What was your first flight?

[JohnM]

March 1972. Why, were you on that plane?!!!

Just curious as to whether it was before or after the revolution. It was pre, which surprised me. It seems odd that BA would fly through Tehran if such treatment was commonplace.

 

[emirates777]

My first flight was a 6 month old baby Dubai to Colombo on board a SQ B747-200 (which would go onto Singapore thereafter)

 

[wombatpatties]

Just curious as to whether it was before or after the revolution. It was pre, which surprised me. It seems odd that BA would fly through Tehran if such treatment was commonplace.

It was 50 years ago, so my memory could be a bit skew-wiff? but it did happen somewhere lol!

 

[Archipelago]

My first flight was in 1952 when I was 3 months old from Hobart to Sydney. My mother was from Sydney and moved down to Hobart with her parents after the war. Her parents moved back to Sydney and Mum stayed and married Dad.
As I got older, we would semi regularly fly back and forward between Hobart and Sydney. I remember flying TAA and getting a badge every time which I would proudly pin onto my shirt. I think it was called the TAA junior flyers club. It wasn't unusual for the hostesses to take the kids up to the coughpit to have a chat with the pilots. How times have changed!!

I remember the pin badge too - it was like a set of pilot wings if I remember correctly - I had a few of them when I was very young (late 70's-early 80's)

 

[Ade]

This has been an interesting read, partly because I was yet to be born on all the dates mentioned in this thread .

Agree. Not just born, in most cases my parents were still kids given the years mentioned The first time I ever stepped into a plane was in 2010 (or 2011)

But it feels nice to read how things were, say, 50 years ago .. who'd thought to go thru an airport and be greeted by armed guards with machine guns, or, in the case of @wombatpatties, had their lipstick sliced in half or escorted to the tarmac at gunpoint .. I mean, I have seen these in the movies (Argo, for instance), but never in real life ... Would have been absolutely terrifying, having a rush of adrenaline or whatever!

And some of the experience where people have visited the pilot in the coughpits - cannot even imagine (not even in the movies) these days .. I mean, I'd love to go to the coughpit, see what's what and may be take a pic (and make it my avatar on AFF, like Mr. @Daver6 )

Re: pin badges - I don't think any airline (or at least AU based) is doing this anymore. These days, kids are pinned a little paper/card stock tag to their shirts as they check-in ...

 

[Major]

My 1st flight was from Cooma to SYD on an Airlines of NSW F27 in 1959. We had been on a school bus tour of the Snowy Mountains but return was by air.
My 1st flight for business was SYD-MEB on an Ansett 727-100 in 1965 and return flight was an Electra

 

[NM]

1974 flying BOAC from BNE-DRW-SIN-CCU-DXB-KWI-LHR on a VC-10. And I remember it pretty well, including the armed guards at KWI where everyone had to remain onboard and passports were checked by the armed guards walking through the stifling hot cabin. I guess the fuel was cheap at KWI at the time.

Return was QF 747 LHR-AMS-SIN and then QF 707 SIN-BNE.

 

[Katie]

Bound to have been TAA BNE-WIN or BNE-xx-WIN on a milkrun. The first I remember was that flight, and picking flowers for Grandma from the edges of the tarmac at every stop.

 

[bussyboy]

Skywest Fokker 50 from PER to GET, seated squished next to a giant priest in the last row of the aircraft :| in around 2005, I would have been around 30 years old

 

[tdimdad]

First flight would have been Moscow to Tbilisi return in late 1970's for holidays on a Tupolev [something]. I was a primary school aged back then. It was noisy as h--- and I recall some passengers getting food poisoning on their return flights.
It was one of those group tours. A charter bus from a neighbouring country across the border to Soviet Union and then the flight to Georgia. At the Soviet border, the guards were very keen to check that no-one had Bibles or any other religious material on them.

My second flight was HEL-CPH-SEA-OAK for high school exchange. Going across the Atlantic I had a window seat and was mesmerised.

 

[Archipelago]

Skywest Fokker 50 from PER to GET, seated squished next to a giant priest in the last row of the aircraft :| in around 2005, I would have been around 30 years old

So.. Gandalf?

 

[camperdown9]

very unexciting BFS-MAH (Belfast International to Mahon, Menorca) Aviaco DC-9 1982

 

[JohnK]

And Lufthansa had smoking in left and right seats across the aisle so there was no escaping the smoke. Most airlines had front and back separation.

And as a smoker in those days book a seat as far forward away from smoking section and walk down the back section for a cigarette.

From memory we had to sit to smoke but often flights or seats were full and we used to smoke in galley until cabin crew came around and asked us to move on.

 

[oz_ally]

Both my parents were Aussies but went to live in NZ for a while back in around 1963 I think - these were the days that you didn't need a passport to travel between AUS and NZ which was the whole point in that my dad (now passed as well as my mum) was a bit of a naughty boy back in the day and needed to lay low for a while Anyway I ended up being born over in CHCH and as things had cooled off so to speak they brought me back to Australia when I was around 4 months old which would have been around September 1964.

The next plane trip I took was one I can remember. It was 1972 and mum was heavily pregnant and during the Sept school hols that year she sent my younger brother and I down to stay a week with my grandparents in Lakemba, Sydney. It was probably an East West Airlines flight (Tamworth) and as we were unaccompanied minors I remember the lovely lady hostie who took care of us as we sat in the front seats and brought us colour pencils and some colouring pages. I also recall the rather small "porthole" window (I had the window seat) and I could see my mum and neighbour waving at us like mad when it was time to get going. I was so excited to take my first memorable flight.

I remember wearing the same outfit in the photo below when I was on the plane - I was 8 and my brother was almost 7. The older guy was my brother from another mother. He did not want to stand next to me in the photo - girl germs and all that haha. I'm sporting grandma done hair - I never wore it like that usually. The lady is a photo bomber from next door - no fences between the houses. IIRC we were dressed up and ready to go visit Roselands which was a real treat because there was nothing like that in the Country Music Capital - at the time. I dunno about now coz I left after Year 12 in 1981 for a job in Sydney then left and have lived in QLD since 1987 and only visited Tamworth again in 1996.

 

[gaz0303]

Emigrated from UK when I was 3, so don’t recall those flights. Siblings tell about shock of being escorted by military jeeps to a hotel on a stop over.

I recall heading back a few years later in ‘86 with my mother on a QF 747. I recall SIN airport being fantastic (picked up a toy that lasted many years), QF letting a drunk sleep next to us in the aisle, going upstairs to the coughpit and being shown the lower deck galley by a flight attendant.

First domestic flights were on Ansett to Hobart and on a McDonnell Douglas Compass to Cairns for school music trips.

 

[Sprucegoose]

Great thread.

I reckon I was 5 when Dad and I went on a TAA Fokker Friendship from Canberra to Sydney, and I guess this was about 1969.

I didn't fly much until I moved to Honkers when I was 27, and then the world changed dramatically for me.

 

[Gladstone Tim]

What a great experience and opportunity!

 

[MARTINE]

First domestic grade 4 TAA MEL-BNE family holiday (started love of flying although I had been rtw with parents via ship when I was about 4). First OS flying 1975 to Europe. Alitalia (full of smokers) and it was the same plane all the way. (No codeshare those days)
We even sat in the craft when it had first stop! Kept a scrap book for school as taking time away (still have complete w box of Alitalia matches and menus).
I remember the day we arrived home - the dismissal..