Gentlemen, just imagine this lady in EHM livery
"It took us three days to get to Amsterdam from Curaçao and the first night after arrival you were floating around in your bed, accustomed as you had grown to the constant motion through the air.
Of the people who were flying in those days (around 1950), I know of no one who only made eventless trips. No boredom here! Willy once had an engine on fire, just like Olaf Stoop of the Real Free Press. I myself once had to make a forced return to Curaçao because one of the engines had run out of control. We spent the night in the Avila Hotel (much-changed, still kicking), where I saw mosquito nets for the first time in my life and where we hardly got any sleep because a gramophone kept playing a top hit titled, ironically enough, Good Night Irene. There were always such long blue flames coming out of the exhausts that legend has it there was a passenger on every flight by night who warned the stewardess an engine was on fire. And they often were right, too.
Starting the motors took some doing. Dig the guy in the shadow of the wing and the fire extinguisher in handy reach. The engines started whining, then spluttered and banged for quite some time before breaking out in a reassuring roar; this had to be done four times, after which the pilot taxied ASAP to the start of the runway where you were treated to the procedure that is almost invariably described as "warming up the motors". It was not; in a place like Curaçao, the crew's main fear was that the engines would overheat. This is why aircraft were parked nose upwind there until at least 1995, when some wise guy finally figured this did not matter for jets, and they stopped turning whole wasteful circles on the tarmac. The ritual at the start of the runway served to check the magnetos, the ignition system. You bring a motor up to full power and switch to the spare system; the motor has to keep running smoothly or you'd better not take off. Repeat for all engines."
Foregoing excerpts from:
http://www.vrcurassow.com/2dvrc/sscuracao/connie.htmlSome memories, isn't it? Hi Jaap, are you there?
