[NiInJa]

I was born in 1987, the first flight I took was in 2012 from Pune to Bengaluru

Even before that flight, I did a google search on flight safety knowing very well that it is one of the safest mode of transportation.

Can any senior bhpian describe how it would feel flying in the 70s and 80s (in Indian context) ?
Was there an element of fear back then ?

[DigitalOne]

I am planning a vacation to Turkiye in Oct. I have to travel from Chennai but will be returning back to Bengaluru.

For the onward journey, I am planning to book one of below schedule:

Both of the these, as can be seen, have a layover in Delhi. The Delhi-Istanbul leg is the same flight.



In these cases, will it be through check-in (till Istanbul) or will I have to collect it in Delhi and check it in again for the Del-Istanbul leg? Since there is a change of terminal in Delhi (from T2 to T3), how easy is it to transfer terminals in Delhi (with or without baggage)?

ps - The prices shown are for 2 people on Amazon.

[itwasntme]

Originally Posted by DigitalOne

I
In these cases, will it be through check-in (till Istanbul) or will I have to collect it in Delhi and check it in again for the Del-Istanbul leg?.

Will ordinarily be through checked in but best to call them and specifically check but the general 6E rules are:

https://www.goindigo.in/baggage/baggage-transfer.html

Extract:
Above can only be availed by those passengers who have booked a valid connection sold by IndiGo as a connecting flight in one single PNR, and is not applicable for self-created connections or connections booked as multi-city.

[Sridhar C E]

Originally Posted by NiInJa

Can any senior bhpian describe how it would feel flying in the 70s and 80s (in Indian context) ?
Was there an element of fear back then ?

I took my first flight as a 10 year old, accompanied by my father. It was a Viscount aircraft, Indian Airlines flight from Bombay to Hyderabad. Incidentally, my father and I were going to pick up our very first car, a beautifully maintained, pre-loved Fiat 1100D.

Growing up in the 70s and 80s it was mainly the rich or the corporate flyers who would fly. I don't recall any sense of fear or uncertainty those days, despite the accidents that happened. I guess it was the relative safety of air travel compared to road or rail. Back then, boarding and deplaning was a slow, leisurely affair and as a teenager I used to gawk at the marvelous flying machines and the gleaming airports.
As I started flying for work sometime in the mid eighties, the gulf boom meant more and more people were flying.

I recall in incident aboard a plane that had just landed in Bombay and taxied to its parking. Many people got up, jostling to make way to the exit doors. Suddenly, I heard a voice say, " Why are people so impatient to leave the plane all at the same time? After all, you have to wait for the ramp to be brought up, the bus to be ready and your luggage to be retrieved!" The speaker was none other than the famous thespian Ashok Kumar, who was travelling in the same flight (maybe there was no business class). To this day, I remember this incident when I see everyone getting up from a still taxiing aircraft.

And to end this post do you know that the prefix, "VT" in an aircraft's registration for Indian planes stands for "Viceroy's Territory"?

[Jeroen]

Originally Posted by NiInJa

Can any senior bhpian describe how it would feel flying in the 70s and 80s (in Indian context) ?
Was there an element of fear back then ?

I can’t describe it from an Indian context. I first flew at the age of about 10. For my birthday I got to go on a Martinair Dakota which flew over Amsterdam, the Netherlands. That was late 60’s. From the late 70s I have been flying a lot, initially all for the various jobs I had. Taking an aircraft just to go on holiday would take a while longer. As mentioned flying was not for everyone.
The big differences: No security checks, you could bring almost anything onto a plane. Smoking was still allowed aboard planes!

It was afar more relaxed affair than these days. Airports were much smaller. No jetties. You would always board by climbing stairs.

Cockpit doors were open and many airlines would encourage their passenger to visit the cockpit during long haul flights. Cockpits, certainly planes for long haul would all have a flight engineer too.some older planes might require a fourth cockpit crew member, a navigator.

Planes were a lot noisier in those days as well.

I can’t remember if there was any fear. I don’t think so. Flying was still for the happy few and in general it was considered to be an exiting new experience for most people.

We lived in Amstelveen, a suburb of Amsterdam. The original Schiphol, Amsterdam Airport was about 5-6 km on the bicycle from us. Out next door neighbour was a KLM pilot. He used to take his son Paul, who was my beste mate and me to visit the KLM hangar. No real security. He would rock up to the KLM fascility have a little chat with the guard and we were allowed in. Climbing all over DC8s!

Schiphol moved to a new location, its current one. That is also when it adopted the name Amsterdam Airport. We used to visit frequently. It was an amazing place. All new and shiny, brightly lit. It had those automatic opening entrance/exit doors. You walk towards them and “swoosh” it would open it. Unbelievable! We ran around for days playing the opening sequence of “Get Smart”. Not sure if that series showed in India.Anybody that has seen the series will know what I am on about.

I remember the first 747 Jumbo jet landing at Amsterdam airport. The airport was packed, all the roads were blocked with traffic. It was a huge thing. People travelled from all over the Netherlands to see this first Jumbo! Not sure, but I think it was a Panam plane. It would be some years before KLM brought its own 747 to Amsterdam Airport.

It was also the days that at Amsterdam airport you could watch the planes and the terminal from long wide walkways on top of each and every pier! It even had little shops on it selling souvenirs, toy planes, coffee and so on. So plane watching in those days was a lot more fun. You could get much nearer to just about any plane parked near a terminal building. You could also get much closer to the runways.

A couple of decades later the first Concorde landed at Amsterdam airport. No crowd, just some extra plane spotters. And lots of people complaining about the noise.

Very different times.

Jeroen

[Jeroen]

Originally Posted by arijitkanrar

All nations were assigned a range of radio code prefixes.

Correct, and in most cases there is virtually no correlation between the country name and the designated prefixes. Here in the Netherlands our prefix is PH.

By the way, the official radio calling name is PH9422. Boats, planes all follow the same convention.

We here in the Netherlands like to think PH stands for Pretty Holland of course.

Jeroen

[fhdowntheline]

Originally Posted by NiInJa

Can any senior bhpian describe how it would feel flying in the 70s and 80s (in Indian context) ?
Was there an element of fear back then ?

First flew as a 5 year old back in 1979 from BOM to GOI in one of those B737s highlighted in the thread. Wonderful feeling, felt like clouds were pillows of cotton candy, not to mention the ubiquitous candy and cotton wool handed out to everyone, along with a scented face wipe , followed by a large (2x of present times) samosa during the cruise. I got to fly again a few years later, this time more extensively, A300 from BOM-DEL, B727-200 from DEL to KTM (Royal Nepal), KTM-Bhadrapur (BDP) on a DHC Twin Otter, and Bagdogra to Calcutta again in a B737.
Each of those flights was a revelation. The A300 felt as large as a house, we kids went back and forth all the time and also got a 5 min cockpit view en-route !! Also got to see a top Bollywood star (now LS member) also known for her classical dancing, she was in the first class. The Royal Nepal B727 flight was my first international trip technically ! And I still remember the scrumptious breakfast comprising of orange marmalade, croissant and the omelette with a side of tomato , to this day. Cant get any classier in economy than that. Again, got a sneak peak from the really tiny B727 flight deck, this time of the various Himalaya peaks. The DHC Twin Otter flight was an event for us kids (ordeal for adults) by itself, which I may have narrated in another thread. Then there were various opportunities to fly domestic mainly on the B737s and A300 up until the late 80s.

One thing I must say. I never felt that the cabins were tattered, badly maintained back in the days. Once you boarded ,there was always a beautiful aroma of the air freshener, the quiet "hiss" of the AC, and light classical or folk music playing in the background. The ambience was different, people were a bit more polished and courteous. And they dressed up to fly.

[itwasntme]

My first 737-200 flight was in the early 1990s on a somewhat battered Vayudoot, Alliance Air or Indian Airlines (just cannot remember!), between Kolkata and Bagdogra.

The few things I do remember:

1. Was sitting with a great view of the engine and almost panicked after a very hard landing at Bagdogra when the thrust reversers deployed. Being a more naive soul then, I was half-sure that the rear part of the engine was in the process of falling off! In fact an overhead bin panel fall off, but was nonchalantly slammed back into place by the crew;
2. Incredibly short flying time (relatively); had previously flown multiple times abroad and between domestic metros;
3. The pair of highly dominating and well-built stewardesses(!);
4. The incredibly noisy engines;
5. The unsettled ride, albeit to be fair it was pre-monsoons, and
6. The weird HF antenna strung between the mid-fuselage section and the vertical stabilizer.

https://youtu.be/V5LHm0anr9M?feature=shared

[V.Narayan]

Originally Posted by NiInJa

Can any senior bhpian describe how it would feel flying in the 70s and 80s (in Indian context) ?
Was there an element of fear back then ?

My first flight was in the mid-1970s - an Indian Airlines A300B2, Bombay -Delhi. I did not fly Air India, by choice, till 1999.

The aircraft were well maintained and clean for the times. The cabin crew could range from pleasant to sultry but they all had solid training in how to deal with an emergency - something I worry about the cast we have today in all our private airlines.

Delays were common despite low traffic volumes.

There was always a shortage of seats relative to demand. Hence, we had waitlists and desperate passengers trying to scramble around the wait list desk for a seat. The Indian Airlines staffer would call your name twice and if you were not there you lost your spot. Visiting the toilet at waitlist call out time could be dangerous.

The food was pretty much as it is today on the re-born Air India. In business class you also got served Amul icecream.

Pre-1984 security was liberal. Once as an 18-year old I saw my father off, at Bombay airport, on an international flight right up to the boarding gate - I kid you not. No pulling rank or anything. Just like that, spoke to the constable and that's it!

Crowds at airports were 1/10th of today. Almost everyone who flew was upper middle class or better.

But.....but.....

If the check-in counter clerk was in a foul mood you would get yelled at.

At small airports with shorter runways in the middle of summer the Avro HS748 and the first batch of Boeing 737-200s had difficulty taking off. I was posted in Jabalpur those days and more than once the Captain would ask for young male passengers travelling alone to off-board to lighten the aircraft and would then cheerfully take off without you. I was young and male and got unceremoniously off boarded at airports such as Raipur and Jabalpur more than once.

We also had the nuisance especially on flights to and from Delhi of the aircraft /flight kept waiting to accommodate some wretched political VIP.

[am1m]

Originally Posted by V.Narayan

Pre-1984 security was liberal. Once as an 18-year old I saw my father off, at Bombay airport, on an international flight right up to the boarding gate - I kid you not. No pulling rank or anything. Just like that, spoke to the constable and that's it!

Till the late 80s, you could enter the old Bangalore (HAL) airport and 'see people off'. Also, as kids, we'd cycle at night to the airport and climb the gate to watch planes take off. There was nothing/nobody to stop us jumping the gate and running out on the runway! (Though we never did, of course.)

Also remember entering the cockpit as a child on a flight, the pilot even let me fiddle with a couple of knobs! Simpler times.

Originally Posted by V.Narayan

I was posted in Jabalpur those days and...

I have a funny memory about Jabalpur airport. In 2008, I think they had 2 or maybe 4 flights a day. I had a morning flight and like a good boy I landed up 2 hours early to find...the airport was locked! After an hour, a guy on scooter came by and literally unlocked the tala and chain on the door to let me in! For a while it was just me and Yana Gupta (cardboard cut-out of the then KF Airlines brand ambassador/model) alone in the airport.

Also a few years later I remember this real hero-type at security, he'd wear his sunglasses inside the airport and insist on examining random pieces of baggage to remove stuff that Delhi airport security didn't think needed to be removed. I guess he had higher security standards!

[dragracer567]

Originally Posted by am1m

Till the late 80s, you could enter the old Bangalore (HAL) airport and 'see people off'. Also, as kids, we'd cycle at night to the airport and climb the gate to watch planes take off. There was nothing/nobody to stop us jumping the gate and running out on the runway! (Though we never did, of course.)

Also remember entering the cockpit as a child on a flight, the pilot even let me fiddle with a couple of knobs! Simpler times.

The pre-9/11 days! I remember at around 1999-2000, you could still sit at a gallery at Trivandrum airport and watch people disembark! And the funny thing was, you have to manually identify your checkin luggage before moving to the gate - this was as late as 2002! But this step was only in Trivandrum, Gulf airports had automated systems by then.

[DigitalOne]

Originally Posted by itwasntme

Will ordinarily be through checked in but best to call them and specifically check but the general 6E rules are:

Thanks!! It is a single PNR so it should get through checked in. On the return journey, the linked article says that it will not be through checked in, understandably so, because of customs clearance at the port of entry (Delhi in my case).

[Jeroen]

Originally Posted by dragracer567

! And the funny thing was, you have to manually identify your checkin luggage before moving to the gate - this was as late as 2002! But this step was only in Trivandrum, Gulf airports had automated systems by then.

Yes, I recall having to identify your checked in luggage. It happened at airports around the world for a few years. Triggered by the Lockerbie crash were a bomb brought down a 747.

These days all luggage gets X-rayed, checked for drugs and bombs automatically at all airports.

At some airports they used to line up the luggage next to the plane. Prior to boarding you would walk along all these suitcases and point out which one were yours. They would put it in the hold straight away.

I have witnessed more than once one or two checked items not being identified! Did not seem to concern anybody. So most likely a handling error rather than a bomb threat!

The cabin crew would usually make a call out and ask for passenger to re think if they had identified all their luggage correctly. Just about the only reason they would let an already boarded passenger of the plane!

Jeroen

[Hayek]

Interesting question . Think my first flight was when I was around 6 or 7 (would have been 1979 or 1980) by an Indian Airlines A300 to Bangalore. A year or so later, we flew the same route and then connected by an Avro to Coimbatore. The difference between the two aircrafts was stark. I loved the smooth ride of the A300 - my brother preferred the fact that he could see every bullock cart on every road between Bangalore and Coimbatore on the Avro. A few years later, flights started by Bombay to Sulur airforce base near Coimbatore using a 737 which was my first Boeing flight.

Those were really more innocent days - I have a picture of my grand parents, uncle, aunty and cousins on the Tarmac of Coimbatore airport where they came to see us off on one of our return flights to Bombay via Bangalore (must be 1981 or 1982 since my grand dad passed away that year).

The only time I feared aviation was in the late 1980s - when the Indian Airlines A320 fleet was grounded and replaced by a bunch of rattling Russian planes. Probably the most insane political decision ever made, and one that showed how weak Rajiv Gandhi was despite having gone past 400.

Air travel transformed early in my working days with the private airlines - East West (always somewhat disreputable), Damania (which transformed aviation serving beer onboard), Modiluft (which incidentally is the same legal entity as Spicejet and is India’s oldest surviving airline bar Air India), and of course Jet. Jet - man I still miss that airline - it was truly outstanding. Kingfisher from day one was clearly on an unsustainable path. Sahara seemed shady all along. Deccan was a ST bus in the sky. And then came Indigo, which was once again fantastic in the early days.

Most of my flights between 1998 (when I stopped flying Indian Airlines) and 2019 were on B737s. Now of course, it is only the A320 that dominates.

Have probably veered off topic - but couldn’t help reminiscing in response to the question posed a few posts ago. May be this question and some responses should move to a new thread.

[V.Narayan]

Originally Posted by Hayek

The only time I feared aviation was in the late 1980s - when the Indian Airlines A320 fleet was grounded and replaced by a bunch of rattling Russian planes. Probably the most insane political decision ever made, and one that showed how weak Rajiv Gandhi was despite having gone past 400.

Dear @Hayek, Wow. You brought up a piece of memory I had forgotten about altogether.

All,

Indian Airlines leased {I think} 3 Tupolev Tu-154B aircraft from Aeroflot/Uzbekistan in the 1989 to 1993 period. The lease rent was paid in INR as by 1989 we were rapidly going broke as a nation where forex goes. By Russian standards these were good aircraft, toughly built, noisy but not quite up to scratch where cabin safety goes - no drop down oxygen bags for example. From a structural and aerodynamic design point of view they were a solid design*. Its accident record was significantly worse than Western aircraft of the 1970s to 1990s era. A lot of that had to do with Russian flying styles rather than the aircraft. I guess that is of little solace to the passengers! They were IIRC flown by Russian/CIS States' flight crews and Indian cabin crews.

Similarly Air India operated on lease Ilyushin IL-62 long range airliners on the India-Moscow routes in the mid 1980s to early 1990s.

In 1973 India actually considered buying a large fleet of Tu-154s to be our mainstay on trunk routes and for Air India for the Middle East routes. A committee under the venerable JRD Tata was set up which strongly objected to this suggestion. He personally went to Mrs. Indira Gandhi to explain the basics of flight safety and the vastly differing protocols of flight and maintenance between Russian & Western designs and how life time costs would outweigh any short term benefits of rupee payments. Net result was we ordered the Airbus A300B2s in 1975. It was IIRC the only order Airbus won in 1975 but I might be wrong as I am writing purely from memory.

Sadly, I never got to travel in one of these.

*On 9th January 1993 a Tu-154B operating an Indian Airlines flight IC840 crash landed upside down at Delhi airport. The tail broke off but the fuselage remained intact enough for all 165 souls on board to have survived! Later the fuselage burnt to the ground


Representative photo of a Aeroflot Tupolev Tu-154B coming into land. It was built to operate from, literally, mud & gravel airstrips in a Siberian winter. It carried 180 passengers typically - similar to the Airbus A320 of today.


Interiors of a Tu-154B. In the early days enclosed cabin bins were not the norm all over. The culture of travelling with one carry-on bag had not quite evolved. You see it here in this Tupolev too. With the first wide body i.e. the Boeing 747 enclosed cabin racks came into fashion.


Ilyushin IL-62M, Soviet era long range airliner in Air India service. It carried, typically, 150 passengers in a 2-class layout. In performance and size it was similar to later model Boeing 707s. The rear engine layout was adopted in the 1950s/1960s to offer a cleaner wing {and therefore lift} and to reduce engine noise in the cabin. Structural weight penalties and centre of gravity issues led to this design layout falling out of favour for subsequent aircraft designs. Note the "leg" at the rear below the tail holding up the heavy aft section. Hazards of this tail heavy design suffered by both the IL-62M and the British Vickers VC-10.