Aircraft Safety Cards and Seating Charts
Propeller Aircraft – Part 2
Eastern; Continental; United; BOAC

Written by Lester Anderson

Eastern

I admit without any hesitation that Eastern was my favorite airline. Part of that was due to the fact that when they first opened airline clubs to the general public for a fee, around 1974, I was an early participant in being a member. I started with a one-year membership ($25) then was upgraded to a 5-year membership ($99 more) then to a lifetime membership, ($300 more) all within a 12-month period. The fact that I live in the NY metro area and that my personal and business travel was often on the east coast made Eastern a natural in terms of flight frequency, and also gave me the advantage of being able to stop in an Ionosphere Club, often at both origin and destination airports.

Continental

This Continental seating chart is most probably a ticket counter advertisement as opposed to an in-aircraft safety card (because it does not show emergency exit locations or operation).

 

United

Another major player at Newark (although not nearly what they are today) was United. I did fly on the United Vickers Viscount. The thing I remember most about the flight, other than it was a great one) was I could sit over the wings and see the operation of the props.  The engines run at a constant rotation in flight, with the forward thrust controlled by the pitch or angle of the propeller blade.  On the United Viscount, there were markings on the prop and the hub of the propeller and you could see visually (as well hear and feel) as the plane react to the  pilot’s commands for more or less (or reverse) thrust.

 

Newark airport, which had a great observation deck, was an ideal spot to look at the Viscounts, the D-6’s and DC-7’s that were still very much in use (for shorter flights) from Newark Airport. If I recall, most of the EWR flights that were coast to coast were one stop or more.  Nonstop flights were mainly from Idlewild (later JFK).

 

BOAC

This came from a travel agent.  About 3 miles from my house was an accommodating travel agency who would give me a copy of the old Official Airline Guide every so often.  I believe the OAG came out twice a month and were (for those who remember phone books) about the size of a major city phone book.  It fit nicely in my bicycle basket and gave me great reading pleasure.

If I recall this was a promotional brochure from BOAC that the travel agency gave out.  My guess is they knew I liked airplanes (I was getting the OAG) so they put this aside for me.

I never flew a Britannia, but I did see them from the International Arrivals Building observation deck at Idlewild, in New York.

Because of my interest in airplanes, while working at my college radio station, I put myself on PR lists for any airlines I could.  I recall getting a release about a charity event that BOAC was sponsoring.  The thing I recall was a stern message to the radio stations that the airline was to be called B O A C (four letters) not a called a word formed by the letters (pronounced like “Bowack”).

 

I hope you enjoyed this Prop series of articles.   The next series of articles consist of Jet aircraft.  
Lester Anderson

Aircraft Safety Cards
Propeller Aircraft – Part 1
Northeast; Mohawk; American; Braniff; Northwest; TWA

Written by Lester Anderson

There are many people (often politicians) who seek forgiveness for past actions calling them “youthful indiscretions.” I seek such absolution for my activities starting in the 1960’s, not for sex or drugs (or rock and roll), but because my youthful indiscretion is that, whenever I could, I would take (I prefer “borrow” to steal) the emergency card from an airplane.

Many of the cards in this image collection are from aircraft I flew. But back in the more innocent 60’s, as a teenager interested in airplanes, you could go to a gate and ask the gate agent if you could board the aircraft to “take a look around.” Permission was usually granted. Pan Am was the most careful—they let you on board but gave you a protective covering for your shoes so you would not get their carpeting dirty. There were also “airport days” at Newark Airport where, on a weekend Saturday, families could go onboard aircraft and tour them because in that decade not a lot of people traveled on airplanes for pleasure. It was often a mainly business travel experience.

This is the first of a series of articles which display the cards. I hope you enjoy them.

NOTE: For those of you younger than I am (and many probably are), note that in the days of propeller powered aircraft, and a few early jets, the over wing exits did not have a slide—they had a rope  The emergency card told you where to find and how to release the rope so you could climb down.  And unlike today’s safety videos that explain how to put oxygen masks on children, there is no mention on how to get a child down the rope for an emergency exit!

Northeast

My first airplane flight was on a Northeast DC-6B. It had the kind of emergency card I treasured because it had the seating chart for the aircraft clearly displayed. Note that this card (like many others) were two sided, with English on the front and the identical information in Spanish on the back.

Mohawk

Since my home base was NYC and Newark was the closest airport I saw a lot of Mohawk activity.  Plus they had a “weekends unlimited” fare of $25 to take as many flights as you could cram into a weekend (which two friends and I did).

American

These were most probably from a weekend open house at Newark Airport.  American was a prominent carrier there and displayed many aircraft for those wonderful family walk through days.

 

Braniff

I did not fly on this Braniff airplane, but I “took Braniff to school” every day.  Each airline sold flight bags at the ticket counter at Newark, and the Braniff one was the ideal shape to fit school books plus a loose leaf notebook—so Braniff served me well to carry books through junior and senior high (and it fit in the school locker nicely).

 

Northwest

My first trip to Newark Airport was in 1961 to pick up my grandmother who flew in from Minneapolis on a Northwest Orient DC-7C.  She lived in Brainerd, so she bought her ticket at the North Central ticket counter in the Brainerd airport.  I have the ticket passenger coupon and that flight cost her $53.95 plus tax. The seat card came later from asking to tour the plane at the gate.

Another frequent sight at Newark was the Northwest Electra.  This was the time just after the upgrade of the Electra to fix the whirl-mode accident problem.  Northwest called the aircraft Electra II.  Eastern called them the Super Electra. (That card is the next article)

TWA

An aircraft I actually flew was a TWA 749 which had a combined seat card with the Super-G Constellation.

 

I hope you enjoyed either bringing back old memories or creating new ones with these cards.
Lester Anderson