My First Flight: 'It Was the 1960s, and a One-Way Ticket Was $7'

September 23, 2010 at 9:34 AM | by JetSetCD | Comments (0)

One of the Port Clinton-South Bass planes, loading passengers off the ice of the frozen lake

Everybody has a story about their first time. The anticipation, the nerves, the worry...but then the pure wonder when you finally take off. Of course we're talking about your first flight—the first time you boarded an airplane and discovered the skyways. We're telling those stories in a new series simply called "My First Flight." Want to share your first flight story? We've love to have it! Send it along to us here.

This story comes from a reader and close friend of Jaunted. Enjoy!

I never would have known it at the time, but my first flight—onboard an Island Airways' Ford Tri-Motor plane between Port Clinton, Ohio and the Lake Erie Islands—is a part of aviation history. It was once (or maybe still is) known as the "World's Shortest Airline," since flights typically lasted no longer than 30 minutes. And one day, in the late 1960s when I was in my late teens/early twenties, I decided that the "Tin Goose" was something I wanted to experience.

A Ford Tri-Motor was briefly brought back to Port Clinton in 2008 for a Fourth of July event

I grew up spending weekends with family at a vacation trailer park in Ohio on Lake Erie, a short drive from the Cedar Point amusement park. Several times daily, the Ford Tri-Motor airplanes would carry fisherman and tourists to Put-In-Bay, a town on South Bass Island out in the lake. You could hear them coming because they flew so low and the engines were so deafening. It was a scheduled airline, and the one-way tickets were maybe $7.

I had never flown before, and so one day I said to my mom, "Let's go take a flight!" My dad drove my mom and I to the Port Clinton airport and we boarded right from the tarmac. No security, no stewardesses, no snacks. I remember that the plane had the capacity for about 18 passengers, but it wasn't full this flight. The seats were minimal and metal, and you could see the pilot. I don't think there was a co-pilot.

I sat on the right side of the plane and I do remember that once we took off and I looked down on the street, I was astonished to see that we were going only just a little faster than the cars on the country roads. We passed over the trailer park and Mouse Island and the ferry docks. It wasn't very high, flying just a few hundred feet above the tree tops. Out over the lake and then we were at our first stop, Middle Bass with Lonz Winery. There we dropped off a few fisherman, who had their fishing poles and tackleboxes just laying in the aisle next to me.

We took off again and circled around Perry's Victory Monument on Put-In-Bay. We were right at the same level as the observation deck; you could look at the people up there on the deck! It was so cool! It was right there!

After landing on the island, my mom and I took the airport's old, converted school bus-turned-shuttle to the Miller Ferry. We went right back to our trailer park; we didn't even stay on the island for lunch. It was just about the flight experience. My next flight wouldn't happen until several years later, and then it was long-haul—Detroit to Honolulu!

Liked this story? Send us yours! Also, check out our similar series over at our sister site VegasChatter, where people are letting spill their Vegas Virgins tales.

[Photos: MiddleBass2, The Toledo Blade]

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