This is a post from contributor Andyboy. You can visit him at the Andyboy blog.
No – this is not another review of the famous book by Erica de Jong. It’s just a memoire of my introduction to the wonderful world of flight.
So, it is both appropriate and ironic that I am beginning to write this article seated in a departure lounge at Ben Gurion airport. I’m not off to anywhere exotic – just waiting for a domestic flight to take me home to Eilat.
In almost 50 years of trusting my body to the abilities of men (and, occasionally, women), to keep machines that are heavier than air from falling out of the sky, I have been involved in a few events having Jewish or Israeli connections.
What better place to start than with my first flight ever. As fate would have it, this maiden voyage was with none other than our dearly beloved El Al, flying from London to Tel Aviv. Younger readers may not be aware that, in those days, the acronym for El Al was jokingly defined as: ”Every Landing, Always Late.” Or, alternatively: ”Everyone’s Luggage, Always Lost.” Creative definition were all the rage then. I particularly liked the one for the Belgian National Carrier, SABENA: ”Such A Bloody Experience, Never Again”. And, sad to say, these witticisms were not without a grain of truth.
But I digress.
Boeing 707
The El Al Boeing 707 was considered ”state of the art flying” in 1964. Although I think that this actual plane was probably one of the first off the production line, and had seen better days, for me it was all wondrous. By the time I returned to London a week later, after an exhaustive (and exhausting) JNF study mission I certainly had a better understanding of Israel and Israelis.
Nevertheless, it was only after I subsequently flew with other airlines, that I learned that it was not the norm for most of the passengers to leave their seats immediately after take off, and to spend most of the flight wandering in the aisles, holding loud conversations with all and sundry. The makeshift “praying area” at the rear, occupied by dozens of black garbed men mumbling and rocking back and forth, (and, incidentally, blocking access to the toilets) also turned out to be unique to El Al.
The exasperated cabin crew had to resort to the deception of announcing approaching turbulence in order to get the passengers to sit down and fasten their seat belts. . This ploy was to enable them to serve the “delicious”Kosher meal. The food trolley was wheeled along the aisle with the crew intoning “Beef or Chicken” at least 200 times. Much has changed at El Al in the past 50 years, but this mantra has not. It is now repeated thousands of times daily to a whole new generation of air travellers.
Douglas DC 3
My second flight took place during the week of the mission. This was with Arkia, in its early years. The aircraft was a Douglas DC 3 which had been built during, or just after, the Second World War. It was operating on the route from Eilat to Tel Aviv, which, in those days, flew via Be’er Sheva. Even I, air novice that I was, suspected that it was not usual to see daylight between the fuselage and the window frame. Evidence of temporary repairs was all around. The passengers treated the trip more like a bus ride than a flight. To this day I still have a mental picture of standing on the tarmac at Be’er Sheva ”airport”, waiting to board, and watching in bemusement whilst a young man struggled to manoeuver his motor cycle up the plane’s steps and into the aircraft. It seems that “hand luggage” had a different definition for Israelis even then.
The return flight to London was pretty much a repeat of the outbound journey. I did, however, reflect again on the creative interpretation of the term “hand luggage” as applied to El Al flights. Especially since the shelf above the passenger’s heads was open – and over laden. Bin covers that could be closed and locked had yet to be invented.
Vickers Viscount
The Jewish connection to my next flight was that I needed to travel on JNF business from London to Glasgow, Scotland. The Aircraft was a Vickers Viscount; the standard workhorse for BEA (now British Airways) on its domestic routes. The outbound flight was uneventful; the return flight was not. I had to return on the last flight at around 11.00 at night. The weather was cold and wet – as is normal for Scotland in the Autumn, but inside the plane it was warm and comfortable and I settled down for a short sleep after a tiring day. Soon, the plane was rolling down the runway, heading for its takeoff speed.
Just at the moment of rotation, one of the engines failed. The pilot, left without sufficient power, had to abort the takeoff. As he braked frantically, the sudden deceleration caused me to slip under my seat belt, which I had only fastened loosely, and caused my legs and lower body to become jammed under the seat in front. We bumped along, ran out of runway and finished up stuck in the mud beyond the runway end. Fortunately, there were no serious injuries but there was no way that this plane was getting to London.
We were taken from the plane back to the terminal. Actually I am not sure whether a tin hut, next to an airstrip, which was Glasgow airport in 1964 could reasonably be described as a “terminal”. So there we were, a planeload of shocked passengers, stuck in a tin hut at midnight with not much more than a kettle, a few biscuits, and a long wait ahead of us, whilst another plane was flown up from London to collect us.
The queue for the one public telephone grew as each man tried to explain to his wife, girlfriend or mistress why he would not be home that night. It seemed that the explanations were received with varying degrees of disbelief. One might have supposed that the news of this escape from death could have been treated more sympathetically. I remember being on the receiving end of a similar response from my (then) wife. I suppose that behavioral psychologists would explain these reactions as expressions of relief and anxiety – just poorly expressed.
Eventually, the substitute aircraft arrived. and we found ourselves trundling down the runway again. Looking back I think that it was just as well that I overcame my trepidation, and did not not allow this incident to deter me from ever flying again. Otherwise I would have deprived myself of more adventures in the future. But those I will recount at another time.
To be honest, the title of this article is a bit of a misnomer. I was never really afraid. Today it’s not the flying I hate – it’s the security and check-in procedures and regulations.
That’s the true fear of flying!
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