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Queens of all the Air: 1952

Submitted by ceraurus on Tue, 02/19/2019 - 9:47am.
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A Capital Airlines Lockheed L-049 Constellation at the Allegheny County Airport, southeast of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Circa 1952. Scanned from a Kodachrome stereo slide taken by my grandfather Ralph E. Archer, who owned and operated the Archer Camera Shop in Titusville, Pennsylvania, from 1929 to 1961. Pennsylvania Airlines, which started in 1931, later merged with Central Airlines in 1936 to become (you guessed it) Pennsylvania Central Airlines. PCA then changed its name in 1948 to Capital Airlines and made a first in airline history when it introduced a new low-fare "coach" service called the "Nighthawk" service. It later merged with United Airlines in 1960. "Queens of all the Air" was the title of one of their advertising brochures in the 1950s which featured the Constellation on the cover.

A Capital Airlines Lockheed L-049 Constellation at the Allegheny County Airport, southeast of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Circa 1952. Scanned from a Kodachrome stereo slide taken by my grandfather Ralph E. Archer, who owned and operated the Archer Camera Shop in Titusville, Pennsylvania, from 1929 to 1961.

Pennsylvania Airlines, which started in 1931, later merged with Central Airlines in 1936 to become (you guessed it) Pennsylvania Central Airlines. PCA then changed its name in 1948 to Capital Airlines and made a first in airline history when it introduced a new low-fare "coach" service called the "Nighthawk" service. It later merged with United Airlines in 1960. "Queens of all the Air" was the title of one of their advertising brochures in the 1950s which featured the Constellation on the cover.

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Ask the boy who owned one

Submitted by Olde Buck on Wed, 02/20/2019 - 9:11pm.

In the mid 50's, my parents took my brother and me to Friendship Airport (now BWI) to watch the planes. Before we left, Pop bought both of us our own Constellations. They were lithographed tin with pistol grips below; squeezing the grips caused the props to spin and made appropriate racket. The planes were decorated in the Capital Airlines scheme.

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Airline ad

Submitted by ceraurus on Tue, 02/19/2019 - 2:45pm.

This is the cover of the ad brochure mentioned in the post and where its title came from.

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