Pan Am clipper, Vol. 21, No. 25, December 7, 1970

              employee air travel easier now
NEW YORK — Employees are no longer required to obtain their supervisors’ signatures on applications for tickets under the unlimited travel benefits.
This applies to the 50 and 80 per cent Nosub discounts on Pan Am and the 50 and 80 per cent Nosub and 75 per cent Sublo discounts on other carriers. Employees can use these an unlimited number of times a year.
Use of the 90 per cent Sublo prive-lege is limited as to number, therefore, in order to maintain a control
on its use, supervisors will still have to sign these application forms.
Effective immediately, employees simply have to fill out the appropriate form in duplicate and take them with their identification cards to the employee ticket office at their location. The duplicate form will be sent to the supervisor.
The change in the requirement was made in consideration of three factors.
• The difficulty that employees had in getting the form signed if their supervisors were not readily avail-
able during their work hours or at their location.
•	It will save both the employees’ and supervisors’ time.
•	Now that every Pan Am employee has an identification card with his picture on it, the few employees who abused their travel priveleges will find it more difficult to do so.
If there are any questions on the proper procedure for filling out the form, check the Passenger Traffic Manuals, Bulletin 1101, pages 9 & 10.
WHIRLYBIRD WITH A FUTURE? - They’ve never sold helicopter tickets to Boston before. But that’s what Janet Mayers and Lois Moran, of the Vanderbilt Ticket Office in New York City seem to be chatting about here. Now that Pan Am has proposed scheduled helicopter service spanning the length
of the 400-mile Northeast Corridor, Boston and four other major eastern cities may see a pilot program aimed at determining whether passenger service would be feasible. Aircraft used in the test program would be modified Sikorsky CH-53Ds-!ike Janet’s holding.
domestic copter service plan
By Richard Piperno
WASHINGTON, D.C.—A new air service featuring scheduled helicopter flights spanning the Northeast Corridor of the U.S. has been proposed to the Department of Transportation by Pan Am. Service would begin June 1, 1971.
The new service, which would be sponsored by the DOT, would be for a demonstration period of a year. It would link five cities in a 400-mile corridor stretching from Boston to Washington, D.C.
Undér the Pan Am proposal, helicopters would operate generally at altitudes of 3,000 feet, or less, in air space free of other aircraft.
an early start
Najeeb E. Halaby, Pan Am’s president, said the demonstration project would advance by at least a year the establishment of a permanent air transport system for the corridor. Such a system, using vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) craft or short takeoff and landing (STOL) planes, will emerge following the Northeast Corridor VTOL Investigation being conducted by the Civil Aeronautics Board.
Under the demonstration plan, car-
go and mail service would be provided on a revenue basis while passengers would be limited to non-revenue observers from federal, state and city agencies, congressional committees, passenger representation groups and related equipment manufacturers.
Cooperating with Pan Am in carrying out the program would be the Sikorsky Aircraft Division of the United Aircraft Corporation. Three Sikorsky CH-53D helicopters used in the program would be acquired by the DOT from the military for modification and conversion to peacetime use.
Two of these helicopters would be geared for mail or cargo transportation ; the third would be equipped with a fully developed 12-passenger com-
partment, and the rest of the plane would be for mail or cargo.
The primary objective of the unique program is to gather operational data for the development of a commercial VTOL and/or STOL system between city centers. The system has been named “Metroflight” by Pan Am. It could be extended to permit a smooth transition to general public service through advanced technology and equipment growing out of the program.
demonstrates reliability
The Metroflight Project was developed to demonstrate that a “reliable, regularly scheduled Metroflight service can be rapidly developed and maintained, employing at the outset: basic flight equipment now available, existing city-center heliports or sites requiring modest preparation, air routes and air traffic control procedures largely existent to handle low altitude movements in what is almost (continued on page 6)
at last the missing (data) link
By James A. Arey
NEW YORK—Data Link, the art of automatic, super-rapid communications between an aircraft and a ground station, has been successfully tested for the first time aboard a 747. Pan Am did it.
In tests aboard two Pan Am 747s flying over the Pacific Ocean, data link equipment automatically and continuously reported aircraft identification, position, flight level and other operational information to ground stations as far as 2,000 miles away.
18 years of effort
The 747 data link tests are a continuation of the development process which Pan Am started 18 years ago. Pan Am fully expects eventual automation of all routine air-ground communications through the use of an industry-developed data link system, said Ben F. McLeod, Pan Am’s director—electronic engineering.
He explained that the prime goal of data link is to provide ground stations with a continuous flow of essential aircraft operating information— quickly, efficiently and with a minimum of pilot workload.
every 30 seconds
“Aircraft identification, position and altitude data, for example, will be of extreme value to air traffic controllers who will receive this data (continued on page 6)
hall of fame adds Trippe
DAYTON—Juan T. Trippe will be inducted into the Aviation Hall of Fame here December 17 on the 67th anniversary of the Wright Brothers’ first flight.
Three others will be honored with the Pan Am founder at the annual enshrinement. They are Lt. Gen. Ira C. Eaker, commander of the 8th Air Force during World War II; Alexander P. De Seversky, author of Victory through Air Power, and the late Robert Ellsworth Gross, founder of Lockheed Aircraft.