Airways Magazine November/December 2021

REMEMBERING PAN AM For 64 years, Pan American was synonymous with all of our daydreams of what flying should be, from epic flights to the far end of the world onboard Martin M-130 flying boats to fancy trans-Atlantic crossings from New York to Paris on Boeing 707s. Pan American was a true force in bringing peoples and nations together, while developing the navigational and logistic techniques as well as the self-taught engineering skills that enabled it to boast an ocean-spanning airline network. In our tribute to this iconic airline, upon the 30th anniversary of its sad demise, the editors and contributors of Airways have focused on the stories that highlight the dominance of Pan American as the ‘chosen instrument’ of the United States. And we present first-hand accounts of two events that…

ON THE COVER The Boeing 707 helped Pan Am to cement its basis as a major global airline in the 1960s. The ‘World’s Most Experienced Airline’ was at its apogee. PHOTO TOM LIVESEY COLLECTION SOCIAL MEDIA airwaysmag 1,531 likes Let’s welcome a new featured photographer. This time, our guest is Dylan Phelps (@zfwaviation). “Wunala gives one final spirited bank over the vast Mojave Desert as her career in the air to an untimely end.” OUR MOST VIEWED VIDEO As the aviation industry continues to rebound from the effects of the ongoing global pandemic it seems for some aspects of the industry there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Airways is now on YouTube. Be sure to subscribe and get the latest news and our Weekly AvFix.…

Fokker F.VIIa/3m 1927-1930 Pan American’s first service airplanes were three Fokker F.VIIa/3ms, delivered between September 1927 and August 1928. The type, which had entered into service with KLM in 1926, had only a brief life with Pan American. One of them was lost in 1928 and Pan Am transferred the remaining two to Mexico’s Compañía Mexicana de Aviación (CMA) in 1930. Fairchild FC-2 1928-1933 Established in January 1929, the Pan American-Grace Corporation (PANAGRA) relied on the Fairchild FC-2 as its mainstay. The first of the Fairchilds started service in Peru from Lima to Talara. PANAGRA also received an upgraded version of the FC-2, dubbed the FC-2W, fitted with six passenger seats and an upgraded Pratt & Whitney powerplant. Sikorsky S-38 1928-1943 In the early 1930s, the Sikorsky S-38 became the backbone of Pan American’s fleet with 38 aircraft.…

ONE OF those big boats crashed on a night landing in Lisbon, one ditched successfully in the Pacific and was sunk by the Navy, and another ditched in the Atlantic when no longer operated by Pan Am. Because it was a hazard to navigation, the crippled 314 was sunk by the US Coast Guard. The remaining 314s were scrapped. But the famed China Clipper—that’s another story. It was actually a Martin-produced flying boat. Between 1933 and 1936, Martin built three—and only three—M-130s, all for Pan American. Originally, the airline had planned to start regular trans-Atlantic service with the Martins as early as 1935, but political obstacles caused a 180-degree change in direction: to the Pacific. The Martin had the range for nonstop California-Hawaii flights, but could carry only a ton of payload.…

IN 1924, a young Juan Trippe was looking over a map of Honduras at the offices of the United Fruit Company in New York, analyzing the prospect of chartering one of his airplanes to the company to help expedite the transfer of export documents over the country’s mountainous terrain, from the seacoast to Tegucigalpa, the capital. Trippe had just established Long Island Airways, using seven war-surplus Aeromarine biplanes to shuttle the wealthy from New York City to their weekend homes in the Hamptons. On one such flight he had met an executive who worked for the United Fruit Company, which exported bananas from Honduras to the United States. The executive had been complaining about the difficult and time-consuming process of stamping all export documents at Tegucigalpa, located in the central part of…

NATURALLY, WITH these friends flying the airplane, I was invited to watch the operation from the observer’s seat in the cockpit, behind the Captain. It was my first exposure to a 747, and the opportunity was most welcome. Our aircraft was almost brand-new, having only about 500 hours on the airframe. The short hop from Brussels to Amsterdam was uneventful. Little did we know that our flight would be hitting the headlines. As our Boeing 747 taxied out to the runway for takeoff to New York, Schiphol Ground Control notified us that three aircraft had been hijacked that day. The controller also warned us about the presence, on our flight, of two passengers who had been denied boarding on an El Al flight to New York. With the pre-takeoff checklists completed and a…