"Don't tell my wife" -- Piper aircraft promotional film

Pilawt said:
I only wore clip-on ties.
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The department needed a new tech - so they brought up a guy who had been working in engine buildup "out back". But now that he was in an engineering department he had to wear a tie just like the rest of us.

One day we are shooting the breeze and he asks "How do you guys do that?"
"Do what?"
"Leave your collar unbuttoned with the tie on."
"Huh? Just don't button it."
"But then the tie won't stay on."

"Oh, you gotta use a real tie."

"****. I wish I had known that before I went out and bought all those clip-ons... If I buy a real tie, can one of you guys show me how to tie it?"
 
The Army paid all of us cash. No choice. The locals decided that they could do without an Army camp and soldiers in their midst, petitioned the President to shut it down. We were all paid in $2 dollar bills for 2 months. Cash registers were full if them, and civilians got tired of receiving all their change in $2'S. The drive to get rid of us vanished in business reality.

I thinkI paid about $12 for a half hour, dual in a J 3 Cub.

Edit, it may have bee $12 per hour, memory fades......no receipts from the Army days....

I do remember the cost was reasonable, and 12 would have been 1/5 of y paycheck. I flew 4 times in 6 weeks.
 
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"To go up you just pull back on the wheel"

Yea, for a while I guess, until you stall and go down.
 
In 1964 as a member of the Vandenberg AFB aero club, I rented a C-150 for $7 an hour wet and my instructor charged $5 an hour ($12 an hour dual). That cheap flying spoiled me; when I got transferred PCS to Hill AFB, Utah, they had recently closed their aero club and I had to rent a 172 at the Ogden airport FBO to complete my training. What a sticker shock! I took out a credit union loan to finish my training and got my ticket on September 11, 1964, with exactly 40 hours in my logbook.

My solo cross-country was from Ogden, UT to Elko, NV and once I was west of the Great Salt Lake, the terrain all looked the same except for railroads, highways, and small clusters of buildings on the sectional chart. I remember feeling a little apprehensive about getting lost, but as my checkpoints showed up on time I got more relaxed. When I landed back in Ogden with the Elko FBO manager's signature in my log, I felt like I had really accomplished something.
 
That was nice...

But so much more FUN to be had in a high wing. From the same era...


Nah, I really did like the Piper flic... So I thought I'd see if Cessna did likewise...
 
Honest question. Who watched these 15-20 minute films and where in the 60s? Three TV channels who didn’t carry this stuff, and certainly no YouTube.

What was the distribution method? On really old stuff like newsreels it was the theater before feature films.

But as these films promoting various stuff from the 60s and 70s get digitized and put online almost 50 years later, I always wonder who watched these infomercials of the past.

Like that hour long thing showing “the home of the future” someone posted a while back in the tech sub-forum... where would someone have even seen that thing?
 
My first 6.4 hours were in a Cherokee 140 at the Elgin Airport. The airport closed in 1983 so the land could be used for a shopping center.
 
CharlieD3 said:
That was nice...

But so much more FUN to be had in a high wing. From the same era...

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The tall guy in the tan suit and tie was Bill Thompson, Cessna engineering test pilot and Manager of Flight Test & Aerodynamics. He authored the excellent Cessna - Wings for The World series of books that chronicled in great detail the development of each Cessna model. He mentioned this film in the chapter on the C-150.
 
Stan Cooper said:
Hah! I rented from BelAir in LGB in the early seventies.
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Up until 1970 Belair was on Donald Douglas Drive on the west side of the airport, and that's where I took my commercial and instrument training. When I worked there Belair was in a couple of trailers and a Quonset hut on Spring Street just below the new control tower, as the new Avitat building (now "Terminal II Jet Center") was being built next door. I left around the time the school moved into the new building, and its name was changed. I forget what it was called after that. But if you rented from Belair it had to be before mid-1972.



What aircraft did you rent there? We had four or five different Cherokee 140s (1969-71 vintage), two or three American AA-1 Yankees, a Cherokee 180 for a while, a doggy '61 Apache, a new Turbo Aztec, and the boss' J35 Bonanza. We even had a Navion Rangemaster for a short time. Oh, and we were the first dealer and school for the McCulloch J-2 Gyroplane, and we were the only seaplane school in Southern California at the time, using a 180-hp Lake Amphibian. Our seaplane instructor, Ernie Martin, kept his PBY Catalina on our ramp.

 
Lance F said:
Yeah. The good old days. No headsets. And now the hearing aid manufacturers are printing money.
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I "liked" your post because I agreed with it because it is so true. But I really hated it because it is so true. I never used a headset in the '70s and now I am paying (my hearing aide provider) the price for it.
 
Pilawt said:
Up until 1970 Belair was on Donald Douglas Drive on the west side of the airport, and that's where I took my commercial and instrument training. When I worked there Belair was in a couple of trailers and a Quonset hut on Spring Street just below the new control tower, as the new Avitat building (now "Terminal II Jet Center") was being built next door. I left around the time the school moved into the new building, and its name was changed. I forget what it was called after that. But if you rented from Belair it had to be before mid-1972.
Then it must have been 1970 when I was working in the Hughes Aircraft flight test division in Culver City; in early 1971, I left the country for an eighteen month tour on Kwajalein. I'd have to dig out my old logbooks, but it must have been one of the PA-28-140s. I hardly ever had more than one passenger back then.
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AggieMike88 said:
While the airplanes are nice, that hangar at the beginning of the film is gorgeous!

It was also interesting to see how well dressed we were 50 years ago.
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I don't recall seeing men in jackets at the airport back them, I think that is a movie thing. People did dress better, lots of men wore suits and women wore dresses to work, and men's shirts had collars pretty much all of the time.

cowman said:
The cars, the clothes, the office gear are all totally different but the airplanes are the same.
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Yes, literally the same. Not the same type, but the same airplanes. I have my father's logbook in front of me, and I looked up a number the airplanes in it, almost all are still registered.

Pilawt said:
The manufacturers were reluctant to make the switch from statute to nautical. After all, a cruising speed of 160 mph looked a lot better in the brochure than did 139 knots. o_O

The manufacturer-members of GAMA finally agreed to switch to knots as primary. Airspeed indicators on Cessna airplanes switched to knots on the outer scale, and mph on the smaller, inner scale, in 1976. Piper, Beech and Mooney switched in 1977.
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I did my training in AAIBs at KBNA (yes) and AA1Cs at KLZU. The AA1Bs used MPH and the AA1Cs used knots

steingar said:
Back then if you were flying IFR you were flying the needles. You were navigating using pilotage, wasn't much else. Lots of guys got lost, lots blundered into weather. I like things way better now. We're in the golden age of general aviation.
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We had VOR receivers, and knew how to use them. We were expected to use pilotage, but the VOR was available if needed.

Lance F said:
Yeah. The good old days. No headsets. And now the hearing aid manufacturers are printing money.
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What's that you say, sonny? I'm 61 and my hearing isn't the best. My father's was worse, but he got his hearing loss courtesy of Uncle Sam, Boeing, and the Wright R-3350, or should I say four of them.

denverpilot said:
Honest question. Who watched these 15-20 minute films and where in the 60s? Three TV channels who didn’t carry this stuff, and certainly no YouTube.

What was the distribution method? On really old stuff like newsreels it was the theater before feature films.

But as these films promoting various stuff from the 60s and 70s get digitized and put online almost 50 years later, I always wonder who watched these infomercials of the past.

Like that hour long thing showing “the home of the future” someone posted a while back in the tech sub-forum... where would someone have even seen that thing?
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It would be shown to any group that was willing to sit for a viewing. Business groups, jaycees, Civitan, fraternal lodges, etc. People used to get out and meet in person. Now we all have too much work to do and don't have time to go to such things.

EppyGA said:
My first 6.4 hours were in a Cherokee 140 at the Elgin Airport. The airport closed in 1983 so the land could be used for a shopping center.
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My father got his private at Elgin in 1970. I got my first flight there as well, in the back seat of a Cherokee 140. His instructor was a gentleman and professional named Paul Wertheimer, who also taught bush flying to missionary pilots from the Moody Bible Institute.

Everskyward said:
Good old days? I sure wouldn't have wanted to dress up like the wife. Actually, I grew up in the 60s and don't want to go back.
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You wouldn't normally dress up like that, unless you were going to an appointment or church. I recall my mother mostly wearing what was called a housedress, which was a simple dress usually in some sort of a print fabric, something along the lines of this:
51a923df76df5b84df327c8e503c0201.jpg


She also wore a top and pants sometimes. Remember Mary Tyler Moore's famous Capri pants?
kedslaurapetrie.jpg


They were a compromise between her and the show's producers, because she wanted to present a more realistic view of what women in the early 60's wore at home.
 
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FormerHangie said:
My father got his private at Elgin in 1970. I got my first flight there as well, in the back seat of a Cherokee 140. His instructor was a gentleman and professional named Paul Wertheimer, who also taught bush flying to missionary pilots from the Moody Bible Institute.
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So, we both have Elgin in common and now we are both here in the ATL. We should get together sometime.
 
FormerHangie said:
You wouldn't normally dress up like that, unless you were going to an appointment or church. I recall my mother mostly wearing what was called a housedress, which was a simple dress usually in some sort of a print fabric, something along the lines of this:
51a923df76df5b84df327c8e503c0201.jpg


She also wore a top and pants sometimes. Remember Mary Tyler Moore's famous Capri pants?
kedslaurapetrie.jpg


They were a compromise between her and the show's producers, because she wanted to present a more realistic view of what women in the early 60's wore at home.
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I remember my mom wearing a "housedress" although that would not be my choice of clothes either. But I might wear the MTM outfit. :p

When I was in about 6th or 7th grade they started letting girls wear pants to school. That was great!
 
I'm going to sort of have to disagree, m'kay, with those that say THIS is the golden age.

I started flying in the mid-80s. This was post-collapse of the GA market, but the infrastructure, people and environment was still there. Everyone still thought that "this is just temporary, it'll get better", which as we know, it never did.

I will admit that there is some good stuff today. Cell phones, and interwebs, self-serve fuel, sat WX and GPS. It makes flying safer, more tolerant of minor mistakes. Generally, the "getting around" part is much easier. Now we have BasicMed and an overall more tolerant medical process.

But look at what we lost. The infrastructure, the people, in innumerable businesses that make up a robust atmosphere. Looking forward to the next model year, because there WAS going to be a next model year, and new aircraft, while expensive, were within reach. New airplane types were popping up all over. And choices. And small airports. Look at the FBO picture above. Imagine that...an FBO advertising their services on their sign. Heck, most places these days don't even have a sign.

I'd say the true golden age was the beginning of the 60s. Sure, production reached it's peak in the 70s, but that was just the top of the ballistic arc.
 
Richman67 said:
But look at what we lost.
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Look what we gained. Tall, secure fences and locked gates topped with razor wire, even around the smallest airports. Regulations requiring pilots and airplane owners to be escorted on the ramp. Security screenings that make the CIA look like the Columbia Record Club. Everything you can imagine telling prospective pilots to STAY OUT!!!

:(
 
FormerHangie said:
It would be shown to any group that was willing to sit for a viewing. Business groups, jaycees, Civitan, fraternal lodges, etc. People used to get out and meet in person. Now we all have too much work to do and don't have time to go to such things.
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Man my family got stiffed. All we ever did at the Moose Lodge was play bingo, and eat. LOL.
 
Stan Cooper said:
In 1964 as a member of the Vandenberg AFB aero club, I rented a C-150 for $7 an hour wet and my instructor charged $5 an hour ($12 an hour dual). That cheap flying spoiled me; when I got transferred PCS to Hill AFB, Utah, they had recently closed their aero club and I had to rent a 172 at the Ogden airport FBO to complete my training. What a sticker shock! I took out a credit union loan to finish my training and got my ticket on September 11, 1964, with exactly 40 hours in my logbook.

My solo cross-country was from Ogden, UT to Elko, NV and once I was west of the Great Salt Lake, the terrain all looked the same except for railroads, highways, and small clusters of buildings on the sectional chart. I remember feeling a little apprehensive about getting lost, but as my checkpoints showed up on time I got more relaxed. When I landed back in Ogden with the Elko FBO manager's signature in my log, I felt like I had really accomplished something.
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With inflation that works out to ~$50/h for the 150 and ~$40 for the CFI.

My club is currently at $70 for a 150 and around ~$50 for an instructor. That is a much smaller shift than I expected!
 
When I was instructing at a SoCal Piper Flite Center in the early 1970s, our two-year-old Cherokee 140s rented for $16/hr. wet -- except for our "instrument trainer" (it had a 360-channel navcom and a glideslope), which was $16.50. Primary instruction was $5/hour, instrument instruction was $6.
 
Two more:

A Cessna film from the late 50's I believe.


A Beech film from the 70's. That's Cliff Robertson narrating.


To answer the above question...these films would be sent out via the sales channels. Dealer networks back in the day were considerably more robust than today, and a lot of time and effort was spent on marketing materials for dealers.
 
I loved watching this. I was definitely born in the wrong generation.
 
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