Smithsonian Air & Space Museum, Washington DC

Smithsonian Air & Space Museum, Washington DC

Lighter than air.

Lighter than air.

Powder River Wyoming from the air

Powder River from the air.

Flying to Atlanta

Flying to Atlanta

The Stone Ranch from the air.

The Stone Ranch from the air.

Lex Anteinternet: Air Travel then and now. . .I'm not nostalgic about it, it's gotten better

Air Travel then and now. . .I'm not nostalgic about it, it's gotten better

 

The Missouri River, note the barges.

As noted, I fly quite a bit.  And I have a long history with air travel too. I first boarded a commercial airliner as a baby, and I can recall flying out of Casper on Western Airlines and Frontier Airlines, in jet airliners, as a boy still in grade school.  By the time I was junior high I'd flown on Western, Frontier, Air Canada, and others I can't recall.  I can well recall when you could still get a flight on a 707 from Casper to Billings Montana.

Given that, I have experience with the "glory days" of jet travel that people are nostalgic about now.

I'm not.  Air travel is a lot better now.  Shoot, it's better than it was ten years ago.

The current jets are so fast that a lot of the nostalgia that people place in old time air travel is really misplaced.  I can well recall when you received multiple drinks and food on flights.  That's because those flights were really slow.  Now, they're so much faster it isn't even funny.

This first became apparent to me on a flight some years ago to Oakland.  I'd flown to California before and was amazed when we were boarded on a "regional airliner", probably some sort of Canadair jet.  That jet zipped to the destination so fast I was stunned.  The week before last I flew to Toronto, which I've done before, on a direct connection from Denver.  Sure, it took over three hours, again on a regional jet liner, but that isn't too bad really.  This past week I flew from Tampa to Denver on an airbus that flew so high that we flew over satellites (okay, not really, but it flew high) and it was as smooth as a bus.  Very comfortable, and really nice plane. The Dreamliner is even more comfortable.

These planes are just super, and speedy.  They get you where you need to go very quickly, and if there isn't endless warmed up meals form the galley, well so be it.