I thought it might be fun to post some more Convair promotional videos. Especially since these show some nice vintage livery from airlines back in the day.
Bonus: “The Convair Liner”, another promo film. This one covers the 240, 340, 440, and even the military variants.
I really like seeing the old Braniff paint jobs. I never flew Braniff, but I have sort of a sentimental fondness for them after reading Splash of Colors, John Nance’s history of the airline.
There’s a story in Nance’s book that I like: Braniff’s mechanics were on strike, and marching the picket line when a thunderstorm hit. Tom Braniff saw that the mechanics were getting wet, so he told one of his people to get some rainsuits, coffee, and doughnuts and take them to the guys on the picket line.
You know, the history of aviation wasn’t all Pan Am and Boeing. There were other companies involved.
Like Delta. And Convair, a division of General Dynamics (as of 1953).
“Introduction to a Champion”, a Delta/Convair promotional film for the then-new Convair 880 jet. The 880, in theory, was supposed to be a competitor to the 707 and DC-8 by being smaller and faster.
The film certainly makes the 880 look comfortable, in that sort of idealized vintage 1960s air travel kind of way. They even manage to make airline food look almost appetizing. It also places great emphasis on the alleged speed of the 880.
Unfortunately, it was not entirely successful. Convair made 65 of them from 1959 to 1962. Delta ran 17 of them between 1960 and 1974. As far as I can tell, there are no currently operational 880s, though there is one in storage somewhere in California. Most of the others have been chopped up and parts put on display (or, in one case, used in a lodge in South Africa).
There is one surviving intact (but not airworthy) example that I know of that is on display. You may even have seen it, which leads me to…
Bonus video: this is a little below my usual standards of quality, but short. “Lisa Marie: The History Tour 1960 – 2015”. You see, Elvis bought one of Delta’s retired Convair 880s in 1975 for $250,000. He then spent a truckload of money having it extensively customized:
(Probably true story, at least according to a couple of sources: Elvis originally wanted to buy a 707, and had even put down a deposit on one. He probably would have been happier long term with that plane – or at least it would have been easier to find parts, I suspect – but the 707 he put money down on was Robert Vesco‘s, and when the fecal matter of Vesco’s empire impacted the rotating blades of the Federal impeller, that deal fell apart. I don’t know if Elvis got his money back or not: I suspect the IRS or the SEC immediately confiscated it from Vesco’s people, and they didn’t have it to give back. But I digress.)
There’s some good shots in here of the “Lisa Marie”‘s interior, which I guess is pretty much what you’d expect from a plane owned by Elvis.
I haven’t put up any Canadian content (CanCon) in a while, so let’s fix that today. Plus: explosives!
“Handle With Care”, a 1943 documentary about TNT production during the war.
Bonus video #1: “Birth of a Giant”. From 1957, about the construction of the Canadair Argus, a massive Canadian built anti-submarine aircraft.
Bonus video #2: This is a little longer, but at least one reader might enjoy it: “Challenger: An Industrial Romance”, about the design and construction of the Canadair Challenger executive jet. This is also from 1980, so at least you’ve got color. Plus, you know, I kind of like the National Film Board of Canada.
Police videos have been kind of skimpy recently because they haven’t been popping up in my YouTube recommendations. If I narrow the topics down to just “law enforcement”, I get…nothing but “Live PD” clips. Now, I have nothing against “Live PD”: I don’t watch it, because we don’t have cable, but I’ll certainly sit through a YouTube clip. In a private window in my browser, not signed in to YouTube, so why are these clips showing up in my recs? And if people want to watch “Live PD” clips, you all know where to find them, right?
One thing I learned from that book: in addition to the CHP Newhall training film, the LA County Sheriff’s Department made their own training film. I think you are better served watching the CHP film first, as the quality of the transfer on this one isn’t that great, and I have questions about the accuracy of LACSD’s film. In the interest of the historical record, however, here it is:
Totally unrelated: ever wonder about astronaut weightlessness training in the days before the “Vomit Comet”? Yeah, I do, too. Wikipedia says that the Mercury astronauts trained in a C-131. But this purports to be vintage film of Glenn, Grissom, and Shepherd training in an F-100F (not all three at the same time, obviously):
And speaking of the F-100: “TAC On Target”, from 1962, which features various aircraft in action (including the F-100, F-104, F-105, and F-4C).
I’ll just note: for those of you who work for, or deal with, a certain large company in the computer networking area (hi, Borepatch!) “TAC On Target” may have an entirely different connotation for you.
I feel like I’m in a transition between Memorial Day observance and getting back to (what passes for) normal.
So here’s some military aviation videos that I think are interesting. First off, this is apparently a promo film for Northrop’s YB-49, aka “the Flying Wing”.
Bonus video #1: “Instrument Flight”. In the T-38-A Talon.
I’ve always been fond of the T-38. If I had the money and ability to fly jets, I’d love to own and fly my own T-38. (Wikipedia says there are seven privately owned ones in the US.)
Bonus video #2, just because I’m feeling extra geeky: a training film about the F-111’s terrain following radar.
Pan Am was founded in 1927. By an obscure mathematical property known as addition, this would mean that 1977 was their 50th anniversary.
So they decided to do something special. Pan Am flew a 747-SP1, the “Clipper New Horizons” around the world from San Francisco…
…over the North and South Pole. The flight took 54 hours, 7 minutes, and 12 seconds.
Here’s a Pan Am promo film/documentary about the flight.
Bonus video #1: would you like to watch a reasonably attractive blonde in a Boeing promo film for the 747? Then “Assignment 747” is for you!
Bonus video #2: If you want something with a little bit more substance, “The New Era: Flight Testing the 747 Superjet”. Personally, I think I’d watch this one before I watched the one with the blonde, but that’s just the kind of hairball I am.
Would you believe the Central Intelligence Agency has a YouTube channel? Probably.
Would you believe the (even more secretive) National Reconnaissance Office has one? Maybe.
A couple of short ones today, and a longer one:
“Development of CORONA, The World’s First Reconnaissance Satellite”. This is on the CIA’s channel, but was apparently prepared by the NRO. I’ve touched on CORONA before, but this is a more recent, better quality, and declassified look.
Bonus video #1: From the NRO itself: “The Last Bucket Catch”, about the film retrieval from CORONA. As you may recall from the previous CORONA video, they were basically snatching containers of undeveloped film out of the air.
Bonus video #2: Because we all love it, “Angels in Paradise: The Development of the U-2 at Area 51”. From the CIA in 1960: according to the YouTube notes, “This video was made for family members of the people working on the Angel reconnaissance plane to explain the workers’ long absences from home.”
There are times when I just can’t believe this stuff is out there…
She was married twice: to John Y. Brown Jr., former Governor of Kentucky, and Robert Evans.
Captain Jenn Casey, Royal Canadian Air Force. She was a public affairs officer with the Snowbirds demonstration team: the plane she was in crashed during a demo in Kamloops yesterday. The pilot, Captain Richard MacDougall, ejected but suffered serious injuries.
Borepatch and ASM826, because this is related to some things they’ve been posting
and RoadRich, because planes. Also, tonight is “12 O’Clock High” night.
“The Story of Willow Run”, from FoMoCo. Willow Run was where Ford built the B-24. They initially were turning out parts that Consolidated and Douglas put together, but that turned out to be troublesome. In October of 1941 Willow Run got permission to build complete planes, and ran the line until May 1945. At peak, the line was turning out a finished bomber every 55 minutes.
Bonus video: unrelated to the above, but related to something earlier in the week. From 1937: “Boulder Dam”, a film from the US Archives about the construction of the dam that later became known as “Hoover Dam”.
The Thunderbirds did a flyover of Austin and San Antonio yesterday.
I shot this video from our back porch. I wasn’t sure which direction they’d be coming from or what altitude they would be out, so I erred on the side of shooting at a wider angle.
One of the things I feel lucky about in my life: I visited Las Vegas before 9/11. Which means Mike the Musicologist and I were lucky enough to tour the Thunderbirds museum before it was closed off to anyone without a DoD ID. We were also lucky enough to be able to take the Hard Hat Tour of Hoover Dam. I need to dig out my hard hat from storage.
(I still have never actually seen the Thunderbirds at an air show. The Blue Angels, yes, when I was really young.)
Bonus video, just for the heck of it: “Odyssey 1977”, video of the F-18 prototype at the Paris Air Show that year.
We’re all looking forward to travel again, right? Flying on luxurious airliners, with plenty of legroom, free (and excellent) meals, and just a few short hours to an exotic destination like Hawaii.
(This is also targeted content for great and good FOTB RoadRich and the 1940 Air Terminal Museum, who I haven’t done anything for in a couple of weeks, at least.)
We’ll get there. But first, your coffee break historical bite: “Sentinel in the Sky”, from 1955. A Pan Am promotional film about radar: how it works, and how Pan Am plans to use it in their aircraft.
Bonus video #1, which is a little longer: “Holiday in Hawaii”, from an airline that still exists (for now). This is from sometime in the 1950s: a promotional film for United Airlines, the DC-7, and travel to Hawaii. As the YouTube notes say, this is a relic of a time before jet travel made going to Hawaii fast, easy, and (I guess relatively) affordable.
Bonus video #2: giving equal time to the (now defunct) competition, “Wings to Hawaii”. A video on a similar theme, but this time from Pan Am. You know, the folks with radar?