The Prop Set

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 commercial pilots and retired military aviators, staffing the cabins with ex-stewardesses--and flying off for weekend vacations that cost members 50% to 75% less in air fare than the cheapest scheduled flights.

Last weekend, for example, 65 members of Washington, D.C.'s 1,700-member Emerald Shillelagh Chowder & Marching Society flew to Stowe, Vt, for skiing; round-trip in the club's DC-7B cost $37 apiece, compared with a minimum of $80 for the same flight on a commercial airline. Over the same weekend and at similar savings, Denver's Ports of Call ferried 68 members to Nassau; Cincinnati's Travel A-Go-Go and Manhattan's Society of Sky Roamers delivered 90 members each to Miami for the Super Bowl; World Samplers of Dallas lifted 51 skiers to Aspen, Colo.; and Indianapolis' Voyager 1,000 took 70 members to Freeport, Grand Bahamas. Club planes, like all private aircraft, presently undergo an annual Federal Aviation Agency inspection, but the F.A.A. now intends to start treating them as if they were commercial airliners, requiring continuous, system-by-system inspection and maintenance.

Olive Volleyball. Membership costs vary from club to club, but usually include an initiation fee ($100 to $150), annual dues ($50 to $100), plus the club's cut-rate fare for the trips that a subscriber elects to make. Most are weekend hops, as many as 40 a year, and by taking as few as two of them, a member comes out ahead. Favorite destinations include New Orleans (for Mardi Gras), the Caribbean and Mexico. One popular destination is simply labeled Unknown--clubs have found that the planes are fullest for "mystery" flights, for which members are told only the cost and what kind of clothing to wear.

Whatever the destination, the flight alone is often memorable. Consider the Sky Roamers, bound from La Guardia in their DC-7 for the Super Bowl. Their trip started off like many a commercial flight--that is, an hour behind schedule. But once aloft, the pace quickened. Glad-handers jammed the aisle. Miniskirted stewardesses squirmed through, bearing trays of drinks (none of that two-to-a-customer routine here) and sandwiches. Shoes were shucked.

In no time, an olive was serving as a mock volleyball.

Pay Now, Go Later. When the plane touched down in Miami, the cabin rang with cheers and applause. And why not? Though the flight took four hours (v. 2 hrs. 15 min. for a jet), club members were paying only $111 each for round-trip air fare, two days of food and lodging, and a ticket to the game --nearly one-third less than the cheapest Super Bowl package offered by the airlines. And one economy leads to another. Social Worker John Butler, 58, joined the Roamers in early December, "so I could do my Christmas shopping in St. Croix." There are also less tangible rewards. Says Manhattan Pharmacist John Herzlich, 40, who joined with his wife: "I have to admit I get a strange feeling of pride at being part owner of an airliner."

Biggest of all the airplane-owning private travel groups in the U.S. is Washington-based Club Internationale, with 17,000 members in 35 cities. Unlike the others, it operates on the principle of "pay now, go later." Members kick in $995 in weekly installments over a three-year period. In each of the first two years, they are entitled to a ten-day vacation in the Caribbean or Central America. The third year brings the big payoff: 20 days in Europe.

The cost averages out to $25 per vacation day, including everything, and it is a hard bargain to match. Moreover, as Founder Alan Weitzman, 31, points out, "They're saving while they're planning for the trip, which keeps excitement and enthusiasm building up." Now, for the 269 members who joined Club Internationale at the outset three years ago and have since been eagerly awaiting a European jackpot this summer, President Johnson's as yet unspecified intention to curb travel outside the hemisphere is adding anxiety. "I doubt that the European travel bans will really be prohibitive," says Weitzman, but the club is making plans for substitute 20-day trips to Central and South America--just in case.

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