On Sun, 24 Nov 2002 19:01:21 +1100, Christian Gerzner
<[log in to unmask]> wrote:

>Feeesh wrote:
>
>> In spite of the extremely short connecting time at GUAM (the plane to
>> Honolulu was already boarding when our plane arrived), and almost as
>> short connections in Honolulu and Houston, and a non-stop flight from
>> GUM to HNL (instead of the 5-stop island-hopper when we came), we
>> didn't get back to Hotlanta (whose 40 deg F or 4 deg C was anything
>> but HOT, especially with a wind-chill factor) until 11:15 on Nov 22
>> (that's two days and 10,507 flying miles later, not counting the
>> Sydney/Cairns miles).
>
>In the mid to late fifties I used to regularly commute from England to
>Ceylon (Sri Lanka today) for the summer holidays.
>
>IIRC it used to take about four days, including an "overnighter" in
>Karachi at the local "guesthouses" of the Airlines.

Ah, but that's the difference between actual FLYING time/distance and
the "travel time" to cover it.  We still have many routes of
inevitable delays due to flight schedules.

It wasn't until about 2000 that one could not fly to Palau (through
Honolulu and Guam) without spending a night a Guam!  Air Mike, which
has the monopoly of that route, made sure they helped the Guam
economy by having flights to Palau (and elsewhere) depart Guam
an hour or more before the flight from Honolulu was scheduled to
arrive!  Been thar.  Done dat.  On our first Palau trip, we had to
spend THREE nights (one in Guam and two in Palau) before we could
get on the liveaboard because of the combination of flight schedules
and flight-day constraints.

So, right there was OUR four days to get to the Sun Dancer.  :-)

Elsewhere, we still have airlines like Tan Tasha and TACA (typically
flown by 'Merkins to Belize, Honduras, and some cities in Mexico,
where getting to the destination on the scheduled DAY is an exception
rather than the rule. :-)


> BOAC (Better On A Camel?) screwed it up bigtime.
>I arrived two days late (aged 14, my second flight ever,

Not much better today for us to dive in the Red Sea!  I had signed up
for a charter of some Peter Hughbes liveaboard boat (Excel??) to dive
both the Northern AND Southern part of the Red Sea only a couple years
ago.  The SCHEDULED flight had some kind of "stay over in Cairo"
constraints, followed by bus (or camel <G>) rides for hours to get to
the place to board the liveaboard.  Fortunately (or unfortunately as
the case may be) the charter was canceled because only two people
signed up (of which I was one).  That liveaboard did not stay in
business long.


>This overnighter was necessary because the "trudge" from Bahrain to
>Karachi was nine hours and the worst stage of the trip. I know it
>well, I did it four times at least. It was deemed that the two-odd
>days that it took to get to Karachi from London was as much as the
>traveller could bear.

If you want to talk about "ancient travel", it took me 15 days to go
from Hong Kong to New York on my first arrival to the USA cuz my
parents couldn't afford to buy me plane tickets.  :-)  So, I was on SS
President Wilson (my first boat ride) from HK to San Francisco (which
was also the first time I got seasick, right before it arrived San
Francisco :-)), followed by a train ride from SF to NYC, which took
about three days.  :-))


>It wasn't the longest in kilometres but it far surpassed what we do
>nowadays in time, especially if you take into account the rattly,
>drony, vibrating planes of that era. Most especially those vibrations.
>If you've never been in a traditional piston engined aircraft you've
>no idea (and are lucky for it).

My very first plane ride was in the mid-60's, on a plane which a
colleague who about $3000 USD (less than a good car) for it -- not the
plane ride, but for the plane ITSELF!  :-)

>Then again, when I see our local Lockheed Super Constellation (which
>was my flying platform in those days), whether on the apron or in the
>air, I exult and there are at least a couple of people on this list
>who've seen that.
>
>I gotta get myself organised for another flight aboard that thing.
>Just for the sheer HISTORY of it.

I look to the future myself -- when the ticket of a flight to Mars is
inexpensive enough.  :-)  But I dread the thought (I learned from my
visit to the NASA Space Center in Huntsville, Alabama, with Sue and
Viv, curtesy of tickies by Mike Wallace) of drinking re-cycled piss
(which nobody in the audience was brave enough to sample in the on-
stage demo).  :-)))

Live goes on ... and on ...  :^)

I'll make a note to bring Strike a bottle of re-cycled Phyco-Plonk-
Moonshine piss!

-- Bob,