Airliners of the 1960s

Osceola, Wisconsin, U.S.A.: MBI Publishing Company, 2000. First Edition . Trade Paperback. Very Good. 9 1/4" x 10 1/2. 112 Pages. An as new book with no defects noted. Interior text and illustration pages are near flawless. The 1960s featured a heady mixture of propellers and turbojets, aeroplanes of character and grace, and color schemes that flattered the lines of aircraft rather than the egos of airlines. This book features 150 color photographs taken during the 1960s. Each photograph is fully captioned with date, location, and the fate of the featured aircraft. The basic premise of this book is to illustrate a range of both airlines and airliners that operated during the decade of the 1960s. It of course cannot be complete as it is of limited size. It was a time of change, for despite the introduction of the jet airliner in the 1950s with such types as the Comet and the Boeing 707, the year 1960 was one in which piston power was still the most common form of propulsion for a passenger aeroplane. By the end of the following ten years even the holiday charter carriers were changing to jets or at least turbo props. The captions note who the carrier was or still is, what the aeroplane type was and where the picture was taken. Finally to list the fate of that particular aircraft. The enthusiasts of today, be they spotters or photographers, who were not born when the pictures were taken, will notice that the biggest difference to today's civil airports is that of access. Almost every location had a good public viewing area or balcony within close proximity of the aircraft. This was not a bad thing since few people had the range of cameras and telephoto lenses that are taken for granted today. Nor was the use of colour slides or prints as widespread: lots of photographers spent those years with black and white film in their cameras.