Dial Ups Beware: Arthur Godfrey & the Constellation

[GAHorn]

This is a 1953 demo-flight put out by Eastern Airlines, hosted by Arthur Godfrey. It's long. It's fantastic.
Good scenes. Period-style euphenisms...some of which are hilarious.
Keep a look out for:
1-Calling "ground control tower" for "clearance".
2-Directional Control on the takeoff scene. (Wonder if there was a X-wind?)
3-"Time for a Chesterfield, Dick!" (and note the look of disgust from the co-captain and his response! This was when smoking was not simply accepted...it was expected!)
4-The Omni navigation explanation.
5-The promotional appearances of Eddie Rickenbacher, then CEO of Eastern.
6-The short appearance of Lockheed Test pilot Tony Lavier.

-And near the end of the film...how Godfrey says pilots "don't take risks..... "We take calculated risks!" HA!

Enjoy! (and think of bluElder!)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6VfkKjlhXs

[Harold Holiman]

George,

Thanks for posting this movie. It was very interesting. One thing they errored on was the prediction at the end that fleets of helicopters would take passengers from cities and rural areas to the major airports. All the other predictions were right on. I wish they still had airliners like the Super Connies flying.

Harold

[Bruce Fenstermacher]

I haven't watched the whole thing yet but I did note a tear in the corner of Godfrey's eye as he pointed to his helicopter rating placed closest to his coveted "green" ticket.

[GAHorn]

As a reformed smoker, I was really amused at the Chesterfield cigarette thing....

Chesterfield was one of Arthur Godfrey's prime sponsors in his radio/television career. By the look of surprise from Co-Captain Dick Ellis(?) I take it that it was a spontaneous, un-rehearsed action by Godfrey, perhaps one of promotional-habit, considering this was an Eastern Air Lines film. Anyway, I thought Dick was going to slap him silly, and doubtless was unhappy about having to breathe in that foul cockpit after the S. O. took him up on the offer. I figured that the flight was in reality operating off of Dick's credentials and he had to tolerate Godfrey only due to Rickenbacker's overbearing.

Having read Rickenbacker's auto-biography (struggled thru it actually after the middle chapter).... I think he might be the only guy in the world with as much self-admiration as Hoover and Yeager. I remember some of his old pilots complaining when Eddie had the autopilots disabled on all of Eastern's airliners so pilots "could feel the ice" in winter. (That might actually have been one of his better ideas.) They all bordered on disgust when they talked about having to fly the Fl-NY corridor using "Rickenbacker-Radar". (He considered radar a gimmick and refused to buy/install the units in Eastern aircraft until, well into the jet-era, the FAA required it by FAR for commercial operators.....he instructed his pilots to "use their eyes!" (Rickenbacker-Radar).

[hilltop170]

As a reformed smoker, I was really amused at the Chesterfield cigarette thing....

Chesterfield was one of Arthur Godfrey's prime sponsors in his radio/television career.

What do you bet Chesterfield dropped Godfrey after he had his lung cut out.

[Robert Eilers]

Bruce might remember when we would get the little three cigarette packs in our C-rations, Pall Mall, Chesterfield, Camel, even Kools every now and then.

[lowNslow]

Does Arthur Godfrey sound like he is on his third martini or did he always sound like that?

[Bruce Fenstermacher]

Robert with the exception of just one memerable time our C rations did not have cigarettes in them. I started my Army career just after they stopped. But on this one occassion, and this would have been about 8 or 9 years after they stopped, we did get a pallet full of old C rations with them in it. Those C rations were extra special as you could imagine we new we were eating "fresh" food. I remember thinking that I was actually glad it happened so I could say I got some.

I seem to remember not long after that we got our first MRE's. But I could be wrong about the timing of the old C rats and the new MRE's. You know how those happy memories tend to blend together.

[Zreyn]

I was in the Navy so never had any experience with "C" rations, but if we had long transport flights (San Francisco to Honolulu) in a C118 (R6D in the Navy, DC6 in civilian life) they handed each guy a box lunch & there was a cardboard box of four cigs in each box tucked in with the fried chicken & what ever other goodies were in that box.
Oh by the way Godfrey always sounded that way.

[170C]

That is one of the best video's I have seen via the computer What a super 48 minutes. I can remember, as a kid, listening to the Arthur Godfrey Show (yes, I am that old ) I remember that he was a pilot and of course that meant he had to be a neat guy. (That was before neat became awsome or cool ) I also recall that at one time he lost his license for a period for some infraction. I don't recall now what it was. And that Super Connie--as mentioned in previous posts------the most beautiful airliner ever designed Just wished I had of had the opportunity to fly somewhere on one

[15A]

Those Connies are Magnificent!
I had travelled to Pompano Beach out of high school (chasing a girl, my wife of 37 yrs.) and there at Boca Raton, sat this Constellation with the bottom door hanging open. Couldn't resist...
Later on, a Connie was on approach to Fort Lauderdale Exec. and ran out of gas on final. That guy dropped it into a vacant field, surrounded by homes, gear up, with minimal damage. OUTSTANDING!

[blueldr]

I'd like to watch that video, but I can't seem to figure out how to get it started. I keep coming up with a video showing the air traffic over the USA.
This computer often humbles me to where I feel as sharp as a ball of bacon grease. My only consolation is that my grandson, the engineer, has no idea how to start the engines of a Boeing B-29.

[busav8or]

Hi Blueldr,

If you're having trouble with the link, try going straight to youtube.com and then search for "Arthur Godfrey Constellation". It came up as the first "hit" of the search.

[GAHorn]

...my grandson, the engineer, has no idea how to start the engines of a Boeing B-29.

The only "Connie" time I have was sitting in the engineer's seat on a taxi-out/run-up on a converted freighter back about 1970. It was loaded up and ready to go when an engine developed trouble, and I was asked if I'd like to assist them do a runup. (I haven't any idea why they thought a low-time CFI would be any help... probably just knew it'd be a good memory for me.)
The pilot was a smuggler named Jack Strickland and he was flying 30K lbs oil-field pipe down into So. America. The FBO I taught at was the last one in Houston to still carry 130/145 AvGas (but it was EXPENSIVE....about 65-cents a gallon!.... )

All I remember was that there were 4 ocilloscopes that showed the spark-plugs firing in all those cylinders and that before take-off power was applied, Jack would first call to apply 30-inches of manifold pressure to "warm up the plugs" so they wouldn't self-destruct, and he'd let the engines stabilize...then he'd call for 70 inches !!

What a RUMBLE!

Next morning they took off loaded with all that pipe. It rolled and rolled and rolled down that runway, off the end, and dissappeared over the horizon, never seeming to gain more than 2 or 3 thousand feet. That was the first time I ever heard the phrase, "the only reason that thing can fly is due to curvature-of-the-Earth"

[Bill Hart]

Its funny I just watched this the other day and Just yesterday I was in Santa Domingo, Dominican Republic and on the GA side of the airport way back behind an old hangar sat the hulk of of a Connie. I wanted to go play on it but couldn't get that far away from our plane.