godsend.
Curious about airline logos, like I, a graphic designer, am? A huge set of them can be found at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_airline_liveries_and_logos; with these companies appearing and disappearing, or changing their spots, like virtual particles in the vacuum, frequent visits to see what’s new are recommended. It’s a fascinating look at how different countries and cultures interpret the broad concept of “national or local airline”. Birds, of course, dominate the set of designs; because we first learned about powered flying from studying their wings. Circles, representing the globe, are also very popular.
Now, as we seek ever more efficient and less-polluting ways of powered flight, the airborne industry is in great flux; but it always has been, from Icarus to the Montgolfiers to the Wrights to Soyuz and beyond. Stay tuned, and fasten your seatbelt for a ride into the future.
BLOG by Tony Hanmer
Tony Hanmer has lived in Georgia since 1999, in Svaneti since 2007, and been a weekly writer and photographer for GT since early 2011. He runs the “Svaneti Renaissance” Facebook group, now with over 2000 members, at www.facebook.com/groups/SvanetiRenaissance/
He and his wife also run their own guest house in Etseri: www.facebook.com/hanmer.house.svaneti
