Dreams of Flight

[Elspode]

It makes a noise which is unmistakable from anything else in the Kansas City air, four supercharged radials throbbing as the beautiful white and red craft rises from its home airfield a couple of miles from my workplace. I hear it approaching in the distance and, long familiar with the sound, I turn to look out my narrow office window as it passes by. Invariably, I smile, and sit transfixed, watching it disappear from my view. As it flies away, my mind travels with it, sitting in a window seat, watching the Midwest flow by beneath me, headed for somewhere exotic...somewhere different.

In my childhood, dozens of these aircraft plied the airways, and our old downtown Kansas City Municipal Airport was where they congregated. It is where the rare flying vestige pictured here still lives, having been lovingly restored, flown and maintained by long-retired TWA personnel, people who flew on Lockheed Super G Constellations when they were the last word in passenger aircraft. Kansas City Municipal Airport was the home of TWA, and the Connie was the pride of their line in the early 1960's. In the days before the advent of the Boeing 707, five or six of these sublime beasts would sit churning on the tarmac at Municipal Airport, and the ground would rumble with their power. Even today, it is a palpable memory for me, a reminisce of picking up my elderly Aunt Mary when she would come to visit from Buffalo.

I have walked through this plane on static display, and marvelled at its sleek lines, luxurious appointments (for the day), and quizzically noted that the navigator had a periscope through which to sight the stars to ensure that the plane was on course. The antique aircraft is fiercely expensive to maintain and operate, and so a simple walkthrough at an airshow cost me five dollars, but I would have paid twice that.

It has been noted that this aircraft probably could not have been effectively restored and operated anywhere besides Kansas City, because it is here and only here that sufficient numbers of people who had experience with this aircraft back in the day were available to undertake such an enormous task. Available, and willing...because they loved the Connie and her siblings.

You, too, have probably seen her. If you've watched "The Aviator" or any of a number of other period films, it was this Connie that you saw. It is the finest example of its type still flying anywhere in the world, a thing of grace and beauty...a thing of memory and imagination. So, if someday you hear an airborne deep rumbling, a pulsing noise, felt as much as heard, make sure you look skyward...she is a sight to behold.