Through the years, a variety of liquids, other than champagne, have christened a number of our special planes. Did you know Delta’s first Douglas DC-3, Ship 40, named “City of Atlanta,” was christened with a bottle of Coca-Cola? Actress Jane Withers, a native Atlantan, did the honors.
It took three swings before Miss Orange Bowl Libby Walker smashed a bottle of orange juice over the nose of DC-3 Ship 43, christened the “City of Miami,” on November 26, 1945. On December 1, Ship 43 was the first plane to fly Delta’s new Miami-Chicago route.
Miss San Diego Leona McCurdy christened Delta’s first Convair 880 “Delta Queen” with a bottle of water from various rivers throughout the Delta system in 1960.
Shown below, Mrs. George E. Leach, wife of the mayor of Minneapolis, christening one of Northwest Airlines’ first passenger planes, Stinson Detroiter “Miss Minneapolis,” with grape juice instead of champagne during U.S. Prohibition in November 1926.
Do you know of other unusual airplane christenings?
Marie Force
Archives Manager
July 24th, 2009 at 9:30 am
Marie,
Don’t forget the christening of the Spirit of Delta with the big ribbon bow.
Brian
July 24th, 2009 at 3:36 pm
Marie, thanks for the continuously unique blog posts!
July 27th, 2009 at 1:09 pm
Very interesting! Does Delta christen any of their aircraft today?
July 30th, 2009 at 4:08 pm
We do unveilings now with raising a curtain. Like this recent Boeing 777-200LR dediction to former CEO David Garrett, Jr.:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/budphoto1/3653690560/in/photostream/
December 18th, 2009 at 12:17 pm
Couldn’t resist adding this unusual Delta christening – with gold dust! – that I left out of my post:
Georgia Governor Lester G. Maddox christened our first Boeing 747, Ship 101 “Georgia Belle,” on October 24, 1970, sprinkling gold dust over the plane’s nose from Georgia’s Dahlonega mines.
Recalling that Dahlonega, a city in the north Georgia mountains, was the site of America’s first gold rush, Maddox added, “All the gold mined in Dahlonega could never total in value the amount of goodwill this airplane can deliver.”
January 21st, 2010 at 4:22 pm
For the story of The Spirit of Delta’s christening with the big red bow, see this post:
http://blog.delta.com/2009/09/04/delta-jet-stories-767-the-spirit-of-delta/
January 21st, 2010 at 4:27 pm
I forgot about that awesome blog. I just re-read it and Tweeted it out to share with others. Thanks Marie.
David