[Tools]

To add some history perspective to the "original" GMT and it's use.


The use of GMT time was not universal in air traffic in 1954 when the GMT Watch came out, indeed, actual radio/telephone comunications with Air Route Traffic Control Centers wasn't even in place until 1955; so pilots operated on when they would arrive at their destinations using the local time at that destination. Pilots also operated their aircraft based on their home base time and when they would be expected to be back. Air Traffic Control Towers, which pilots didn't contact until they were about 25-50 miles out, were operated locally and didn't come under streamlined/standardized rules until the FAA was born in 1958.. There were also only a half dozen companies even capable of flying across the Atlantic or Pacific.. Threads like this one are always interesting.. but we can't take the way things work today and decide that that's the way it was 50 years ago too...