When was your first flight ?

[LiamR]

I remember my first flight, a Qantas 737-400 OOL-SYD. My father's boarding pass didn't work at the gate (Days of the mag strip BPs) and started crying in fear of the airplane leaving without him.

Those were the days when OOL travel was classy. Oh I miss those days

Hmmmmm, 734, shows my age, or lac thereof.

 

[casanovawa]

First flight would probably have been 1978 when i was about 5... Think it was a 727 but not sure if Ansett or TAA... We were living in South Australia then and my dad's dad had died in a car accident and he had to come back to Western Australia and help grandma sell up the farm and get ready to move into town... So Adelaide to Perth...

The story is often told in the family of how i had a ride on the cow on the farm (dunno if it was called daisy or whatever) and how i got quite upset and dropped my bundle when we couldn't bring the cow back on the plane for the return flight... Either on the flight over or the one back i also got to go up to the coughpit in flight and look out the windows and all, great stuff, pity they can't do it now...

First international flight was 1988, Singapore Airlines up to Singapore and then back down... Also first ride on a 747...

I thought about my first flight recently as on a flight from JNB to LVI a month or so back I was on an MD80 of some description and it was the first time i have walked down or up the rear ramp of a T tail plane that i could really remember although i think i did it once before as a child somehwere/sometime...

 

[QF WP]

Major, good to see you started this thread.

To my knowledge, my first flight would have been ~1972 on TAA, BNE/SYD with the parents and brother to visit my grandmother. Don't remember the aircraft type.

 

[juddles]

Lockeed Electra OR Vickers Viscount.

The Electra was the civil (passenger) version of the Military P3 Orion which is still used throughout the world today.

In 1972 I flew on an Electra from Australia to England. I have absolutely no idea what the stop-overs were, I think it went Darwin, Singapore, Bombay, Kuwait, somewhere in Europe, then to London. Same return voyage. I think the airline was Monarch?

I was a kid at the time. The admiration I have for my parents to do this sort of thing on those planes is unbelievable. Thank God for non-stop intercontinental flights with amazing (for kids) IFE!!


Bloody propellors...... mutter mutter

 

[Warks]

I think it might have been in 1984 BNE-SYD with Ansett (maybe TAA) on something with wings. I was an adult before I first flew which was always a sore point for me as my younger sister had flown SYD-WGA when she was about 8 for a wedding. The only reason I flew then was because there was a train strike and I'd come up on the train but couldn't get back.

Flew East West SYD-OOL a year later for a holiday.

First international was SYD-HNL on a Continental Airlines DC10 when I was 23, first overseas trip. My kids went OS when they were 9 and 8. Times change.

 

[thewinchester]

Flew East West SYD-OOL a year later for a holiday.

Heavens, there's an carrier name I've not heard in ages. My first knowledge of them comes from stumbling across their TV ads whilst putting together a youtube compile a year ago (yeah, I'm not as big an avgeek as first thought).

 

[ozmille]

1988 as a 4 year old on an IB 757 from BRU to BCN. Still have the teaspoon

 

[elbarto]

The first flight I can remember was in 1988 when we went to OOL, probably via SYD, from CBR and I think it was on AN (I recall stars on the tail) Not sure of type, could have been a 767 could have been a 737 could ave been something else entirely. There was a flight before that, but since I was still at the stage where I was packing my nappies, I don't remember it and only know about it because of stories my mothers told me.

 

[777]

My kids went OS when they were 9 and 8. Times change.

I didn't go OS til my mid twenties. My son turned 1 on monday and he has been OS twice (to the US and China) soon to be three times (if you count NZ as another country). He took his first flight (MEL-NTL and back) at about 3.5 weeks.

 

[markis10]

First flight would probably have been 1978 when i was about 5... Think it was a 727 but not sure if Ansett or TAA... We were living in South Australia then and my dad's dad had died in a car accident and he had to come back to Western Australia and help grandma sell up the farm and get ready to move into town... So Adelaide to Perth...I thought about my first flight recently as on a flight from JNB to LVI a month or so back I was on an MD80 of some description and it was the first time i have walked down or up the rear ramp of a T tail plane that i could really remember although i think i did it once before as a child somehwere/sometime...

Maybe you boarded the 727 via the rear:

From VH-TJA Boeing 727



And if anyone had their first ride on a compass DC9 (MD83) VH-LNI, she is still serving AA:

JetPhotos.Net Photo » N9409F (CN: 53121) American Airlines McDonnell Douglas MD-83 by Piotr Pasula

 

[Warks]

Heavens, there's an carrier name I've not heard in ages. My first knowledge of them comes from stumbling across their TV ads whilst putting together a youtube compile a year ago (yeah, I'm not as big an avgeek as first thought).

Wish I still had the ticket and BP. It had a logo like this:

 

[markis10]

Pretty much all the jets and many props that have served Australian airlines can be found here, along with their history and pics:

aussieairliners.net

One of the EW fokkers makes for a good overview of East West livery, and is still flying:

VH-EWG Fokker F.27 Friendship

East West and Compass both were at one stage run by the late Bryan Grey, a somewhat forgotten Australian Aviation identity these days, in his time at East West he was one of the few who challenged the duopoly successfully.

 

[Gerardf]

My first commercial flight...

This has probably been done before but...

My first flight was as a pax on a TAA F27.

My big brother and myself (10yo) waited at Cooma airport for a flight to Canberra. Absolutely nothing disturbed the fine winter's afternoon. One or two staff, a few pax and complete silence. After a 1/2 hour or so, an a/c approached, circled and landed. Our TAA F27. She taxied over adjacent to a small hut. A FA opened the front door. I can't recall if there were small stairs or she clambered down (you could do that on an F27), went over and unlocked the hut whereupon she checked our tickets and then escorted us aboard after re-locking the hut.

My next flight was the next leg: CBR > MEL on a Viscount.

Innocent times.

 

[Isochronous]

Re: My first commercial flight...

TN (Australian Airlines) flight in a 737 SYD-OOL

 

[JohnK]

Re: My first commercial flight...

I can't remember all the details now but it was a SYD-BNE flight in 1990. I am not even sure if it was Qantas or Ansett. I vaguely remember T2 in SYD and going up the escalators.

Boarding pass has been filed in a top secret hiding spot and waiting to be found one day....

 

[pauly7]

First I can remember?

Ansett LST - MEL on a 727 I'm pretty sure

First ever - as a baby a QF flight from London back to Aus! Assuming a 747.

 

[Foreigner]

DC 3, circa 1969.

 

[simongr]

Re: My first commercial flight...

1978 from Birmingham to Majorca on I assume a Thompson Holidays flight - I have no recollection of the flight at all... I was 7

 

[nickykim]

Re: My first commercial flight...

In early Feb 1972, Auckland to Dunedin, the last leg of migrating to NZ so my father could take up a position with Otago Uni. We'd spend the previous six weeks on the SS Canberra - I think we were one of the last years when families were transfered by ship as opposed to flying out. At 10 years old, six weeks in first class on a cruise ship was absolute heaven. Got banned from the kids club for making too many model planes / ships.

 

[Shelf]

Re: My first commercial flight...

1990 - Ansett - ADL > OOL with the parents, I was 11.

IIRC we slipped into to an Ansett lounge on the trip, dad used to fly a reasonable amount with them.