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Geoffrey Thomas
13 May, 2022
Glamour is the best word, to sum up, the jet engine which spawned the jet set.
That's not the word the engineers would use - they would talk about engine core and exhaust gas temperatures with a twinkle in their eye.
But for the public, a jet aircraft was glamour.
It was Peter Stuyvesant cigarettes, Paris, Rome, New York and London.
And the passengers?
The Beatles, presidents and movie stars - the jet engine spawned the jet set.
Ronald Reagan ordered his favorite sauce from Los Angeles to be flown to London by jet, when performing in the West End.
SEE the podcast: Flight Safety Detectives dissect the Netflix doco “Downfall”.READ: Boeing will bounce back says world’s largest leasing companyREAD: How the Airbus A350 went from defeat to victoryREAD: Can the giant AN-225 fly again?
Anybody who was anybody flew on a jet. It was the thing to do. Ship travel as a form of transport collapsed overnight when regular jet services were introduced in 1959.
The 707 inspired the term jet set, penned by famous US syndicated gossip columnist, the late Igor Cassini, to describe the global movements of those who turned their backs on ocean liners for the stratosphere.
It was so dominant it carved a place in popular culture.
The 707 was the inspiration for songs by artists such as Roger Miller, as well as the movie Boeing Boeing, about the problems of a playboy juggling affairs with three flight attendants with the greatly increased speed of the 707.
Movie poster of Boeing Boeing avialable from Movieposter.com
Advertisements featuring that speed and vibration-free virtues of 707 jet travel abounded.
One Boeing advertisement touted that the speed of the 707 wouldn’t allow time to knit a sweater, while another directed at the US market to France suggested there wasn’t enough time to brush up on your French on the quick trip across the North Atlantic.
Another headlined: “The coin, the watch, and the flower”, (below) maintained that the 707 was so smooth, quiet and fast that you could stand a coin on edge, hear a watch ticking and the corsage that madame purchased would still be fresh after a five-hour flight.
Airlines and passengers alike were swept up in the hype.
New racy uniforms for flight attendants abounded.
Possibly the most bizarre was that of US airline Braniff which created a special Perspex dome for the flight attendant to wear so that her hairstyle would not get blown around as she walked across the tarmac to the aircraft.
Glamour is the best word, to sum up, the jet engine which spawned the jet set.
That's not the word the engineers would use - they would talk about engine core and exhaust gas temperatures with a twinkle in their eye.
But for the public, a jet aircraft was glamour.
It was Peter Stuyvesant cigarettes, Paris, Rome, New York and London.
And the passengers?
The Beatles, presidents and movie stars - the jet engine spawned the jet set.
Ronald Reagan ordered his favorite sauce from Los Angeles to be flown to London by jet, when performing in the West End.
SEE the podcast: Flight Safety Detectives dissect the Netflix doco “Downfall”.READ: Boeing will bounce back says world’s largest leasing companyREAD: How the Airbus A350 went from defeat to victoryREAD: Can the giant AN-225 fly again?
Anybody who was anybody flew on a jet. It was the thing to do. Ship travel as a form of transport collapsed overnight when regular jet services were introduced in 1959.
The 707 inspired the term jet set, penned by famous US syndicated gossip columnist, the late Igor Cassini, to describe the global movements of those who turned their backs on ocean liners for the stratosphere.
It was so dominant it carved a place in popular culture.
The 707 was the inspiration for songs by artists such as Roger Miller, as well as the movie Boeing Boeing, about the problems of a playboy juggling affairs with three flight attendants with the greatly increased speed of the 707.
Movie poster of Boeing Boeing avialable from Movieposter.com
Advertisements featuring that speed and vibration-free virtues of 707 jet travel abounded.
One Boeing advertisement touted that the speed of the 707 wouldn’t allow time to knit a sweater, while another directed at the US market to France suggested there wasn’t enough time to brush up on your French on the quick trip across the North Atlantic.
Another headlined: “The coin, the watch, and the flower”, (below) maintained that the 707 was so smooth, quiet and fast that you could stand a coin on edge, hear a watch ticking and the corsage that madame purchased would still be fresh after a five-hour flight.
Airlines and passengers alike were swept up in the hype.
New racy uniforms for flight attendants abounded.
Possibly the most bizarre was that of US airline Braniff which created a special Perspex dome for the flight attendant to wear so that her hairstyle would not get blown around as she walked across the tarmac to the aircraft.
And the passengers?
The Beatles, presidents and movie stars - the jet engine spawned the jet set.
Ronald Reagan ordered his favorite sauce from Los Angeles to be flown to London by jet, when performing in the West End.
SEE the podcast: Flight Safety Detectives dissect the Netflix doco “Downfall”.
READ: Boeing will bounce back says world’s largest leasing company
READ: How the Airbus A350 went from defeat to victory
READ: Can the giant AN-225 fly again?
Anybody who was anybody flew on a jet. It was the thing to do. Ship travel as a form of transport collapsed overnight when regular jet services were introduced in 1959.
The 707 inspired the term jet set, penned by famous US syndicated gossip columnist, the late Igor Cassini, to describe the global movements of those who turned their backs on ocean liners for the stratosphere.
It was so dominant it carved a place in popular culture.
The 707 was the inspiration for songs by artists such as Roger Miller, as well as the movie Boeing Boeing, about the problems of a playboy juggling affairs with three flight attendants with the greatly increased speed of the 707.
Another headlined: “The coin, the watch, and the flower”, (below) maintained that the 707 was so smooth, quiet and fast that you could stand a coin on edge, hear a watch ticking and the corsage that madame purchased would still be fresh after a five-hour flight.
Airlines and passengers alike were swept up in the hype.
New racy uniforms for flight attendants abounded.
Possibly the most bizarre was that of US airline Braniff which created a special Perspex dome for the flight attendant to wear so that her hairstyle would not get blown around as she walked across the tarmac to the aircraft.
And the passengers?
The Beatles, presidents and movie stars - the jet engine spawned the jet set.
Ronald Reagan ordered his favorite sauce from Los Angeles to be flown to London by jet, when performing in the West End.
Another headlined: “The coin, the watch, and the flower”, (below) maintained that the 707 was so smooth, quiet and fast that you could stand a coin on edge, hear a watch ticking and the corsage that madame purchased would still be fresh after a five-hour flight.
Airlines and passengers alike were swept up in the hype.
New racy uniforms for flight attendants abounded.
Possibly the most bizarre was that of US airline Braniff which created a special Perspex dome for the flight attendant to wear so that her hairstyle would not get blown around as she walked across the tarmac to the aircraft.
