The Pacific Jet Age Is Here (Somewhere)

Not Aotearoa—but the Long Black Cloud. That’s what irate local aldermen thought, anyway, when Qantas’ new Boeing 707 jet took off from Mascot. Sydney, for the first time on July 6. It was the advent of the Pacific jet age. Some where in that black cloud—which Civil Aviation authorities went to a lot of trouble to explain was much worse than normal—is the aircraft, and also the spies of the aldermen from the nearby suburbs who for months have been yelling in anticipation of “jet aircraft nuisance”.

Said the Mayor of Randwick after the event; “They pulled every trick to convince people that the planes would not be a nuisance ... I enjoyed their supper [referring to the Qantas’ reception] but they didn’t pull the wool over my eyes. Jets mean noise, kerosene and smoke to a far greater extent than conventional aircraft.”

Qantas will put jets into regular Pacific service on July 29. Pan American will come in with jets a little later—which is pretty smart of them. By the time they start, Botany-Randwick civic fathers will no doubt have accepted the fact that, like amplified sound, TV westerns, pneumatic drills and motor scooters, jet noise is just another modern nuisance that we are stuck with.

Pan-Am will be introducing the Intercontinental version of the Boeing 707 to the Pacific service, although whether it will come right through to Sydney at the outset is not yet known. This version is 18 ft. longer than the current Qantas model and will carry more passengers. Pan-Am has already had nine months jet experience across the Atlantic with a version of the 707 which is slightly shorter again than the ones Qantas is using.