The buses were labeled Meyer Bus Lines – Perryville, Mo., and the negative sleeve said Head Start at the Airport – 7/14/67, so I’m going to take a wild guess that some kids from Perryville came to The Big City to see the airport.
The two boys on the fence on the left have name tags that say Steven Oehlert and Randy Phillips. They belonged to Mrs. Barks.
All tied up
Here’s one way to keep track of your charges.
Photo gallery of airport visit
Since I’m low on real info, I’ll just have to let the photos tell the story of the trip to the airport. Click on any photo to make it larger, then click on the sides to move through the gallery.
Picture 9# has a way cool Aero Commander aircraft parked in the background the logo on the tail I think was the computer airline at the time that flew into Cape. I don’t remember the name of it…like a lot of things these days or so it seems.
Aero Commanders were the hot rods of the sky at the time…long range and could cruise at over 200 mph. Cool plane and the kids could care less it seems.
Thanks for identifying the plane. It caught my eye, but I couldn’t think of what it was. I added a tag for it. I bet there are some folks out there who are interested in that kind of thing.
Back in my alumni director days at Miami (Ohio), the university had an Aero Commander that someone found in a barn in England. It was many years beyond the refurbishing by the time I had occasion to be in it. I had many flights in the co-pilot seat. We could do an evening event in Cleveland and be back in bed in Oxford by midnight. When the university got a new president, one of the first things he did was make the university’s pilot do was teach him how to land the plane. Fortunately the pilot was in good shape and the emergency prep was never needed. Loved that plane!
Iconic photos of an era. Thank you!
The Cape commuter was OZARK AIRLINES Magnum PU Hopkins. That small plane in the picture is not as large as the commuter Ozark used.
As I remember…(so you take all this with a grain of salt and warranted skepticism)…. my Dad the Naval Aviator said the Qzark commuter was a Fairchild Prop-jet and they do resemble the Aero Commander with the wing over design.
He called it a “French made plane” but I looked it up. They were originally made by FOKKER the Dutch manufacture that made a lot of planes for Germany and the French. Design of the Fokker F-27 series started in the 1950s as a replacement to the Douglas DC-3 airliner. The manufacturer in the US was call FAIRCHILD probably because of the bad taste US veterans and especially Airmen like Dad had for the “F–king German Fokkers” in WWI and WWII.
(I looked this part up) Ozark Air Lines Fairchild F-27 N4300F (c/n 58), like many Local Service airlines elected to replace or augment its fleet of DC-3s with the prop-jet Fairchild F-27, a high-wing twin Rolls-Royce Dart engine layout with a pressurized cabin for 18-28 passengers depending on seat configuration.
Initially Ozark only ordered three, but acquired four more from various sources over the next four years.
They were first used on their “prime” routes from Chicago to St. Louis and Joplin and St. Louis to Minn- eapolis, and later as a regional carrier on routes like the one from St. Louis to Cape Girardeau and Marion Illinois. The introduction of the F-27s also saw the use of the “Ozark three Swallows” logo for the first time. The “Three Swallows” logo, in varying forms, was to last until the demise of the airline.
You can see a picture here:
http://www.edcoatescollection.com/ac3/Airline/Ozark%20Air%20Lines%20Fairchild%20F-27.html
I would have sworn Ozark was using DC-3s the few times I flew them.
I just happened to spot a 1966 story about the Fairchild FH227s being on order to replace the DC-3s which had become unprofitable to operate.