Delectations

I was disappointed last April when 1 found that no jumbo-jet was available on the airline by which I was planning to leave New York. I always like to be an early bird where any new style of transatlantic transport is concerned. In the spring of 1936 I was one of the first to book passage on the Hindenburg.

It was an ambivalent experience; the most memorable of my many crossings, but also the most boring; I might say the only boring one. Tedious though the pre-jet flights could be with their stops at Shannon and at Gander, one was sustained by the prospect of imminent arrival. We left Frankfurt on a Friday, which involved for an Englishman a preliminary three-hour flight from London and a four-hour wait in a hotel lobby. We were due at Lakehurst on the following Monday morning.

AW

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Alec Waugh

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I was disappointed last April when 1 found that no jumbo-jet was available on the airline by which I was planning to leave New York. I always like to be an early bird where any new style of transatlantic transport is concerned. In the spring of 1936 I was one of the first to book passage on the Hindenburg.

It was an ambivalent experience; the most memorable of my many crossings, but also the most boring; I might say the only boring one. Tedious though the pre-jet flights could be with their stops at Shannon and at Gander, one was sustained by the prospect of imminent arrival. We left Frankfurt on a Friday, which involved for an Englishman a preliminary three-hour flight from London and a four-hour wait in a hotel lobby. We were due at Lakehurst on the following Monday morning.