Clipper, Vol. 16, No. 8, September 1957

              Volume 16	September, 1957
Number 8
Madrid has been certified as an intermediate stop on the Atlantic Division’s New York-South Africa route in a unanimous recommendation of the Civil Aeronautics Board with which President Eisenhower has concurred.
London Has a	;
Makes Polar Flight Pay
By Rupert Jackson
Recipe for making a new route a success — turn the proving flight into a port charter on the return journey, with, of course, the full approval of the C.A.A.
That is what happened on the new Polar Route proving flight at the end of August. Thirty-five Royal Air Force Men were flown over the Pole to San Francisco, picked up another PanAm charter there and flew on to Christmas Island in the Pacific to take part in Britains current series of A-bomb tests.
The whole of the arrangements were made within 36 hours.
Said Ken Freeland, Sales Office Supervisor in London, "It’s amazing what you can do when everyone works together.”
Let Ken tell the story from the beginning.
"B.O.A.C., acting on behalf of the British Air Ministry, contacted PanAm on August 28 asking for help in transporting 60 passengers to Christmas Island. B.O.A.C. did not have any seats available, and as it was our peak weekend of the year, we did not either.
"But the Polar proving flight had arrived and we wondered if we could use it for the Air Ministry charter.
"So we contacted Mr. C. E. Young, who is traffic manager of PAD, and phoned New York. Working through both we got in (Continude on Page 3)
STEWARDESS ULLA JONSSEN chats with soapbox derby champion Terry Townsend at Idlewild before they boarded a Clipper to Shannon. Terry, 14, won a two-week tour of Europe at Akron, Ohio, in the All-American soapbox derby. He’s from Anderson, Ind.
It was the biggest party London Airport had ever seen when Pan American took over the whole of the final departure lounge to celebrate the inaugural LON/SFO over the Pole flight on September 10th.
Naturally, there was a cake — two feet in diameter. And, naturally, there was a little girl to help Clipper Captain E. Hale to cut it. And, again naturally, the little girl — 5 years old Ingrid Bragstad who was traveling to Alaska with her parents — took the biggest piece.
Said her mother, "It’s half as big as her head. She’ll be sick.”
Dad agreed. But subsequent intelligence tells us she wasn’t.
Helping the 47 passengers celebrate the departure were Dhan Mukerji, Traffic and Sales Manager, Atlantic Division;
James O. Leet, DT/SM, London; and Jim Naylor, STM, London.
It was quite a party. The guests finished the cake and drank 30 bottles of champagne.
And for sales effort the Pan Am boys had something to celebrate. The first-ever flight was completely sold, and the next five flights were fully booked with two waiting lists. Since then (This was written on September 13th) all flights for the following two weeks were booked solid.
It was the same story in cargo.
Bob Maidment, cargo sales supervisor, London, says that on September 12th — the return flight of the SFO/LON inaugural — they had more cargo than they could handle.
Apparently it’s going to be a popular flight. Said actor John Wayne, on being told of the direct Los Angeles-London flights over the Pole — "Thank the Lord. That’s the last I’ll of New York.”
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Baghdad Runs Start October 6
Baghdad, historic capital of Iraq, will be added to the list of Pam Am-served cities when Super-7 service starts on October 6. Three times a week, Clippers will fly into Pan Am’s new terminal on the Tigris from Ankara, Turkey. The new service, which is an extension of existing schedules, links Baghdad directly with New York. When the Rome non-stops get under way, it will become an extension twice a week of flight 66 and once a week an extension of 64/65.
Antarctic To Be New PAA First
A veteran Arctic pilot will be in command and the newest polar navigation instruments and techniques will be employed when Pan Am Strato Clipper makes the first commercial flight to the Antarctic in history beginning October 12.
Under contract to the US' Navy, the giant double-deck plane will carry 37 passengers from San Francisco to the US naval facility at McMurdo Sound, where it will land on a 6,000-foot runway built on 15-foot-thick bay ice.
The Clipper will be in command of Capt. Ralph Savory of Seattle, chief pilot of PAA’s Alaska region — a man who has had more than a quarter of century of flying under Arctic conditions.
Aboard the plane will be two recently developed instruments which have been successfully used on Pan American’s polar route from the Pacific Coast to Europe. One is a new type of gyro-compass, replacing the ordinary magnetic compass which has a tendency to become erT ratic and sluggish in the vicinity of the magnetic poles. The other will be the “sky compass,” an instrument similar to a sextant, which polarizes light rays from the sun and makes it possible for navigators to check the heading of an aircraft even though the sun may be well below the horizon.
The Strato Clipper will take off for Christchurch, New Zealand, via Honolulu, Canton Island, and Nandi in the Fiji Islands, landing at Christchurch on October 14.
Takeoff time on the last 2,-250-leg to McMurdo will depend on weather conditions.
At the same time, the Board established the first mid-Atlantic U.S.-Europe route for an American carrier, which will be Pan Am’s Latin American Division. This new route will link Miami, San Juan, Madrid and Rome.
Both new authorizations are effective until July 4, 1959, giving the board a chance to survey results of the operations at that time.
Necessary arrangements are now being discussed with the foreign governments involved, and announcement of the starting dates and schedules will be made when details are worked out.
CAB Recommendation
In the wording of the CAB recommendation, "The South Africa route certificate is amended to add Madrid as an additional intermediate point, for the temporary period to July 4, 1959. Madrid shall be served only on flights originating or terminating at New York or Johannesburg, thus restoring Pan American’s ability to carry Europe-South Africa traffic and to permit stopovers in Europe for United States-South Africa traffic.”
The Board observed that the route is one of the longest in international commerce and declared that the European stop is necessary to help make the operation more self-sustaining financially.
LAD Plans
LAD is planning four round trip through flights weekly on its new route; two originating in Miami and two in San Juan, continuing by way of the Azores to Lisbon, Madrid and Rome. In effect, the certification also pdo-vides a new one-carrier round-the-world route, merging in Rome with other Pan American flights to the Middle East, the Orient and back to the United States.
The Board turned down a bid by Pan Am to compete with Trans World Airlines in serving Madrid on its North Atlantic route to Europe.
PAN AM PLAYED a prominent role (as you can see here) in the spectacularly staged "Show Plane at the Roxy”, which packed in the crowds at that famed New York theater. The star performer, Elena Giusti, was flown over by Clipper from Rome.