I just went to see "The Aviator", which I thought was interesting. Much more interesting, and a proper FT topic, was the TWA-Pan Am rivalry, which is a major theme of the movie. I went with somebody who claimed that Pan Am did not have a domestic network, although I remember flying them from LAX-HNL in the mid-70's. I'm pretty sure after the National purchase, they acquired one. Did they not have a domestic network by choice, or by regulation? Also, he claimed that PA 1 and PA 2 (the RTW flights) ended at either coast, and there were no PA flights between the two coasts to close the loop. That sounds strange, and is it correct?

Also, he was confused when I told him I flew PA JFK-NRT in the mid-80's via the Pacific. I'm sure I did, because the first time I did it we had an engine fire, and we had to dump fuel to land in ANC.

Also, I recall reading somewhere that in the Spruce Goose test run Hughes wasn't supposed to actually fly the plane, only to take it around the harbor to test vibrations with all 8 engines running. He did take it flying, for something like 60 seconds or so.

With the caveat that I don't know if there was an exception for a New York to Los Angeles service, Pan American didn't have domestic routes prior to purchasing National (the vanished Miami one, not the vanished Las Vegas one) in 1980. Some make a case that the added debt of that takeover, right at the start of airline deregulation, was the first nail in Pan Am's coffin even though the Clippers would keep flying for another decade and more. Now, that lack of domestic service wouldn't mean that -- especially considering that in the 1970s and before there weren't any airliners which could cross the Pacific nonstop -- refueling stops in Honolulu didn't take place, and that tickets weren't sold to those people who wanted to go to Hawaii rather than fly all the way to Tokyo or Sydney.

I don't think there was any legal restriction that kept Pan Am out of serving U.S. domestic city pairs but simply the fact that the airline had gotten its start as an international carrier (the first Pan Am flight was a mail run between Key West and Havana) and the airline's management simply felt that specializing in long-haul international flight was where the company's best interests lay.

I flew Pan Am several times from JFK to SFO. I believe they used 747's on that route until the end. I also think I flew them from Miami to New York, but that memory's a bit dimmer.