From the kitsch to the classic, Charles Phoenix loves to celebrate mid-century design and culture. His massive collection of other peoples old slides from the 40s, 50s & 60s inspire his retro slide shows, Slide of the Week e-mail and coffee table books. His vintage school bus field trips explore extraordinary out-of-the-way attractions, displays and demonstrations.
Slide of the Week!
Septembre 27th, 2008
TWA Constellation, Somewhere, USA, 1956
A lady with a left armful, including a fancy fur coat, raises a camera as passengers board the fastest most luxurious passenger plane flying the friendly skies.
Until the first jet propelled passenger plane departed from San Francisco International Airport in March of 1959 the Constellation was the standard of the commercial airline industry. With its instantly recognizable banana-like fuselage and triple-tails it was also the most distinctive. It flew at twenty thousand feet and carried fifty passengers.
Just after Lockeed began manufacturing the Constellation in Burbank, California in 1944 it became the first commercial airliner to fly coast-to-coast non-stop. Howard Hughes made the historic flight in a record six hours and fifty-seven minutes. A year later the Connie, as it was affectionately known, began service for TWA. In 1955 the bigger faster Super-Constellation was the first plane to fly non-stop from California to Europe. In 1958, after 856 Constellations were built, production was discontinued to make way for the jet-age. The last TWA passenger flight was in March of 1967.
Today about fifty Constellations exist around the world in various states of disrepair. Only three are believed to be in flying condition. Only one of those three has the original TWA paint scheme that you see here in this slide. And it is beside that very plane, on display in a hangar at the Airline Museum in Kansas City, Missouri, that I will have a retro slide show and host a vintage TWA stewardess fashion show next Saturday night, October 4th.
Heres to the Constellation, vintage TWA Stewardess uniforms and YOU!
For more "Slides of the Week", click here!
