During all my years of flying, I was safety qualified to fly as a Flight Attendant on about 10 different aircraft.  That may not mean much to you as a non-airline person, but it is a big deal to Flight Attendants.  For instance, Southwest Airlines only operates one type of aircraft, so their Flight Attendants only have to be safety qualified on that one aircraft, a Boeing 737.

  In order to be safety qualified to work a particular piece of equipment (aircraft),  you must first learn all the safety features of the airplane.  No big deal, you say?  No, it isn’t if you only have to learn one aircraft; but for every aircraft that you are qualified on, you must take a FAA safety exam and pass the exam with a grade of 90% or better.   And you must do that every single year, not just one time.  In thirty-five years, I’ve taken a lot of FAA exams and passed every single one of them ~ many with a grade of 100% .  Don’t ever think that your Flight Attendant is a ‘dumb blond’!   Many women that I’ve flown with over the years had Bachelor’s Degrees, Master’s  Degrees, Doctorate Degrees and even culinary Cordon Bleu Degrees.  It was quite a varied and multi-talented work force. 

  The comprehensive FAA exam covers items such as the location and pre-flight of fire extinguishers (and don’t get mixed up with the next aircraft or you’ll fail), door operations (There are 5 different types of doors that I can think of just off the top of my head after being retired for 5 years!), operation and pre-flight of oxygen bottles (two different kinds), safety and medical procedures and emergency evacuation procedures.

  Portland Firefly was hired by TWA, the premier United States Flag Carrier Airline.  This means that TWA had the flag emblem of the United States emblazoned on the tail of each of their aircraft.  Pan Am (Pan American) was the only other carrier allowed to have the flag of the United States displayed on the tail of its aircraft.     Because you are supposed to light any flag if it is flying at night, the tails of every single TWA airplane had a light on them at night.  We were the only carrier in the world to have aircraft with a light on its tail at night.  It was really cool to be watching planes land and even when overseas or from a great distance, you could tell which aircraft were TWA’s because of the tail light.  In some ways that tail light was a beacon that said to me “You’re home.”

   Some of the aircraft that Portland Firefly was FAA Safety qualified on are: Boeing’s 707,727 stretch, 727 regular,747,757,767; Lockheed’s Constellation & 1011; McDonald-Douglas 80 regular and stretch, DC 9.   Within each category, such as the 747, there were many different configurations due to the fact that TWA would purchase aircraft that were originally ordered by another airline to that airlines specifications and would therefore have a ’different’ safety locations from those of our TWA aircraft.  We had two MD-80s that we purchased from Alaska Airlines and they were set up completely differently from the TWA configuration including Galley location and equipment.

   I was originally hired by TWA to work the new 747 Internationally because I was fluent in a foreign language (not Spanish).   I did love the 747, but eventually that beautiful aircraft became the workhorse of the fleet and had numerous problems.  I doubt if I’ll ever forget sitting on my jumpseat being able to see all of my passengers and look out the big window on my emergency door and see the landscape as it fell away from us on take-off or came closer to us for our long-awaited landing.  The 747 was my second favorite aircraft to work.

     I want to tell my readers the reason for posting this particular story today, July 27th. 

    It is because today is 7/27.  And the 727 Stretch was my favorite aircraft to work on in the entire TWA fleet. 

     Why did I love that aircraft so much?  I think it was because it was so spacious yet had an intimate feel.  The first class was really classy (for those days).  The lavatories, were big enough to actually turn around in! and the galleys had plenty of space for all of our cabin service supplies.  There were designated places for the crew to stow their luggage and the cockpit was really nice with three pilots,  a Captain, a First Officer, and a Flight Engineer.  Today, most aircraft are designed to fly with only two cockpit crew members.  The seating configurations changed many times over the years and even one time TWA removed seats in the middle of the aircraft and installed (YES!) a piano!  Yes, a piano lounge in the middle of the airplane.  What was corporate thinking??!!  There were the ‘blue chip’ flights from NYC to ORD.  Then there was the ‘more leg room in coach’  campaign and now the airlines just have us all jamed in there as close together as they can get us.  But nothing can compare to the glory days of the 727 and I was there!

  And so today, on 7/27, I am thinking of my favorite aircraft ~ the Boeing 727 Stretch.