The clipper, Vol. 2, No. 4, October 1945

              VOL. 2—NO. 4
NEW YORK
OCTOBER, 1945
Pan American World Airways Orders New Clipper Fleet
PAA Orders
Land Type Clippers For Atlantic
V.P. Bixby has announced that Pan American World Airways will re-establish twice weekly air service between New York and London this month utilizing 40 passenger land-type Clippers on 15 hour schedules.
Commenting upon the use of landplanes on the North Atlantic route, Mr. Bixby stated:
“The first Transatlantic service with high speed, pressurized-cabin land-type aircraft was scheduled by Pan American to start more than 3 years ago. The contract for the System’s fleet of 40 Lockheed Constellations, ordered for delivery in 1942, was taken over by the War Department when hostilities broke out. The company’s plan for mass overseas transport at low rates was thus set back nearly four years.”
The interim service to begin within the next few weeks will be initiated with 4-engined Douglas C54E aircraft recently released by the United States Army, Mr. Bixby said.
Capable of carrying approximately 40 passengers in the North Atlantic service they
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G. L. Rihl
D. E. Grant
V. P. Rihl, Foreign Counsel Grant, Announce Plans
Two of PAA’s best-loved pioneers—Vice President George L. Rihl and Foreign Counsel David Grant—announced their plans for retirement from the Company’s staff last month.
Vice President Rihl, having returned for medical treatment to the U.S. from his assignment in Brazil, was advised that he should not attempt to continue the responsibilities of executive administration. Accordingly, he retired from the Company effective Sept. 30, and effective Oct. 1 he transferred from Brazil to Mexico City where he will serve as Special Advisor to CMA.
Born in Gunnison, Col., Mr. Rihl attended the University of Washington in Seattle. In 1909 he went to Mexico where he was employed by the Mexico City Banking Company as teller and continued in the banking business until 1921 when he went into the oil business.
Faced with difficulties involved in delivering payrolls to miners and oil workers beyond the hills of Mexico, he interested some other Americans and some. Mexicans in massing enough capital to buy a handful of planes. In 1924 they started flying the peso pouches on the peons’ pay day. The system worked so well that they conceived the idea of making similar services available to other companies in Mexico. This was followed by the establishment of regular airlines for which the Mexican Government gave them franchises. And, from this little beginning there (Continued on page 4)
Stewardess Janet Pflug, formerly of the News Bureau, one of a group of eight stewardesses who have just completed training for service on the DC-4, before which she is shown. One stewardess and one steward will serve on each of these new transocean land planes.
Constellations
To “bridge over” the war-made 5-year gap in production of great 100 and 200 passenger high-speed transocean Clippers, Pan American last month revealed an order with the Lockheed Aircraft Corporation for a large fleet of “Constellation” 4-engined landplanes.
These aircraft, the largest and fastest four-engined landplane transports now available, will enable PAA to provide 11 hour service on their pioneer transatlantic route between New York and London and 10 hour highspeed New York-California express service over the coast-to-coast routes for which the Company has applied to the CAB.
The order will total some $17,000,000. A majority of the aircraft are earmarked for PAA’s transatlantic services, for Pacific service and to Alaska and for the trunk air routes across the Caribbean and down the East Coast of South America. Included in the order are two Constellations for Pan American-Grace Airways for the operation of high-speed express services over their South American West Coast trunk airline between the Canal Zone and Buenos Aires. Panagra’s 3,400 mile great circle route from Balboa to the Argentine capital will be covered by the new Constellation Clippers in less than 14 hours.
Pan American will receive the first of the Lockheed Constellations in November and the entire fleet is scheduled for delivery by the first of the year.
The new Clipper has a wing span of 123 feet and overall length of 95 feet. Its gross weight is 86,250 pounds. The plane is powered by four Wright Cyclone-18 motors, which also power the Superfortresses. The motors can develop 2200 horsepower. Engines can be changed in 30 minutes and complete access to any motor in the ship is possible in only six minutes.
Announcement of the Constellation orders ' today followed the report from London of completion by PAA of the first route proving-flight for 4-engined landplane transports over the highly competitive North Atlantic route. This flight, made in the “Pan American Clipper”, the first of the 4-engined Douglas C54E type transports released by the U.S. Army, placed the Company in a position to inaugurate the first fast landplane schedules between the United States and the British Isles as rapidly as additional C-54 equipment can be licensed by the CAB.
It was pointed out that Pan American had on order with the Lockheed Company a fleet of 40 4-engined land transports—22 of the present medium range type, and 18 of a long range transocean version—in 1940.