When the major commercial airlines switched over to jets in the early 1960s, they were stuck with hundreds of suddenly obsolete prop planes. The surplus planes may have seemed like a herd of white elephants to the airlines, but to budget-minded travelers with imagination, they have come to represent a skyful of magic carpets. The arithmetic was irresistible: with second-hand DC-7s available for as little as $100,000, it needed only 1,000 people contributing $100 each to buy one. Some two dozen private, nonprofit travel clubs quickly formed to put that principle to work, manning the cockpits with moonlighting...
Travel: The Prop Set
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