Frank Sinatra's "Come Fly With Me" was the best-selling album in the United States for five weeks in 1958, but the irony of its popularity (or, perhaps, the source of its aspirational appeal) is that practically none of us could take up the offer to "glide, starry-eyed" on an aircraft with
Monty Python did a bit where a hijacker tried to disrupt a plane flight so he could get off in the town of Luton in England. Eventually, he gets dropped off (with no casualties) to take a bus to Luton- only to have a stereotypical looking hijacker demand the bus go to Cuba instead. Which it does!
I wondered what that was about when I saw it, but, as you noted how common it was for Cuba to be a hijacker desire, it makes more sense.
Usually it was deluded lefties who thought they’d find a socialist paradise in Cuba. I don’t know why the US government didn’t just schedule regular flights to Cuba to allow nutters to go there without hijacking an airplane.
Thanks for telling me, Jay. Losing Wambaugh and Forsyth in the same year is a terrible blow. Popular fiction is unlikely to produce better novelists than those two any time soon.
Part of me wants to think that D.B. Cooper made it, but there's no way he managed to survive. It's still a popular theory that he was a member of the Air Force at some point in his life, but the fact that Copper did not request a military grade parachute and other protective equipment says otherwise. I also think airline fiction has declined because like you said the mystique is gone and for many Americans flying is either a boring or a stressful experience.
As a kid I thought of Cooper as a sort of folk hero. Now I think of him as an incompetent criminal. He almost certainly died. And he definitely lost hold of the ransom money, because part of it was found later on near the Columbia River. He put lives at risk just to enrich himself. He almost certainly froze to death while dangling from a tree. The pilots and stewardesses were the real heroes.
Monty Python did a bit where a hijacker tried to disrupt a plane flight so he could get off in the town of Luton in England. Eventually, he gets dropped off (with no casualties) to take a bus to Luton- only to have a stereotypical looking hijacker demand the bus go to Cuba instead. Which it does!
I wondered what that was about when I saw it, but, as you noted how common it was for Cuba to be a hijacker desire, it makes more sense.
Usually it was deluded lefties who thought they’d find a socialist paradise in Cuba. I don’t know why the US government didn’t just schedule regular flights to Cuba to allow nutters to go there without hijacking an airplane.
I note with sorrow the death of Freddy Forsyth today. Reminded my to return to this blog.
Thanks for telling me, Jay. Losing Wambaugh and Forsyth in the same year is a terrible blow. Popular fiction is unlikely to produce better novelists than those two any time soon.
Part of me wants to think that D.B. Cooper made it, but there's no way he managed to survive. It's still a popular theory that he was a member of the Air Force at some point in his life, but the fact that Copper did not request a military grade parachute and other protective equipment says otherwise. I also think airline fiction has declined because like you said the mystique is gone and for many Americans flying is either a boring or a stressful experience.
As a kid I thought of Cooper as a sort of folk hero. Now I think of him as an incompetent criminal. He almost certainly died. And he definitely lost hold of the ransom money, because part of it was found later on near the Columbia River. He put lives at risk just to enrich himself. He almost certainly froze to death while dangling from a tree. The pilots and stewardesses were the real heroes.