I was 3, flying with my parents from home near SFO to albany to visit the grandparents. Photos document the fact I was dressed up (with gloves and a hat, this was 1962)and was proudly wearing a pin of wings! I'm told I walked the aisles, "helping" the FA's throughout the flight. I don't remember much of that one, but do recall the flight when we moved to DC the next year.
2 reasons: 1. ALL the bags were lost/stolen enroute to Dulles so we arrived at our new home without a thing...my parents didn't trust that"new airport" for years.
2. The FA's took me up to meet the captain after I loudly proclaimed "where's the silver lining???" when we flew through a cloud!
No one did ever answer that question....

1988 on a non-stop from LAX - London (don't remember if it was Heathrow or Gatwick) in the nose of a 747. I was travelling BA with a College choir. There was also a high school group; those kids got so drunk that they were actually laying all over the floor.

Actually, what I remember most was the flight from LAX to FAT. In a PSA jet, I remember being able to see the wing. That was unusual since I couldn't see the wing on the 747 no matter how hard I tried.

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The only difference between ordinary service and extraordinary service is a little EXTRA.

-- Bob

1963, JFK-LAS, TWA (Constellation, I guess, maybe it was a 707; I was too young to notice these things).

Maybe if I write TWA they will give me miles.

First flight was MKE/LAX on a UA propeller-driven bird. It was 1954, and mom and I were going to visit Aunt Annabelle and do Disneyland to celebrate my 6th birthday. This was February, mind you, so we left Milwaukee's 20 degrees and blowing snow to arrive to palm trees gently waving in the sunshine-soaked land of paradise. I'm smiling broadly on every picture that was taken on that trip, and I wondered why anyone in their right mind wouldn't dump Milwaukee for southern California's sun and surf. Matter of fact, I still wonder that same thing. Even more so when we visit wife's kissy-face relatives in MKE!

I still find taking off one of the most exhilarating feelings in the world.

Wow! Am I the only oldy on here who hasn't flown as a child? To this day my parents have still never flown...well my first flight was last year at age (ahem thirty something) although I've always wanted to travel beit plane or auto, and it was a doosy -10 1/2 hours to hawaii- I loved every minute of it though even landing on a runway where it looks as though your going straight in the water!!! Hawaii truly is a paradise though

My first flight was in 1966 at age six on board a Pan Am 707 from SFO to TYO with a tech stop in ANC. The flight was 12 hours but did not seem that long because I was thrilled from begnning to end. There was no "entertainment" on board this plane due to the Japanese govt. forbidding PA to show movies because, JAL, its flag carrier, did not then have the service. There were TV sets for these movies, however, in the overhead rack.

The "stewardesses" managed to put four children at ease and entertained us for several hours. I was put to work by the very pretty and charming flight attendants , passing out menus.

The food was catered by Maxim's of Paris. Passengers were all polite and well-dressed, unlike today. It was the first of many flights but one that shall always be cherished.

All the best

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Jonathan

[This message has been edited by PACLipper (edited 07-14-2000).]

The first flight I remember was actually my second or third leg of a trip to Alitak, Alaska on Kodiak Island. It was June 1976 and I was six years old. To this day I remember landing in the water in that Grummen Goose. I love those planes.

I regret not flying somewhere in 1991, if I had I would have had an unbroken streak of flying from 1976 to the present.

The first (commercial) flight I remember clearly was in the mid 50's. I flew from Moline to Chicago and then on from Chicago to West Palm Beach.

I loved being waited on and fussed over (although I do recall that I thought lunch wasn't anywhere near as fancy as lunch at the Palmer House or on the Sky Chief) and I was so very proud of myself because I wore a brand new bright red suit with a coat to match.

I was also terribly disappointed to discover upon landing that Orchard Airport was not a lovely garden spot (like my previous private crop duster flights had been) but just a bunch of concrete.

I'm told that my father took me to a county fair, and we went up in a biplane; have no recollection but a couple of shots of farmland beneath us (this in Kentucky or Ohio).

In mid-1955 we moved from Cincy to DC. Father drove the Studebaker,and my mother took me and my infant sister on a DC6 (?) ... I don't recall the configuration of the a/c or even what airline we flew, but I think I can be pardoned as I was only 3 years old. My first time staying up after dark (it was an evening flight), my first taste of fried chicken. A pretty good meal, chicken leg and thigh, mash, some veg I forget, and fruit cocktail. Unfortunately over the Appalachians that night we got mountain effect, and I can still recall the taste of the chicken and fruit cocktail both ways (the second time much more vividly). Did get most of it into the barf bag, though. For many years afterwards, minds working as they do, I had this phobia not of flying or of airplanes but of fruit cocktail, especially the half a maraschino cherry they used to garnish it with.Thus started a lifetime of heightened awareness of airplane food.

JFK-Heathrow in 1966 or 67 with my mom & grandmother, when I was about 8.

It was TWA (presumably a 707), it was night & the plane developed mechanical trouble on the tarmac ... for at least a couple of hours, we watched out the window as workers wandered around the plane (I very clearly remember the relentlessly flashing amber light of their truck). My mom got increasingly irritated, and announced we should've flown BOAC instead. She said she'd never take TWA again (not a bad policy, really).

Mine was almost 9 years ago with Canadian Airlines CP008 from HKG-YYZ, with a stop in YVR. Even today, I still remember every little details of this unforgettable first flight of my life!

1965: Five years old; FBU (Oslos airport at that time)- JFK with Icelandair on an old Dc6, stop of five hours in Keflavik which at that time was mainly a huge US Air Force base.
Got to sit in the cockpit in the co-pilot's seat! (Sorry, don't remember the service or menu..)

[This message has been edited by The Viking (edited 08-13-2000).]

1972, 8 years old, ORD-JFK-FCO out, ATH-YUL-ORD back.

Going east: We were supposed to fly ORD-FCO on Alitalia but there was an airline strike, so at 4am my mom was on the phone with the travel agent getting rebooked. We fly to JFK, wander around for four hours, and get on the IAD-like bus thingie to take us to our plane. I didn't catch what was happening and asked my mom "this plane isn't as nice as the last one - why can't we all sit down?" I still remember waking up over Ireland as the sun came up.

Going west: my mom got a case of food poisoning and we left two days early. Her cousin was a TA, and got us a comped upgrade to F on Olympic. Well, we get to the airport, and my dad (still a Greek citizen at the time) gets detained by immigration. Turns out somebody else with his name was wanted for draft evasion, and it took about two hours for him to convince them that it wasn't him..... Flight was full, so I didn't have a seat until YUL! A lap-8-year-old! I sat on the floor behind my parents for a while, and on one of the jump seats for a while. Then we got to YUL and we were the only ones continuing in F to ORD. Don't recall the plane type, but it was four rows of 2-2-2 in F with no upper deck.

After that, it was another six or seven years until I flew again, in a group of 20 kids in the center of an DL L-1011 on ORD-ATL.

Mine was a flight, no idea what airline, from JFK to ORD. I was part of a group of High School students selected to go the an international youth conference on the atom. I was excited until I got on the plane, then TERRIFIED All I really remember is my grandmother, asking at the gate if, if we paid more money, I cold get on a bigger plane! She should have seen the 2 seater I ended up on in Borneo in my post-college wanderings!

I was 6-years old and in first-grade in April of 1983. We flew from BDL to MCO on Eastern Airlines for a week at Disney World, Epcot and SeaWorld!