i was just having a conversation over lunch about flying, i realised i must be one of those lucky people, i can remember flying as long as i`ve been cognisant, even before that as well.
my mother packed me off to present me to the grandparents as early as 2 months if i recall correctly and every year until i turned 16 we would fly to jamaica.
we would also take TTAS or it was commonly know shake and bake to tobago at least once a year. if you`re not familiar with TTAS, before air caribbean, caribbean star and any other airline serviced the air bridge between trinidad and tobago. the government ran the Trinidad & Tobago Air Service. the aircraft if i recall correctly were some world war two era turbo props.
the flights were never more than 40 minutes but more often than not you travelled in silence, well not silence but since most people either had a death grip on the arms of their chairs or if you had anything to say, it was pretty intelligible over the cacophony of engine noise.
the cabins weren`t lined and were the original aluminium, so you`d spend the entire flight sweating bullets whether you were afraid or not and that was where the bake portion of the name came in.
the shake portion of name came via the rocking the aircraft did. takeoff, in-flight, landing. it was like being in a child`s toy. side to side on the ground, up and down in the air. you`d get off the aircraft and be all wobbly.
strangely i never puked on those flights, but i seem to be in the minority. where i used to puke is on the flights too and from jamaica. i`d eat, i`d be fine, the plane touched the ground and up it came. we finally deduced it was the airline food. so my grandmother would cook for me on the return flight. the first time she did that, as soon as the stewardess started making her trek, i cracked open my thermos and the scent of the piping hot food grandma packed for me that morning went wafting through the aircraft.
aaaah the fun times.
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