Chicago O’Hare ORD 1968 Super 8 film, American Airlines

In late 1968 I put together a Super 8 film depicting an airline flight from Chicago ORD to San Francisco SFO based on my flight in June of that year. At the time I manually cut and spliced the film using clear splicing tape to create a "story" which was part of a longer movie.

As I recently discovered the 57 year old film canister I sent it out for scanning. Thanks to comments from many observant viewers, I can begin to reconstruct the timeline.

The exterior filming was taken at the observation deck located atop the E-F concourse, which was close to the American Airlines gates. That part was filmed in the late fall of that year on a return trip to the airport. It includes mixed footage of a Boeing 720B (which was a B-707 variant), and a Convair 990

The inside cabin scenes were shot during my actual flight in June of 1968, but upon closer examination of the cabin window detail by viewers, those scenes were most likely is taken in a DC-8, which was not used by American

The 2025 video conversion is "straight out of the can" with minor exposure corrections and video stabilization tweaks.The initial silent version was pretty dead, so I added ambient background sounds made from current sound recordings. (The best that I could do as Super 8 had no sound back then)

Looking at a TWA Westbound Starstream Jet schedule from 1968, a O.W. (one way) coach fare from Chicago to San Francisco was $105.00 (probably over $800 in today's money)

A historical note, though my exact memory is fading, I do remember the pilot making an announcement during the flight that Robert F. Kennedy had died earlier in morning. That places the date of the inside cabin footage on June 6

original film:
Camera: Vivitar TL-4
Super 8 Kodachrome II film stock, processed in 1968
Original color film, not colorized
Inside cabin scenes: from June 1968, outside taxiway footage form the observation deck above the E-F Outercourse in the late fall of 1968
Locations: Chicago O’Hare Airport and San Francisco Airport

June 2025 video conversion
1080p scan from DigMyPics, AZ
ambient sound and jet noise added in 2025
(Sound film for Super 8 did not come out until 5 years later)