You know, the history of aviation wasn’t all Pan Am and Boeing. There were other companies involved.
Like Delta. And Convair, a division of General Dynamics (as of 1953).
“Introduction to a Champion”, a Delta/Convair promotional film for the then-new Convair 880 jet. The 880, in theory, was supposed to be a competitor to the 707 and DC-8 by being smaller and faster.
The film certainly makes the 880 look comfortable, in that sort of idealized vintage 1960s air travel kind of way. They even manage to make airline food look almost appetizing. It also places great emphasis on the alleged speed of the 880.
Unfortunately, it was not entirely successful. Convair made 65 of them from 1959 to 1962. Delta ran 17 of them between 1960 and 1974. As far as I can tell, there are no currently operational 880s, though there is one in storage somewhere in California. Most of the others have been chopped up and parts put on display (or, in one case, used in a lodge in South Africa).
There is one surviving intact (but not airworthy) example that I know of that is on display. You may even have seen it, which leads me to…
Bonus video: this is a little below my usual standards of quality, but short. “Lisa Marie: The History Tour 1960 – 2015”. You see, Elvis bought one of Delta’s retired Convair 880s in 1975 for $250,000. He then spent a truckload of money having it extensively customized:
That source claims the total cost, after refurbishing, was over $600,000. In 1975 money. That’s almost $2.9 million today, according to the US Inflation Calculator, which actually seems kind of cheap for a business jet.
(Probably true story, at least according to a couple of sources: Elvis originally wanted to buy a 707, and had even put down a deposit on one. He probably would have been happier long term with that plane – or at least it would have been easier to find parts, I suspect – but the 707 he put money down on was Robert Vesco‘s, and when the fecal matter of Vesco’s empire impacted the rotating blades of the Federal impeller, that deal fell apart. I don’t know if Elvis got his money back or not: I suspect the IRS or the SEC immediately confiscated it from Vesco’s people, and they didn’t have it to give back. But I digress.)
There’s some good shots in here of the “Lisa Marie”‘s interior, which I guess is pretty much what you’d expect from a plane owned by Elvis.
I worked in a shop that made steel, for over 35 years. We made steel for the investment cast industry, that went into things like artificial hip sockets, knee joints, boat propellers, gun barrels, for many of the major players and the food industry, among many other things.
We also melted steel in a huge vacuum chamber, for jet engines. I could bore you with some of the technical reasons for melting in a vacuum, but basically it kept oxygen and nitrogen levels low, to keep from contaminating the alloy, and letting it keep it’s strength closer to melting point, letting them run the engine hotter, thus more efficiently.
I knew quite a bit about the entire melting process, being there for so long,and doing all of the various jobs in the shop, and most of them in the lab. So when I see the different jets from both the past, present, and the future, and I love to learn about the parts of the planes that don’t involve the engines. We made metal for Rolls Royce, Pratt Whitney, and many of the other big players.
Actually, Pratt Whitney was a real PITA to deal with. Because you had to kiss their butt, in order to keep their business, because if you didn’t sell to them, then nobody else would buy from you either.
We had a vice president in charge of technical, who came up with this special alloy, that revolutionized the industry, making it possible for the development of the Rolls Royce engine that powers the Air Bus A-350 series. Jet engine development is important because of fuel efficiency being of such a big deal now.
Seeing some of the abilities of our military jets, especially the Stealth fighter and bomber, is stunning. I was leaving work one day, just before our city had an airshow scheduled that next day, and a Stealth Fighter flew over Lake Michigan, and then right over my head, less than 1000 feet I think. The thundering sound of that plane, along with the appearance of the strange looking plane scared me like crazy. It just did a bank and flew a turn and headed across the small city of Muskegon,MI that I live in,but it was the most impressive thing that I have ever seen here. They stopped having the airshow a few years ago,sadly, but it was a truly great thing for such a small city, of perhaps 30,000 people.
Why does a video about Elvis’ plane feature elevator music covers of Beatles music?