United Airlines C-54 to 747

I was out at another local estate sale today.  This man was a retired United Airlines pilot who had flown for United from 1945 to 1978.  That...is impressive.  Just imagine what this guy must have seen and been through.  To live through the golden age of aviation in America.  That really had to be something.

I have generally focused on vintage aircraft in this blog, and I won't stray too far from that today.  I am going to give you two items I found today, spanning the career of this pilot at United.

First up is a C-54 flight manual, published in 1954.  What is so remarkable about this book is that it is only about a half of an inch thick...maybe 100 pages.  Operator manuals for a modern jet aircraft are many volumes.  You can see in the scan here the full contents of the book.

From the other side of this man's career is this post card of one of the very first United 747's.  Using my handy dandy magnifier,  I was able to identify the "N" number on this aircraft as N4703U.  This airframe was built by Boeing in 1970, first flown on April 6th, 1970, and delivered to United on June 30th, 1970.  The very first 747 to go into service did so with Pan-Am on January 22, 1970...so I suspect that this was United's first 747...or at least one of their earliest.  For a complete history of this particular aircraft...check out this link.

So...another interesting outing to a local estate sale.  As I have said before...estate sales are interesting for a lot of reasons.  In this case, I got to get this cool stuff...but I am again reminded that we cannot take anything with us when we die...it all stays here.  So...just as this man seems to have done...be a good steward of your time, serve others, and live as fully as you are able.  

Until next time...

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