Shwwedagon Pagoda, Yangon, Myanmar
J
Abcrombie & Kent Picture Library
ules Verne's 1873 novel, Around the World in Eighty
Days encapsulated, in the story of one fanciful voyage, a
speed of travel unheard of until the 19th century. His travel
story marks the beginning of the modern global traveler.
Verne's story is further worth recalling in light of Cessna's
announcement of the new Cessna Citation jet, capable
of as much as 693 miles per hour at a service ceiling of
51,000 feet.
Only in 1947, the year I was born (and I'm still a spring
chicken), did Pan Am inaugurate "round the world" service
with a propeller-driven Constellation. The Wright Brothers'
amazing feat was still talked about with awe by our neighbors
Alice and Julia Meyer, whose father had witnessed the flight.
Lindbergh had only flown the Atlantic twenty years before.
In 1958, when director Mike Todd's film of Verne's novel
was released, the first commercially successful jetliner, the
Boeing 707, made its first passenger flight on October
26th. The era of viable, transoceanic, jet global tourism
had arrived.
HYLAND
