Fascinating pictures show Delta's 10 decades

Daily Mail ^ | 5/14/2019 | TED THORNHILL

[WhoisAlanGreenspan?]

Delta Air Lines flies to 370 destinations on six continents using a range of hi-tech Airbus and Boeing aircraft
But it started life as a crop-dusting outfit in 1924. It expanded to passenger transportation with fiver-seaters The pictures here reveal how air travel with Delta took huge leaps forward from 1936 onwards
Atlanta-based Delta Air Lines is worth $37billion (£28billion) and flies to 370 destinations on six continents with state-of-the-art aircraft.

Truly, it’s a titan of aviation.

But it started life as a crop-dusting outfit in 1924. And when it expanded to passenger transportation it used planes that could only hit 90mph, with the wind behind them. Delta has been on quite a journey, then – and these fascinating pictures illustrate the carrier’s dramatic transformation over the decades.

They show some of its earliest passenger planes, a restored 1931 model with five passenger seats, a 1940 Douglas DC-3, which had 21 seats and was capable of 170mph, and a 1946 DC-4, which had 44 seats and a brisk-for-the-time top speed of 215mph.

[WhoisAlanGreenspan?]

If they knew you were coming they'd of baked a cake...

The good old times!

[SamAdams76]

My first experience with computers was with Delta Airlines in the 1980s. They had a state-of-the-art reservation system which required linked computers so that a ticket agent in San Diego could book seat 14A where a ticket agent booking the same flight in Boston would instantly see 14A change color from black to red (booked) on his computer and offer his customer 14B or 15A instead.

I miss the stewardesses. I used to like when they were called that. Flight attendant doesn't have the same ring. Also, maybe I'm just being a neanderthal and a sexist, but male flight attendants always seem a bit light in the loafers if you know what I mean. It's really a woman's job. Not that women can't fly the plane if they want to get a pilot's license. Nothing wrong with a woman pilot. But stewardessing is a women's job. You want to see a woman walking up and down those aisles, dispensing those little airplane bottles of liquor and showing us how to use the oxygen mask pre-flight.

[hanamizu]

When I was 4 in 1950 I flew on one from NYC to LA by myself. I still can remember parts of the flight. Got to sit on the pilot’s lap. When I was cleaning out my mom’s apartment I saw pictures of me getting off of the plane—it was a TWA Connie.

[Captain Peter Blood]

That is not Barbara Bush or Lyndon Johnson. Johnson flew on private planes.

[Political Junkie Too]

I remember eating like that in coach throughout the 1980s and into the 1990s. It was a salad, a bun, a dessert, and a choice of hot chicken or beef or pasta.

-PJ

[rlmorel]

That is too cool...just love those planes. Saw this one at Oshkosh a few years back...