The 1967 Paris Air Show featured the presence of the largest commercial aircraft in service to date. That aircraft was the Douglas DC-8-61, capable of carry more than 250 passengers in its super-stretched fuselage.
Movie Monday runs significantly longer today for your nostalgia and procrastinating pleasure with nearly an hour and a half of footage from the 1967 Le Bourget biennial. Each movie provides a different perspective on the show. The first, running 24 minutes, is from a US perspective that captures a more light hearted look at the show.
The second (below the fold) runs just about an hour, is a review of all the technology on display including (and with particular focus on) Soviet aerospace technology and the advancements in the development of the triple supersonic transports: Concorde, Tu-144 and Boeing 2707.
Interviews with suppliers, airlines, manufacturers and pilots are not entirely dissimilar from how the industry covers air show today, but you’ll see an important contrast. The Cold War-era Paris Air Show was rooted in national representation and image; Soviet, US and European “propaganda” by any other name. Aviation, in short, was just one arm of the ambassador’s global reach.
The fall of the Berlin Wall, which is as many years removed from the 1967 show as it is from today, aerospace is is again influenced by the machinations of superpowers along side the different commercial players. The 2011 show will see China’s Comac making its first C919 marketing pitch outside of its borders, the rise of another superpower flexing its aerospace muscle on the global stage.
This post was originally published to the internet between 2007 and 2012. Links, images, and embedded media from that era may no longer function as intended.
This post originally appeared at Flightglobal.com from 2007 to 2012.