Produced in 1962, “Airport in the Jet Age” is a standard educational film about airplane travel. What makes it worth watching is the fact that it shows Los Angeles’ LAX Airport during the early part of the jet age and just after it was redesigned by architecture film Periera & Luckman. At this time the airport featured a central hub with the control tower and “theme building”, and a series of outlying terminals. Ross, the child featured in the film, travels by Helicab helicopter to the airport and boards a United Airlines DC-8 jet.

In 1958, the architecture firm Pereira & Luckman was contracted to plan the re-design LAX for the “jet age”. The plan, developed with architects Welton Becket and Paul Williams, called for a series of terminals and parking structures in the central portion of the property, with these buildings connected at the center by a huge steel-and-glass dome. The plan was never realized, and the Theme Building was built on the site intended for the dome.

In the new terminal area west of Sepulveda Blvd that started opening in 1961, each terminal had a satellite building out in the middle of the tarmac, reached by underground tunnels from the ticketing area. United’s satellites 7 and 8 were first to open, followed by 3, 4 and 5; satellite 2 opened as the international terminal several months later and satellite 6 was to be the last to open

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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 and 2k. For more information visit http://www.PeriscopeFilm.com