This 1960s American Airlines promotional film, produced by Audio Production Inc., shows the work that goes into developing a flight plan prior to takeoff. It most likely dates to about 1961-1963. The film opens with a plane taking off from New York’s Idlewild Airport (later renamed John F. Kennedy International Airport), and a man climbing out of a car with his suitcase and heading into the airport. An American Airlines Boeing 707 Astrojet flies through the sky. The film shows a departure board for a non-stop flight to Los Angeles (01:23). American Airlines Flight 3, a 707 Astrojet, takes off from the runway; footage shows the takeoff from inside the cockpit (01:51). In an American Airlines office at the airport, meteorologists feed data into computers. A man reviews a flight plan generated by a computer (02:55). Another man tallies up cargo and passenger weight (04:10), including bags of U.S. mail and a big cage of birds (parrots and possibly other birds). A pneumatic tube delivers information to one of the flight plan employees (05:33). He reviews a chart that shows the weight distribution for the flight (06:20). The captain and co-pilot receive the flight plans and review the flight course (07:54). The crew complete information by hand on the “Take-Off Computation” slip for the 707. AA Flight 3 taxis on the runway and takes off (10:44), concluding the short film.

Notes from our friends at the Computer History Museum channel: the computer console shown at 2:30 is likely the console of an IBM 705 Electronic Data Processing Machine (EDPM), a high-speed mainframe of the 1950’s. It was discontinued by IBM in 1960, as faster machines became available. Many IBM 705’s continued in use during the 1960’s. The keypunch machine at 2:20 to 2:29, and 2:40 was an IBM model 026, introduced in 1949, it was a workhorse machine popular until 1964, when it was superseded by the IBM 029 keypunch machine. A 1950’s era punched paper tape machine is also seen (2:33). The film describes planning for “Flight 3” from Idlewild to LAX. The Idlewild New York Airport was renamed John F. Kennedy International Airport on December 24, 1963, so the film is probably not later than that. The aircraft was a Boeing 707 “ASTROJET.” The name “Astrojet” was copyrighted by American Airlines as a “Service mark” in May 1963, although the name had been in use at least since October 1959, when American Airlines obtained its first Astrojet. {A notable AA Boeing 707 flight disaster occurred on March 1, 1962, when AA “Flight 1” rolled over and crashed into Jamaica Bay two minutes after takeoff, killing all 87 passengers and eight crew members. Cause was reported as a manufacturing defect in the autopilot system.} American Airlines used the Boeing 707 models until 1981, when it retired its remaining 60 or so model 707 aircraft in favor of more fuel-efficient modern aircraft.

We encourage viewers to add comments and, especially, to provide additional information about our videos by adding a comment! See something interesting? Tell people what it is and what they can see by writing something for example: “01:00:12:00 — President Roosevelt is seen meeting with Winston Churchill at the Quebec Conference.”

This film is part of the Periscope Film LLC archive, one of the largest historic military, transportation, and aviation stock footage collections in the USA. Entirely film backed, this material is available for licensing in 24p HD, 2k and 4k. For more information visit http://www.PeriscopeFilm.com