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In-Air Entertainment Keeps Evolving


In 1911, just eight years after the Wright Brothers flew the first aircraft at Kitty Hawk, the pop song inviting Josephine on the newfangled flying machine was already on the market.

A decade later, an in-flight silent movie,”Howdy Chicago”, was projected to passengers on a flight over the Chicago World's Fair. Regular in-flight movies didn’t start for another 40 years, when the now-gone TWA showed them in their first-class areas in 1961.

Since then, the advances have been rapid. Video games and small bulkhead TV sets emerged in 1975. Individual seat-back video started on some airlines in 1991, followed a decade later with live in-flight TV.

Many airlines now have seat-back multi-channel screens that beam out movies, games, live TV and advertising. Along with those airline-provided items, many passengers now carry their own private all-inclusive entertainment, with laptops, SmartPhones, E-readers and dozens of newfangled electronic miracles.

With airlines continuously seeking new ways to make extra bucks, passengers can expect more innovations in pay-per-view in-air entertainment in the near future.

Airline Seat: Keep Squeeze From Bumping Knees PDF Print E-mail


It seems almost every day, airlines are redesigning their cabins to squeeze more passengers into the cheap seats. Just recently, Southwest did it by adding several more rows of seats, thereby making the already-cramped passenger spaces even more uncomfortable for anyone over 3 foot 10.

Now a company has come up with the Knee Defender, a device that prevents the passenger in front of you from inclining the seat into your vulnerable leg parts. The small, portable $20 plastic block locks onto your tray table and keeps the seat in front from pushing into your vulnerable space.

Instead, of course, as you settle into your seat before the flight, you can politely ask the passenger in front of you not to push back. As is our experience, you may then get the angry lecture about paying for the seat and the need to squeeze your knees, because the guy in front of him is also tilting and squeezing.

For more information, go to kneedefender.com/html2/how_to.htm

 
Fly To Mars: Agency Seeks Senior Married Couple PDF Print E-mail


According to CNN, the Paragon Space Development Corporation may hire a husband and wife to be on the first manned (and womanned) journey to the Red Planet. Still in the early planning stages, the space flight would happen in 2018.

The planners may look for a senior couple as volunteers, because Paragon scientists fear radiation and other space hazards would have negative effects on young travelers’ internal organs. That means the travelers would have to be beyond childbearing age.

With new technology, the 70-million-mile roundtrip would take just under two years each way. So far in the plans, there would be no landing on Mars, just a brief orbit of the Red Planet, the total requiring the couple to be away from Earth for almost 48 months.

Old traveler’s response: Four years is a hell of a long time to be away from the grandkids, senior discount at IHOP and the TV soap operas.

 
Peru: Condor photos by roaming travel4seniors editor PDF Print E-mail

Top: Seldom-seen Andean Condor in flight showing wingspan of up to ten feet, soars over Peru’s Colca Canyon.

Bottom: Mating pair rests on a mountaintop rock.

 
Cambodia: Ancient Temples at Angkor Wat PDF Print E-mail

 
Hotel Elevator Tip: Go Non-Stop To Your Floor PDF Print E-mail


There’s a simple trick you can use to make the elevator an express just for you. It may be selfish to do it when the busy elevator is full of people, but there are times when you need to get to your upper-floor room fast. Then, the trick may be even more necessary when you’re riding the elevator down and you’re late for an appointment or airport limo pick-up.

When you get aboard the elevator, simply hit and hold down two buttons simultaneously for a second or two. That’s the one with your floor number on it (or lobby) and the close-the-door button. In most elevators, it will make your ride non-stop. If you prefer to avoid flack from other people for your trick, do it only when you’re alone on the elevator.

 
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