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Have you ever pressed your face to the window in a plane as a kid and stared at the wing thinking flying shouldn't work? Have you ever sat in seat 23B with the baby crying five rows up and perfume getting reapplied three rows over and wished for just forty minutes of respite?

Of course you have. Passenger jet aviation is one of the most transformative things humanity has ever built, and most of us experience it as a tube we sit in until we arrive somewhere else. But, it wasn't always the cattle-car experience we have today.

Marc and Renee love aviation and flying and this episode traces that tube from Frank Whittle, the British inventor who patented the jet engine in 1930, to the de Havilland Comet (which kept falling out of the sky because of square windows), to Boeing betting big on a plane nobody asked for, to the Concorde flying Mach 2 over the Atlantic for twenty-seven years while burning fuel like a small country, to the 787 quietly changing what eight hours in a metal tube feels like on your body. Along the way: Juan Trippe deciding ordinary people should be allowed to fly, the 1973 oil crisis rewriting the economics of flight, and the disappointing realisation that the shower on the first-class A380 was never going to be for you.

If you have ever waved a thanks to a flight attendant who couldn't possibly see you, paid four dollars for a small bottle of water at thirty-five thousand feet, or sat through a connection in Charlotte Douglas wondering whether there is some kind of cosmic law requiring every American flight to route through there, this one's for you.

Check out the Mouselets for civil engineering and Disney - https://www.youtube.com/@TheMouselets

We'd love to hear from you. Click here to give us ideas on new episodes.

Join Renee and Marc as they discuss tech topics with a view on their nostalgic pasts in tech that help them understand today's challenges and tomorrow's potential.

email us at nostalgicnerdspodcast@gmail.com

Come visit us at https://www.nostalgicnerdspodcast.com/episodes or wherever you get your podcasts.

Next episode is all about the development of passenger planes. So, this week our song is about that emotionally stressful situation that air travel has turned into.

The bare feet where they shouldn't be. Loud talkers. Hogging the arm rests. Passive aggressive travelers.

It felt like a blues song in A Minor. But mashed together with our Season 2 house band's yacht rock groove.

Lyrics below.

[Verse 1]
I boarded last, no room in the overhead bin
Lord, I boarded last, no room in the bin
Walked down to twenty-three and squeezed myself in
Man in C wouldn't lift his knee
No that Man in C won't lift that knee
Woman in A pulled the shade down, didn't wanna see
[Chorus]
I'm in 23B
Just B
Window went to A
Aisle went to C
I got what was left
I'm in 23B
Just B
[Verse 2]
Baby's been crying since we left the gate
Lord, that baby's been crying since we left the gate
Smell of perfume keeps me wondering what I ate
Bare feet on the headrest, three rows in front of me
Bare feet on the headrest, three rows in front of me
Wanted forty minutes of quiet, can't get forty seconds free
[Chorus]
[Bridge]
There used to be a dinner
There used to be a tie
There used to be a meaning
To getting in the sky
Now I'm boarding group five
With my one allowed bag
The seat reclines an inch
And nothing comes round for free
[Final Chorus]
I'm in 23B
Just B
Window went to A
Aisle went to C
I got what was left
I'm in 23B
Just B

We'd love to hear from you. Click here to give us ideas on new episodes.

Join Renee and Marc as they discuss tech topics with a view on their nostalgic pasts in tech that help them understand today's challenges and tomorrow's potential.

email us at nostalgicnerdspodcast@gmail.com

Come visit us at https://www.nostalgicnerdspodcast.com/episodes or wherever you get your podcasts.

Have you ever sat at a red light at 2 AM with no traffic in any direction and waited anyway? Have you ever rolled through that same red light 2 AM and felt vaguely guilty about it?
Of course you have. The traffic light is the most obeyed command in human history. Rarely enforced (unless you're in the UK like Marc). No officer in sight. Just a coloured light on a pole, and a near-universal agreement to stop when it's red and go when it's green.
This episode traces the humble traffic signal from the gas-lit lantern that exploded outside the Houses of Parliament in 1868 (yes, exploded, three weeks in) to the adaptive AI systems that watch real-time traffic and adjust timing in milliseconds. Along the way: railroad colour conventions, William Potts in Detroit and Garrett Morgan in Cleveland, the political question of whose green is longer, the inductive loop that can't see your bicycle, and the moment where you discover that the colour you grew up calling yellow is officially called amber once you cross an ocean.
Ride along with Marc and Renee through another look at a technology that became infrastructure as it spread beyond its humble beginnings.

We'd love to hear from you. Click here to give us ideas on new episodes.

Join Renee and Marc as they discuss tech topics with a view on their nostalgic pasts in tech that help them understand today's challenges and tomorrow's potential.

email us at nostalgicnerdspodcast@gmail.com

Come visit us at https://www.nostalgicnerdspodcast.com/episodes or wherever you get your podcasts.