Elegance

Such beautiful machines, with the elegantly curved fuselage and cockpit area, the sweet curve of the wing, the rounded shape of the triple tailplane, the long aristocratic nose-wheel assembly.  Lovely.  For long the workhorses of intercontinental air travel, they became obsolete with the introduction of passenger jets, such as the de Havilland Comet 4, the Boeing 707, the Douglas DC-8 and the Convair 990.  Edith Piaf flew the Atlantic in one of these, and the love of her life, Marcel Cedan, was killed when a Constellation crashed on the way back to France from New York.  (Air France has rather too many crashes. )

A time when travel was romantic.  Now, when I catch the red-eye special from Melbourne to Sydney I regret the absence of glamour even as I rejoice in a much faster -- and safer -- journey.