www.crazyabouttv.com

You might recall that I had asked a friend whose father was a TWA pilot to get her dad to watch "Pan Am" and then critique the new ABC show for me.

Ron Johnson, who lives in North Idaho, was kind enough to do so.

Nothing he said was mean-spirited. He realizes it's just a TV show, after all. But he noted that the pilots were unrealistically young for the dawn of the jet era. (There were a lot of experienced ex-military guys in the ranks at the time.) And the division of duties involving the captain and other members of the flight crew were way off.

Moreover, he chuckled at the notion that the inaugural flight of special New York-to-London service would have been flown by a pilot presumably low on the seniority/insider connections pecking order. 

But he noted that, yes, passengers used to dress up for air travel. And, as depicted, the level of security was, well, nothing we would recognize today.

He said the show gets one other thing right: The pulchritude.

Once upon a time, he said, attractive stewardesses were nothing less than part of the airlines' marketing plans.   

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