Pan American air ways, Vol. 9, No. 5, July 1938

              Volume 9

JULY - 1938 - AUGUST
Monsignor Starts Trip By Jungle Path and Air
LA PAZ.—Deciding that the easiest route may not always be the most interest­ ing route, Monsignor Frederico Lunardi, Papal legate at La Paz, Bolivia, recently started a trip to Europe in a most unusual manner. In­ stead of going to Buenos Aires or some seaport on the West Coast of South America to board a steamer for Europe, the good Father started off for the East Coast of South America th rou gh t h e B o liv ian jungles. Reaching Guajara-Mirim, he boarded a train for Porto Belho in the state of Amazonas in Brazil. At this far-away station he boarded one of Panair do Brasil’s flyingboats for Manaos. Al­ though originally planning to continue his unique trip by river steamer to Para, he decided he liked cloud riding better and flew to Recife. Here he boarded the steamer for Europe.

No. 5
Berm uda Clipper Is “ Honeymoon E xpress9 9
PORT WASHINGTON.— This first “Atlantic” airline to B erm u da h as become known for several impor­ tant travel trends since its inauguration over a year ago, but perhaps most note­ worthy of all is its increas­ ing popularity with honeymooners. Scarcely a Clipper leaves for Bermuda without honeymooners. One schedule last winter from B a ltim o re had five honeymoon couples aboard, and early in June this year Alfred Gwynne Vanderbilt chose the Clipper to Ber­ muda with his bride. But the record honeymoon group was the one of June 29, when no less than six honey­ moon couples left for Ber­ muda at once. This was half the capacity load of 25 pas­ sengers Bermuda Clipper c a rrie d th a t day. New York’s papers immediately dubbed Bermuda Clipper “ Cupid’s Sky Chariot” and the “ Honeymoon Express”.

LINK FOR ALASKA BY AIR WITH U. S. READY FOR FLYING
T rain in g F lig h ts O n N ew S c h e d ­ ule F ro m S e a ttle T o Ju n e a u S ta r t In A u g u st

B314 CLIPPERS TO START FINAL TESTS IN AUGUST
F irst o f 6 S u p e r-C lip p e rs N e a r­ in g E n d of M a n u fa c tu re r’ s T e sts— F ly in g N ext

THREE NATIONS START ATLANTIC SURVEY FLIGHTS
B ritish , G e rm an y an d F re n c h L a u n c h P r o g r a m s to L ist A id s F o r T r a n so c e a n S e rv ic e

ALL-AMERICAN ROUTE
B aby C lip p e r W ill F ly O v er W ate r T o K e tc h ik a n an d T h e n c e T o Ju n e a u

SISTERSHIPS IN LINE
B o ein g P la n s R a p id D eliv e rie s Fo llo w in g C o m p letio n o f T e s t P ro g ra m

NO AMERICAN FLIGHTS
O u r 1 9 3 7 S u rv e y s C o n clu d e d S e v e n Y e a r s o f F ield W ork; B o e in gs A w a ite d

SEATTLE.—An airline link joining the United States and Alaska, long desired objective in transportation between the rich territory to the north and the west coast states, will be in a u g u ra te d on an experi­ mental basis in August, when the final survey flight will be made over the new route. The United States Department of Commerce has given its au­ thority for a series of experi­ mental transport flights over the projected over-seas route between Seattle, Washington and Juneau, Alaska, looking toward the early establishment of regular scheduled service.
E co n o m ic N e c essity

Of primary economic impor­ tance to the northwestern area of the United States and all Pacific coastal states, the pro­ jected route will make possible a seven-hour schedule between Seattle and Juneau through connection with the transconti­ nental airlines. Transport time from New York and other cities in the east to Juneau will be reduced from the present 7 days by train and steamer to slightly more than 24 hours by air.
R o u te G o e s “ O u tsid e ”

“ STRATOSPHERES” NEARING TESTS
B oein g 3 0 7 -S In F in al A sse m b ly S ta g e fo r P a n A m e r­ ican

SEATTLE. — The world’s largest transport aircraft, first of six giant super-Clippers de­ veloped by the Boeing Aircraft Company for the transocean services of Pan American Air­ ways is rapidly approaching the end of her program of manufacturer’s tests and is scheduled to enter the long and exhaustive flight test stage about the third week in Au­ gust. Following preliminary water tests, and her first flight in June, the big aircraft for the past 60 days has been under­ going the most rigid construc­ tion tests ever designed by a manufacturer to assure per­ fection of every detail and modification of ru d d er and sea-wing details, as determined in the preliminary operations tests, are being completed.
Stability Enhanced

NEW YORK.—After a long winter of planning and re­ planning the greatest flying campaign yet launched to “con­ quer” the north Atlantic Ocean is well under way. In three European capitals final plans have been made to start a series of 50 survey and experi­ mental transport flights be­ tween Europe and America in the highly competitive race for a e r ia l le a d e rsh ip on the world’s blue ribbon trade route.
T h re e F o r e ig n P o rts

MIAMI PASSENGER IS NO. 1 ,0 0 0 ,0 0 0
L e a v e s D in n er K e y F o r F ligh t O v er C a rib b e a n S e a T o V e n ez u e la

The “outside” or over-seas route will be used from Seattle to Ketchikan (where passen­ gers arriving by connecting steamer may be picked up) and thence to Juneau, a total dis­ tance of 1,000 miles. At Juneau the service would connect with the te m p o rary international route via Whitehorse, to Fair­ banks, and thence westward to Nome on the Bering Sea, also connecting with a line from Fairbanks southwestward to Flat and Bethel. A Sikorsky S-43 amphibian — “ Baby Clipper” — powered by twin Pratt and Whitney Hornet engines was sent from Miami to Seattle for the early training flights. N orm ally carrying 15 passengers over the West Indies and South American routes, the “ Baby Continued on Page 2

SEATTLE.—The first two four-engined overland trans­ ports designed for “ strato­ sphere” flying — huge, high­ speed airliners whose cylin­ drical bodies will be completely supercharged for high-altitude transport flying by Pan Amer­ ican Airways for whom they are being built—have moved into their final assembly stage. They will shortly sprout wings, fittings and engines. Removed from the construc­ tion jigs three weeks ago, the two big 21-ton Boeing 307-S four-engined transports—look­ ing for all the world like big, fat silver cigars—are moving along at high speed . . . to the point where one can get some idea of what they are going to be like. From the standpoint of their construction, they are being built just like a refrigerator. The walls are better than three inches thick—so they can take the pressure of the super­ charging which will maintain 8.000 feet cabin pressures up to 20.000 feet and above. Most Continued on Page 2

Materially im p ro v in g the performance and stability of the aircraft, these changes in­ volve the lowering of the sea­ wing angle to provide added stability in high winds while the aircraft is on the surface. The sea-wing is a structural unit of the aircraft whose proper angle cannot be ade­ quately determined through preliminary wind tunnel and basin tests, requiring actual water tests before engineers can set the proper angle to provide the best relation be­ tween the ship’s wing, hull and tail surfaces. Boeing engineers, however, determined this angle so closely that the adjustment required was only three de­ grees. Another improvement added to the aircraft, to take ad­ vantage of the latest aerody­ namic developments for the o r ig in a l d esig n , completed three years ago, will split the ship’s single rudder into mul­ tiple rudders, and place them out in the clear slipstream of the tail assembly. This change will assure hair-line accuracy of the rudder within the initial three degrees of turn where, Continued on Page 4

MIAMI.—When Miss Grace Corman of Orlando, Florida, walked into the passenger ter­ minal of Pan American Air­ ways one day in early August with ticket in her handbag and luggage carefully totaled to 44 pounds, she had in mind simply starting a 1,100-mile air journey across the Carib­ bean to Caracas, Venezuela. Instead, she discovered that she was a very important pas­ senger—the one millionth to reserve passage on Pan Amer­ ican Airways System. Ticket number 1,000,001, starting the Clippers on their second million air travelers, also was honored at Miami the sam e day. It belonged to George W. Bacon, engineer from New York City, who left for a 7,500-m ile flight to Buenos Aires. Logging of 1,000,000 passen­ gers was considered an espe­ cially noteworthy achievement in the case of the international airline, because so many of the passengers are like Mr. Bacon, in that they buy passages for trips thousands of miles in Continued on Page 4

The British from Southamp­ ton, the Germans from Berlin, the French from Biscarosse, have already set up a series of schedules to take their trailblazers across the trackless miles of the northern ocean for the testing of men, machines and methods, preparatory to each nation’s drive to establish a Transatlantic service in the early future. Following the survey flights made with their Empire boats Ast year, the British Imperial Airways have scheduled tests with three different types of equipment—a new version of the Empire boat, built up to a gross weight approximating that of Pan American’s Trans­ pacific Clippers; the 4-engined land plane Albatross, which was received too late to par­ ticipate in last year’s flights, and the novel piggy-back Com­ posite airplane.
L a n d p la n e U se d

An important change in the German program also calls xor the operation of at least one experimental flight on a non­ stop route between Berlin and New York, with the new fourengined F oc ke -Wul f land transport, which is scheduled to substitute, during the middle of August, for one of the regu­ lar catapult s ur vey flights, which are confined to the southern course. The French, expecting to conclude only the survey pro­ gram this year, will use their huge Lt. de Vaisseau Paris on Continued on Page 5