Flying without a TSA Pat Down

MY RIDE HOME to Baltimore from Advanced Infantry Training at Fort Jackson, South Carolina, was one of the most interesting flights of my life. There was a strike against the airlines at the time and only Delta and a few independents were flying. Most everyone else took a bus home, and I figured that if everyone else was avoiding the airport I might have a chance. Silly. 

Delta Airlines Boeing 727

Columbia Metropolitan Airport in those days was archetypical of those serving small cities in the American south in those days. An elegant terminal sat parallel to a single runway. A single road approached it with lanes divided by a long fountain. When I got inside, I found the place crowded with hopeful passengers, most of them in uniform.

You couldn't travel anywhere in the United States in those days without rubbing elbows with servicemen of every branch. We traveled in uniform to take advantage of cut-rate standby fares. However, looking at the crowd and the lack of any airplanes, I opted for a full-fare ticket. I had some savings that I could bank on when needed.

I waited eight hours at the terminal before a single Delta jet arrived. I had passed the time with other servicemen, drinking beer and playing pinball machines. When the jet pulled up to the terminal, we waited expectantly for all of the passengers to unload. The airline agents told us to be patient when we asked where it would go next. "We don't know yet," they explained. Yet?

Some passengers collected their luggage and left the airport after deborading. But many joined the waiting crowd until a Delta agent climbed on top of his counter and asked, “How many of you are heading west?”

A number of people raised their hands and held them aloft while he counted. He hadn't asked if they were traveling to a specific destination, just a direction. He then asked how many of us were traveling north. I held my hand up until counted with my fellow travelers. There was no need to ask if anyone was headed east. There's wasn't anything but water that way. And, he didn't ask for southbound passengers. I can only speculate why.

Those head west outnumbered us and he announced, “This flight is now bound for St. Louis. Anyone wishing to travel there please come to the desk with your luggage and we'll check in as many as we can.”

Those of us left behind watched forlornly as the plane loaded and departed, and we settled in for another wait. No one could tell us if or when another plane might arrive and I was tempted to head for the bus station.

A second plane arrived two hours later and the same scene was replayed. This time, after hands were counted, the Delta agent announced that the plane was headed for Baltimore and I thanked my lucky stars that was exactly where I wanted to go. I had just enough time to call my family and give them our estimated time of arrival at Friendship International Airport, before we were whisked away as another group of stranded travelers watched in dismay.

I had a few minutes at Friendship to watch the same scene replayed as I waited for my father to arrive to pick me up. I wondered why I hadn't seen a Piedmont flight all day.

Lake Central Airlines DC-3

I had flown on Piedmont Airlines to Columbia, South Carolina, when I started Advanced Infantry Training at Fort Jackson. To be more accurate, I flew on Lake Central Airlines from Baltimore to Washington, D.C. And then on Piedmont from there to South Carolina. The first leg of that trip was on a DC-3, twin engine airliner. It was my one and only flight on that classic airplane. I remember well clawing my way up the aisle to my seat. The plane sat on the ground at a steep incline from the rear to the front because it was a “tail dragger.” Its undercarriage consisted of two large wheels, one under each wing, and a small wheel at the tail. The seats were woven wicker. My mother turned white as a sheet when she saw it and I probably didn't help things when I joked that I had been granted a discount in exchange  for helping wind up the propellers.

We landed at Washington International Airport in Washington – safely, I might add – and taxied to the far end of the terminal. When I got inside, I was directed to the Piedmont boarding gates at the far end. I began walking in that direction and then running when I began to worry that I would miss my plane. I began to believe that the terminal building was longer than the runway. Of course, I arrived in a sweat to learn that my flight had been delayed.

Piedmont Airlines Convair 440

Piedmont flew me to South Carolina on a Convair 440 twin engine airliner. This one sat level on the group on tricycle landing gear and the seats were upholstered. Surprisingly, the soldier seated next to me disappeared in a cloud of white smoke when the door was closed. The stewardess allayed our fears when she announced that it was only condensation from the cooling system and would disappear when we reached cruising altitude. 

Cruising altitude in a Convair 440 is just slightly higher than a piper cub. In many ways, flying at that altitude was like taking a road trip; you got to see the sights along the way. And, we stopped at many of them, including every small airport. Of course, my fellow passenger disappeared in a cloud of condensation every time we landed at one.

Thinking back on those adventures, I believe that I would rather take another flight on a DC-3 or a Convair 440, than every subject myself to a TSA pat down in a modern airport. 

Read Jack's novel, Rebels on the Mountain, the tale of Nick Andrews, an Army spy, who has Fidel Castro in his sights but no orders to pull the trigger. The mafia as well as the American business community in Cuba will pay a fortune for Castro's assassination, but Nick has his career to consider, his friends to protect, and a romance to sort out in the chaos of a revolution.