Witness To The Jet Age

The First Douglas DC-8 Jetliner – N8008D – delivered to Trans International in 1962. We had a coach seat for history…

Boomers lament the arrival of old age. Yet think of what we’ve witnessed in our lifetime. The Jet Age. Mankind’s first steps on another celestial body. and conveniences like we never imagined as children.

I was born in the middle of the Baby Boom – 1956. I do not remember the dawn of television. Those of you born in 1946 do. What about Captain Kangaroo – which debuted when I was in the womb. How about supermarkets? Automated bowling alleys. Drive-Ins. The interstate highway system. Color TV. Stereophonic sound. Mercury Vapor streetlights that changed the color of your blue jeans.

Do you remember all of that?

My first memories of life included The Jet Age. I’ve never experienced the rattle and vibration of piston liners – propeller driven aircraft power by radial piston engines. It was a chilly December morning in Baltimore in 1961 when I experienced my first airplane ride – a UNITED AIR LINES Boeing 720 over to Kansas City to spend Christmas with relatives in Independence enroute to my dad’s tour of duty in Hawaii – Hickam Field and Pearl Harbor – with our home in Pearl City Highlands.

At age five, Boeing’s new 720 jetliner didn’t leave much of an impression. I was taken with the overhead passenger service pods and the pushbutton lavatories with blue water and a buzzy sound. It was all my mother could do to keep me in my seat.

There are times in life when we have a front row seat for history without even understanding we have that. My mother, sisters, and I had to return to Washington, D.C. while my dad remained on Oahu. My father drove us to the new Honolulu International Airport in the wee hours of the morning for our flight back to the U.S. mainland and on to the East Coast.

What we couldn’t have known that morning was – we were about to board the first Douglas DC-8 jetliner – N8008D – to Travis AFB, California. It was a military charter flight. I remember seeing the right wing and the sunrise as we crossed the Pacific. The airline was little known Trans International, which became Trans America later on. Not much to remember aside from my mother holding a barf bag across the aisle as we approached Travis.

N8008D was Trans International’s only jetliner until 1966 when it took delivery of the new DC-8 Series 61 known as the “Stretch Eight” jetliner. Vietnam Vets fondly remember the Stretch Eights when they were homeward bound.

UNITED’s Jet Age Boeing 720 jetliner – the transcontinental workhorse that connected the two coasts – getting us coast to coast in four hours.

My aunt, who lived in Oakland across the Bay from San Francisco, picked us up at Travis and drove us over to San Francisco International. To this day, I’ve no idea how she got all of us and our luggage in a Volkswagen Beetle.

After a light lunch at SFO, we boarded a UNITED DC-8 to Baltimore, with a stop at Denver Stapleton. What I remember most about SFO was sitting in a gate area, then, walking down a long corridor and stepping on a jet. All of my boardings had been across ramps and up the air stairs. I could not understand how we went from a gate area, down a corridor, and into an airplane. SFO had something new known as a Jet Way that kept passengers and crew out of the weather. The Jet Way would become an industry standard in an age when we tend to miss the air stairs.

We went from the balmy, tropical Hawaiian climate to snow and ice at Baltimore’s Friendship Airport, a bus to downtown D.C., and a cab ride over to my grandparent’s apartment in Arlington. It was an overwhelming experience for a little guy like me.

As Boomers enter their twilight, we have incredible childhood memories we embrace like no other generation ever has. It has been a phenomenal ride.