Thematic Photographic 75: "Travel" v.1.0 - Prepare for Takeoff

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"Douglas DC-3 in Piedmont Airlines Livery"
Winston Salem, NC - September 2009 (Click to embiggen)

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When you think of travel -- at least in the planning stage -- the means of transport is probably the first thing to settle. And since that's what we're thinking about in this week's Thematic Photographic, it seemed fitting to embark on this week's theme with a seat on nostalgia airlines. I'm actually old enough to remember the venerable Douglas DC-3 (and its military variant, the C-47), though I can't recall ever flying in one. But for a lot of years this aircraft was the workhorse of American travel and transport. This example, that I captured at the Winston Salem Air Show, is dressed in the finery of Piedmont Airlines. This is fitting enough, since it was a DC-3 that carried Piedmont Aviation's first commercial passenger. The company's website describes it like this:

"On a cold day in February, 1948, a small DC-3 took to the skies over Wilmington, North Carolina enroute to Cincinnati, Ohio with intermediate stops in Southern Pines, Charlotte and Ashville, North Carolina, Tri-Cities, Tennessee and Lexington, Kentucky.

Piedmont Flight 41 was carrying one paying passenger, founder T.H. Davis who was not yet 30 years old and a handful of local dignitaries."

In the years since then, Piedmont has been on both ends of the merger game, acquiring Richard Henson's Henson Aviation and later being assimilated by US Airways.

"If you're driving down the road and see a turtle sitting on a fence post, don't be too impressed. That turtle didn't get there by itself." - T.H. Davis

(I bet I know who'll get him down from there though.)

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