Another helping of good old times to brighten up your weekend
"There was something in the air in the early years of commercial aviation. Perhaps more excitement, perhaps more glamorous stewardesses... in any case, it's worth savoring once again."...
And once again! This is Part 4 of our extremely popular collection (start with Part 1 here); send us more stories and photos of the wonderful flight experiences you had - this time around we also feature a few modern examples of attractive flight attendants. Let's keep the skies full of smiles and beauty!
Not really stewardesses, but a good show, nonetheless
The following images are taken either from the advertisements, promotions, films, or exhibition events. The girls shown here are not stewardesses in real life... but the image they convey is worth experiencing:
Airline Passenger Certificates: read a detailed article about unique collector's item: Certificates for crossing the ocean in an airplane - issued by early airline companies:
"TWA 1953 certificate awarded for crossing the great Atlantic Ocean on behalf of King Neptune himself" -
Sometimes a stewardess' pretty face was hidden... like in this "survival bag" demonstration:
I miss the old days. I hate the current PC environment-- it's like they give you the privilege of paying for the flight instead of appreciating your business. AND, I hate the PC no-smoking nazis that appear whenever they see something like this-- as if smoking was the worst thing in the today's world.
To the person who called me a Nazi; I am not a member of the Nationalist Socialist Party. And I did not comment because of any "PC" tendencies; I spoke up because a friend of mine, a former stewardess, has suffered multiple lung problems and surgeries since her early retirement. Cigarette smoke is poison and you cannot change that by telling lies about people's motives.
Sorry, but there has never been a reliable study proving any link between secondhand smoke and health risks. I'm not the individual who called the other one a Nazi, but I just thought I'd point that out.
@Tennessee: Show me someone with a smoker's afflictions who's never experienced first- or second-hand smoke, and I'll start to care about the lack of studies proving the harm of second-hand smoke.
Ah, yes, the good old days. We should definitely bring that back. Luckily women are never, ever actually consumers of commercial flights! So we don't have to worry about the fact that they might want a flight attendant who would be attractive to them, or even might be uncomfortable that the staff's uniforms would be designed to make the women sex objects. Thumbs up for nostalgia!
The second spanish flag, with the oval shape) it's a pre-republican flag. Used until 1931.
It's followed by the republican tri-color flag and then by the Franco, the dictator, flag, used until 1977 (2 years after his dead).
Nowadays, it's strange to see republican flags (used in some parades against monarchy or government) with the iconography. Being most in plain tri-color scheme.
I was so excited to see this article. Being Hawaiian now living in NYC I thought I might see the Hawaiian Royal Flag and Arms. Hawaii was a very short but bright Kingdom and I wish we were still independent. Perhaps next time. Great article!
Great post, as always. Just one thing: of the two flags of Italy, the right one is the royal flag, while the left one is the (current) flag for the navy.
East Germany (1949 – 1990) http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a1/Flag_of_East_Germany.svg
Third Reich (1933–1945) http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2f/Flag_of_Germany_1933.svg
Bavarian Soviet Republic (April – May 1919) http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/47/Socialist_red_flag.svg not very sofisticated ;-)
Republic of Central Lithuania (1920–1922) http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a6/Flag_of_Central_Lithuania.svg
Free, Independent, and Strictly Neutral City of Kraków, called also The Republic of Cracow (1815–1846) http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/ff/Flag_of_Krakow.svg
In many pictures appears the Catalan flag (four red bars over yellow), which is one of the oldest in Europe (dating back to 1150) and it is still widely use in the territories catalans ruled (includings parts of spain, france, sicily but even athens) until they lost the war against castilians.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Senyera
According to a 14th century legend, the flag dates back from the 9th century, when the four red bars were drawn, as an act of gratitude, on Wilfred I the Hairy's (Count of Barcelona) golden shield by king Charles the Bald's fingers drenched with blood from the Count's war wounds prior to Wilfred's death in 897 during the siege of Barcelona by Lobo ibn Mohammed, the moor governor.
A slightly modified catalan flag with a star is used nowadays to claim independence for the Catalans.
However, the Byzantine flag with the black double-headed bird on a yellow background is related to the Orthodox Church specifically.
Though they didn't fly flags in the sense that we do today, the banner representing the government in Constantinople was a cross with four betas (pronounced v in Greek), one in each corner.
The four betas stand for Vasilefs Vasileon, Vasilevon Vasilevonton - Greek for the "King of Kings, Rules the People". It was most likely a reference to Christ, though many contemporary emperors called themselves the king of kings, so we cannot be 100% sure.
Here would be an adition as well, a total different flag for Switzerland, proposed by the French and used in the "Republique Helvetique" for 5yYears, before Switzerland was again Swiss and not French anymore...
For Yugoslavia (formerly Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenians), you only showed coat of arms. Actual flag were simply 3 horizontal stripes: blue, white and red. And those stripes stayed for the Yugoslavia till the end in '90. with addition of a red star.
My point is...if this is wrong, and I read something about Italian flag too...what else is wrong?
Thank you all for great additions and info... the Kingdom of Italy flag was fixed, and we are hoping to include the rest of great tips into a next article about flags.
Great article though is a shame the inclusion of that so-called flags from Japan ¿Do this people have always to do everything copying the west? They have obviously a very poor meaning compared to the flags above. Flags must have significance given by history, they must not become a design hobby. I pity them.
Interesting collection. Just thought I'd point out you got the Iranian flag wrong, that is the Imperial standard and not the state flag that was used up to 1979. The state flag was the Lion and Sun which has a much older history than the Pahlavi Imperial standard.
Some more flags of non-existing countries and provintions related to polish history:
Free City of Gdańsk (under Prussian protection) [1807-1814] http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ed/Gdansk_flag.svg
Kingdom of Poland (called also Congress Poland, under Russian protection) [1815-1916] http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/48/Flag_of_the_Congress_of_Poland.svg
Grand Duchy of Posen (under Prussian protection) [1815-1848] http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/85/Flag_of_Wien.svg
The same flag as above was used by Königreich Galizien und Lodomerien mit dem Großherzogtum Krakau und den Herzogtümern Auschwitz und Zator (under Austrian protection, what a name - typisch österreichisch) [1772-1918]
Flag used during January Uprising, with symbols of Poland (eagle), Lithuania (racing knight) and Ukraine (archangel Michael) http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f6/Chor%C4%85giew_powsta%C5%84c%C3%B3w_styczniowych.PNG
And yet another flag of United Kingdom of Poland [1320-1386] http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c3/Alex_K_Kingdom_of_Poland-flag.svg
When I was in high school and a rabid fan of the brand-new "Nick Fury, Agent of SHIELD" comic book (which shows you how long ago it was), I drew a pastiche in which Fury exposes a world-domination plot by a cadre of disgruntled descendants of Austro-Hungarians. They dreamed of restoring the True Empire. Wish I'd had your article for reference.
The interesting thing about flags is that they, like ethnic or territorial claims, are attached to specific dates or events. Like those claims they establish an abstract "year zero" for the flagmaking power. As long as the flagmaker stays in power he gets to wave the real flag on behalf of the true country. Examples: USA; claims by earlier conquerors or the original(?) inhabitants are merely History. Iran: for the late Shah's die-hard gfans his is the real flag, regardless of what came before or after. Similarly the Catalonians can trace their flag to the 12th century, but what was the flag for the 11+ centuries before?
In the end flags are expressions of the most artificial of human constructs: the country, the nation, the empire, the true faith.
@Jamie Actually, every town in Japan has its own flag, not just the cities/wards in the Tokyo era.
Actually, many cities around the world have it's flags. I know that every bigger city in Poland has. The same in Germany. And perhaps the same in most of European countries. Some of them contains city coat of arms, some just traditional colors.
flag of free state of Dubrovnik, which played important role as one of the biggest mediterian trading harbours in 12th to 18th century, then taken by Napoleon and lost its soverenity.
The double eagle motif was also used in the flag of the Duchy of Grand Fenwick...the fictional country in the novel & film "The Mouse that Roared" Johnleemedia
Very fascinating article. For the flag of Byzantine Empire, i have to add that part of it was what inspired Albanian National Hero , Scanderbeg to use it as the flag that was raised in 1443.
Oops, Not to toot my own horn but I built a site for exploring flags and their locations. This post is beautiful, I was thinking of adding some of your finds to my site: http://www.flagthousand.com
I was so excited to see this article. Being Hawaiian now living in NYC I thought I might see the Hawaiian Royal Flag and Arms. Hawaii was a very short but bright Kingdom and I wish we were still independent. Perhaps next time. Great article!
Great post, as always. Just one thing: of the two flags of Italy, the right one is the royal flag, while the left one is the (current) flag for the navy.
East Germany (1949 – 1990) http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a1/Flag_of_East_Germany.svg
Third Reich (1933–1945) http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2f/Flag_of_Germany_1933.svg
Bavarian Soviet Republic (April – May 1919) http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/47/Socialist_red_flag.svg not very sofisticated ;-)
Republic of Central Lithuania (1920–1922) http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a6/Flag_of_Central_Lithuania.svg
Free, Independent, and Strictly Neutral City of Kraków, called also The Republic of Cracow (1815–1846) http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/ff/Flag_of_Krakow.svg
^^ ... Which makes sense since Daniel Dociu was the lead artist on Guild Wars: Factions -- as well as the other games in the series. (Actually all of the images posted here for him are from Guild Wars: Factions concept art, not just the last one.)
(And not to get pedantic or anything, but some of those those aren't moving cities... Maybe the Leviathans can be called that although they're more like war vessels, but the other images are just normal cityscape in the game. You can even see it's anchored to rock in the seaside picture.)
I was going to mention Guild Wars too, and Daniel is a major reason why it's one of the most beautiful games out there. I have the "Eye of the North" expansion which is just gorgeous. Immense architecture, sprawling winter landscapes, and that on a really old PC with graphics on "medium-low". Crank up the graphics, you can walk your character around the North with your jaw on your lap.
The pic with the Praktica SLR shout be at the technical museum, Dresden, Germany. it is the old factory of Praktika and displays some touchable models like this.
I can't recall the Bertin Aerotrain to be seen in Truffaut's Fahrenheit.
But there's for sure a futuristic suspended train in this movie, the SAFEGE prototype (see http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/Orbit/1061/safege/ for instance). Sadly enough, both projects were abandoned, without much consideration, and left to rot in remote hanger (the SAFEGE firm has patented a kind of monorail system, anyway).
The monorail in 451 was an underslung model, see here: http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/Orbit/1061/safege/safege.html The Aerotrain would have been much more interesting, though it would not have fit into the mundane landscape quite as well as the more utilitarian one actually used.
Wow, I actually saw the meeting of the waters! We traveled up the Rio Negro from Manaus, though, so we didn't get to see most of the cool stuff you did, but it was still awesome... If you ever go back, I would recommend trying to see the "fish festival." I don't remember much about it as I was maybe nine years old at the time, only that people came from miles around to watch performers dance in spectacular fish costumes in a concrete soccer stadium, and it was amazing. to give you an idea of the size of the celebration, the small village it was held in was out of beer for a full week.
A correction: It's ribeirinhos. I think so that typical costumes of Boca de Valeria is about the Parintins costumes not from the indians of Amazonia or it's just for the foreigners
I'm from Manaus, and this is one of the wonders of the city which is one of the city's in Brazil that's going to be the World Cup Soccer Championship. If you don't know it, come and visit!
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SFSite
16 Comments:
I feel sorry for those old-time stewardesses. They had to spend their working lives in thick cigarette smoke.
I certainly can't think of her as my mother... lol
Those some really awful hats. Really, really hideous.
I miss the old days. I hate the current PC environment-- it's like they give you the privilege of paying for the flight instead of appreciating your business. AND, I hate the PC no-smoking nazis that appear whenever they see something like this-- as if smoking was the worst thing in the today's world.
The number 9 pictures are not stewardesses. There hostesses from expo 67 in montreal.
The logo gave it away...
Mike
What about the connection of porn and stewardesses? The "literature" of this subject is really great. Check Flight 69, for example.
http://www.cduniverse.com/productinfo.asp?pid=7321905&style=ice
So ... they issued Aeroflot stews with pistols?
Don't mess with them.
I keep looking past the ladies to the airline seats of old, which seem so more more comfortable than today's!
To the person who called me a Nazi; I am not a member of the Nationalist Socialist Party.
And I did not comment because of any "PC" tendencies; I spoke up because a friend of mine, a former stewardess, has suffered multiple lung problems and surgeries since her early retirement.
Cigarette smoke is poison and you cannot change that by telling lies about people's motives.
Sorry, but there has never been a reliable study proving any link between secondhand smoke and health risks.
I'm not the individual who called the other one a Nazi, but I just thought I'd point that out.
I agree she is unlike any mother I know of. those come hither eyebrows. Meow.
@Tennessee: Show me someone with a smoker's afflictions who's never experienced first- or second-hand smoke, and I'll start to care about the lack of studies proving the harm of second-hand smoke.
Remember... The next time you fly and have to deal with a sour-faced, post-menopausal,hag from hell... These are Them!!!
What a plesant surprise to see an old photo of a Delta stewardess, in Part 4, that I nearly divorced my wife for. Should have....
Ah, yes, the good old days. We should definitely bring that back. Luckily women are never, ever actually consumers of commercial flights! So we don't have to worry about the fact that they might want a flight attendant who would be attractive to them, or even might be uncomfortable that the staff's uniforms would be designed to make the women sex objects. Thumbs up for nostalgia!
I had a wonderful affair with one of the stewardesses in the Delta photo.
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