jlemon

And as for inherited aircraft due to acquisitions, I would add B737-100 equipment from AirCal (in addition to B737-200s and B737-300s) and the B717 from TWA. I seem to recall that AA justified the elimination of the 717 from the fleet by pointing out they were also operating the F100 at the time.....

jrl767

ah, forgot the 717 ... probably because I've only flown on one (IAD-STL, back in 2002)

WHBM

OK all. Moving on to another, slightly different, question format, I've put together a series of questions about what was once seen (at least from the penthouse in their Park Avenue offices) as the premier US airline, Pan Am. Who would care to have a shot .......


1. Pan Am in the 1960s had a huge 707 fleet, but also around 20 DC8s as well. The Pan Am timetable was always silent about the usage of the two types, just saying “Jet” and that this implied either. In practice they had different pilot groups for each and the DC8s were confined to specific operations. What were these DC8 routes? Answered

2. Which major worldwide hotel group, still very much around today, did Pan Am start up ? Answered


3. Which business jet were Pan Am the main US sales dealer for ? Answered


4. When the big Boeing 377 Stratocruisers were bought in the late 1940s, how much did each one cost ? Answered


5. What was the first jet airliner ordered by the overall Pan Am group ? Answered


6. What did Long Island Airways have to do with Pan Am ? Answered

7. In summer 1969, which airport had the most Pan Am departures per day ? Answered

8. Also in summer 1969, which city pair had the most flights per day ?

9. In 1956 Pan Am introduced the first 3-class service. Which route was this on, and what was the new third class called ?

10. The first Pan Am scheduled jet left New York in October 1958, to great ceremony of course. Where was its first stop ? Answered


11. What new aircraft type was introduced by Pan Am in 1984 ? Answered


12. A Pan Am 747 made the world’s first ever widebody scheduled flight. What was the route ? What was the subsequent history of the particular aircraft in question ? Answered


13. In 1969, which metropolitan areas were served by Pan Am using two separate airports ? Answered

14. Who formed the Yale Flying Club for college students there ?

15. What was the first ever Pan Am route ? Answered


16. Pan Am had two major but separate 727 operational areas in the 1960s-70s. Just looking at a Pan Am 727 in a photograph, how can you tell which one it was assigned to ? Answered

17. There was also a minor 727 operational area at this time, separated from the other two. Where was this and what was the famous (at the time) fare charged for a flight on one ?

JoeDTW

2. Intercontinental.

3. Dassault Falcon

5. DeHavilland Comet III

10. Gander; Pan Am's 707-121s lacked the range to fly to LeBourget nonstop.

12. The route was JFK-LHR, of course. The aircraft used on the flight (which was a substitution, after the original aircraft had engine troubles) was destroyed seven years later at Tenerife.

Icecat

4. When the big Boeing 377 Stratocruisers were bought in the late 1940s, how much did each one cost ?
Pan American purchased 20 for $24million then about $1.2million apiece. When my grandfather was flying them, he wasn't impressed, due to initial poor performance flying to SFO to HNL was a challenge, he once had to land at Half Moon Bay, which isn't SFO.

Icecat

15. What was the first ever Pan Am route ?
Key West to Havana.

Icecat

11. What new aircraft type was introduced by Pan Am in 1984 ?

Airbus A300B4 entered into service on December 23, 1984.

Seat 2A

First of all, a big Thank You to WHBM for stepping up and submitting this fine batch of questions. We all appreciate it!

As to the above question, I definitely recall reading somewhere that many (if not all) of Pan Am's DC-8s were based out of New York JFK. I've certainly seen a lot of pictures of them in places like London, Frankfurt and Prestwick so I'll assume they were on those and perhaps a few other European routes.

The Panagra Interchange might have seen some of those 8s operating down into South America and I'm almost certain I've also seen or read of a Pan Am DC-8 having been flown upon to Africa which would mean the New York to Dakar route and thence onward to wherever from there.

About a year or so back, WHBM also submitted a picture of a Pan Am DC-8-62 - leased from Braniff, I believe - and perhaps that was used on long distance South American services like JFK-GIG or EZE.

Again, pure memory and speculation on my part as I don't ever recall seeing a PA flight scheduled as a "DC8" except as part of the old DL interchange through IAD to LHR.

WHBM

Yes, very good Joe. Just a couple of pointers. The Comets were for Pan Am's subsidiary in Brazil, Panair. They were Comet 2s, not Comet 3s, but little difference between those two apart from a bit of length. Order was never completed due to the Comet 1 accidents, construction was abandoned when well advanced, although other Comet 2 aircraft around them were eventually completed and given to the RAF. Frame number 06041 was the first Panair one, it was also the first Comet to be built at the separate De Havilland plant at Broughton, near Chester; about half the Comet 4s were built there as well, and nowadays every Airbus wing ever made is done there in what is now a very sophisticated manufacturing plant.

Pan Am used Orly in Paris rather than Le Bourget.

Quite so, Icecat. My source says the Strats were US$1.5m each, but you get different figures, depending on whether things like spare engines are included or not in the figure - and remember these are Stratocruisers - BOAC's initial order was for 6 complete aircraft plus 24 spare engines !! Sort of makes you think they knew what they were in for ....... (and, by the way, more than once they ran out of engines). BOAC tooled up a whole factory in South Wales to overhaul the engines off the Strat and the Connie, and that's another very sophisticated plant nowadays, it now belongs to GE and is their main European overhaul facility.

I presume that US$1.2m will probably just about buy you a moderate family house in New York City nowadays.

Yes, S2, that's covered it nicely. Obviously the fleet moved round over the years, especially as the fan-engine 707-320Bs came on line and the old turbojet DC8-30s and 707-320s were displaced.

However, JFK was the main home; two areas they dominated for some years were northern Europe, into Scandinavia, and into Africa via Dakar and points beyond. Both these were low frequency and didn't use a lot of the fleet. Into London Heathrow also, in the mid-1960s, I notice that about 50% of the Pan Am flights were DC8s, and this seems to have taken about half the fleet, including some projections into Europe. There was also the Delta interchange that seems to have got much notice; there was long a London-Washington-Atlanta operation, and later a Paris-Boston-Washington-Atlanta one as well. Pan Am seems to have started monopolising the aircraft provision on this, later on Delta started providing aircraft as well, and once the Pan Am DC8 fleet was gone they took it over completely. Delta didn't have any 707 crews so it had to be done this way until the 747s came along.

There was also a Pan Am DC8 outlier at Miami. The strange Panagra (50% Pan Am owned) setup had National flying from New York to Miami, Pan Am on to Panama, and Panagra themselves south of Panama. The aircraft worked right through, and were always normally the Panagra fleet of DC8s (which themselves had been diverted from the original Pan Am DC8 order), but Pan Am needed to maintain Florida-based DC8 crews to fly the Miami to Panama sector; there were also a handful of purely Pan Am flights just Miami to Panama, and these were assigned a Pan Am DC8 as well and integrated into the roster, as well as a few other trips. Pan Am also seem to have provided the substitute DC8 aircraft for Panagra when required, which accounts for odd photos of them across Latin America. National DC8s never appeared on this operation, I believe like much of the overall US airline fleet they didn't have the necessary overwater safety equipment carried.

No DC8s across the Pacific.

It must have been a real logistical challenge for crew scheduling when these routes changed over from DC8 to 707, with slip crews not qualified on the new type at points down the line. BOAC had exactly the same as they switched things around between VC10s and 707s.

Seat 2A

jlemon

Specifically, the Dassault Falcon 20 which was initially marketed in the U.S. as the Fan Jet Falcon before the French airplane manufacturer (known for its high performance jet fighter aircraft as well) changed the name. In France, I believe the design was originally known as the Mystere. I also think that by the late 60's the business jet marketing division of Pan American had increased its order to 160 of the type.

And that engenders a bonus question....althought primarily designed for passenger transport, the Falcon 20 also found an early niche flying freight.

What company got its start with the Falcon 20 by doing so? ANSWERED

Seat 2A

jlemon

13. In 1969, which metropolitan areas were served by Pan Am using two separate airports ?

Hats off to WHBM for an excellent group of questions! I've been following the answers for a bit and thought I'd chime in......

13. I think the most prolific example at this time was Berlin. Pan Am was using now closed Tempelhof (THF) for its Internal German Service (IGS) flown with B727 equipment. However, international service from New York was flown into Tegel (TXL) with B707 aircraft (and I think some of these flights may have made an intermediate stop at Glasgow Prestwick).

There may have been a couple of other candidates as well back then, such as Washington Dulles and Baltimore Friendship and possibly Newark in addition to JFK.

And on the air cargo side, if one really wants to stretch things, one might consider San Francisco International and Travis Air Force Base with the latter being located not all that far to the northeast of the Bay Area.....

jlemon

And Seat 2A, you would be 100% correct, sir! Federal Express indeed got its start with the Falcon 20 and then grew from there.....

cs57

6) Long Island Airways was formed by Juan Trippe , and operated charter services to people wanting to flee NYC during the summer, and running the operation taught Juan much about airline costs and what was needed to run an airline.