CHECK SIX: The Rollout of the Boeing 367-80

14 May 1954: The rollout at Boeing's Renton Field facility of the aircraft that would change jet transport, the Boeing 367-80. Bill Boeing was 72 at the time and had long since divested his holdings in the company he founded, but he was present at the rollout of the the Dash 80 and Boeing's wife, Bertha, christened the aircraft with champagne while the Renton High School band played "Wild Blue Yonder", the USAF theme. I always thought this Boeing photo was cool- it's the Boeing president at the time, Bill Allen, showing the 367-80 to Bill Boeing. 

Allen bet the company on Dash 80, investing $16 million of the company's money to gear up for production tooling before having an order from either any airline or the US Air Force. 

But then again, taking a bold risk was something the company did three times undeniably in its history. The first time was in 1934. Boeing president Claire Egdtvedt proceeded with the Boeing 299 without any orders or contracts from the US Army Air Corps for a four engined bomber- the 299 is better known as the B-17 Flying Fortress. When Egdtvedt took his gamble on the 299 prototype, he asked his friend for guidance- who happened to be Bill Allen, who at the time was the company lawyer.

Almost twenty years later Bill Allen found himself in the same position when he launched what become both the KC-135 Stratotanker and the Boeing 707 with the Dash 80 prototype. 

And about 10 years later, Bill Allen was fishing in Puget Sound with Pan American chairman Juan Trippe when Trippe pressed Allen on building a jumbo-sized jetliner- legend has it that Trippe asked Allen "Would you build it if I buy it?" and Allen responded "Would you buy it if I build it?" and by the end of the day, the Boeing 747 was launched on a handshake. According to aviation author Robert Gandt, Allen thought to himself the 747 "would be the perfect swan song if he could step down knowing that he had launched the world’s mightiest ship of the sky. It would secure Boeing’s future well into the century. Or it could ruin Boeing".

Further reading: 

The XB-15: Getting Boeing Back On Its Feet

How a Tax Issue Launched the Boeing 707

The Development of the Boeing Flying Boom

The Boeing PBB Sea Ranger: The Best Flying Boat at the Worst Possible Time

CHECK SIX: Trans World Airlines Goes All-Jet

As the sun rose on 7 April 1967, history was made as TWA became first US airline to go all pure-jet, having retired its Constellations and Starliners the night prior. The last TWA passenger Connie service was Flight 249 JFK-Philadelphia-Pittsburgh-Columbus-Louisville-St. Louis. The next day the last one flew to storage in Kansas City where there were 35 other Super Constellations and Starliners awaiting their fate. The night of 6 April, ground service crews put a booklet in all the seat back pockets of the TWA passenger aircraft titled "Props Are For Boats". 

The introduction of the Boeing 727 and Douglas DC-9 accelerated the Constellation retirement which by the 1960s were relegated to short haul domestic routes and some cargo flying. Two Connies soldiered on after 7 April on cargo-only duties, though. From the introduction of the Lockheed Constellation with TWA's dramatic 1944 delivery flight to Washington flown by Howard Hughes to its retirement to the 1967 retirement from passenger service, the Constellation family served TWA for 23 years with over 140 examples. 

Within two years, by 1969, Trans World Airlines had surpassed the iconic Pan American in the number of passengers carried across the Atlantic. 

Further reading: 

Amidst Internal Turmoil, TWA Orders the Boeing 727

The History of the TWA Moonliner

The Cadillac of the Constellation Line

The Holy Grail of Nonstop Transcontinental Service

(Photo: FlyerTalk Forums)

The Rocky History of Ariana Afghan Airlines

Ariana's logo- note the use of the Pan Am font

Prior to the Second World War, air services to Afghanistan were adventurous to say the least, given the inhospitable terrain of the area. Most air links to South Asia of the day that connected the region to Europe passed via India and were controlled by primarily the British. The first air links to Afghanistan, however, came by way of the Soviet Union starting on 14 September 1926 when the Russian airline Dobrolyot connected Kabul to the other Central Asian cities under Soviet control with Junkers F13 monoplanes. Dobrolyot was founded in 1923 to develop air services in the Soviet Union and in 1932 it was Dobrolyot that formed the nucleus of a new airline, Aeroflot. Dobrolyot's air services to Kabul continued until the outbreak of the Second World War. Interestingly enough, Dobrolyot was not the only foreign airline active in Afghanistan in the interwar period- DLH (Deutsche Luft Hansa, predecessor to today's Lufthansa) also opened air services to Afghanistan. At the time, DLH was looking to extend its route network to China where there were substantial German business interests. However, remaining bitterness from the First World War stymied DLH's attempts to open routes to China via India, so going through Afghanistan was seen as a short cut around British influence in the area. DLH extended its network eastward from Istanbul to Baghdad in October 1937 and then extended again from Iraq to the Iranian capital of Teheran in April 1938. Two weeks later, DLH extended its network again, this time connecting the Afghan cities of Kabul and Herat via Teheran and at the time, it was the furthest corner of DLH's airline network. Services ended abruptly, though, in August 1939 on the eve of the outbreak of the Second World War. 

Air services to Afghanistan were spotty at best and ad hoc for the duration of the Second World War  and aside from a small air mail service using Hawker Hart biplanes, it would be an American businessman in India who would forge new air links into Afghanistan again at the end of the war. New York native Peter Baldwin had served with the US Army Air Force in India during the war and returned in 1945 leading a US government mission to oversee the disposal of surplus USAAF aircraft in the region. His job finished, he elected to stay in India and in 1947 formed a company in Bombay (Mumbai today) for the sales of light aircraft and airport equipment. By 1950, he had his own fleet of thirteen Douglas DC-3s that he was flying all over the region on charter flights all over India, the Middle East and as far as Africa. His small charter operation even operated Hajj flights to Mecca. It was in this capacity that he came into partnership with the Afghan government. 

The DC-3 services were a boon to a country without railroads.

In 1951, the Kabul government established a branch of the Royal Afghan Air Force that was tasked with civil aviation development with Colonel Gulbar Khan as the head of what was called the "Hawabazi Mulki". Colonel Khan worked out a partnership with Peter Baldwin to form a new Afghan airline which was established on 27 January 1955 as Aryana Afghan Airlines in Kabul with Peter Baldwin holding 49% ownership of the airline and the Kabul government owning 51%. I haven't been able to determine if the airline's first three DC-3 aircraft were from Baldwin's charter operation, but it would make sense given his signifcant ownership in the new venture. The first services were launched at the end of 1955 connecting Kabul to Mazar-i-Sharif in the north near the Soviet border via the city of Kunduz. What had taken a week on the region's poor roads now only took three hours. 

During the Pan Am years, the Ariana chief pilot was a Pan Am pilot

On 27 June 1956, the Kabul government signed an air transport and development agreement with the United States. At the time, both the Soviet Union and the United States were eager to get Kabul's business and the Afghans astutely played both sides off each other to get economic development agreements. The air agreement with the United States included Pan American buying out Peter Baldwin's interest in Aryana. As a result, Pan Am become responsible for all operational and technical matters and also changed the spelling of the airline's name to Ariana, ostensibly to eliminate any possible references to the word "Aryan" that had been corrupted by the Nazi regime during the Second World War. On 3 June 1956, an Ariana Douglas DC-4 with an all-Afghan crew trained by Pan Am departed New York for Kabul to begin Hajj flights to Mecca. The DC-3s were used for internal domestic services that connected Kabul to Herat, Kandahar, Kunduz, Mazar-i-Sharif, and Maimana. New Delhi was connected to Kabul via the Indian city of Armistar and Karachi, the Pakistani port city, was connected via Kandahar. The DC-4 was used to connect Kabul to Teheran, Beirut and Damascus via Kandahar where American economic development funds were used to build a modern airport and terminal facility. 

Ariana launched services to Europe on 11 September 1959 on what they called the "Marco Polo Route" which used the DC-4 on services to the Turkish capital of Ankara via Beirut. The flight then continued on to Prague and then terminated in Frankfurt. The airline had to replace its DC-4 with a larger DC-6B as adventurous European tourists began to fly the "Marco Polo Route" to Kabul. The airline soon found that it was more profitable for the DC-6B services to bypass Kabul and instead fly Kandahar to New Delhi. Political instability in the region in the 1960s resulted in the termination of services to Karachi and the services that connected Frankfurt to New Delhi could only be flown twice a month- soon after, European services were cut altogether with Ariana's westernmost destination being Beirut by 1962.

Ariana Afghan 727-200

Ariana was near dormant when American development funds arrived again in 1963. This was a time of superpower rivalry and Afghanistan was no different than any other non-aligned nation of the time that had both American and Soviet interests competing for influence. Ariana got an extremely low-interest loan (it was pretty much a gift) that included a second Douglas DC-6 and two ex-Pan American Convair CV-340s to replace the DC-3 on the domestic services. A third CV-340 was purchased from Allegheny Airlines and this allowed a return to Karachi via Kandahar as diplomatic relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan improved. In July 1965, Ariana opened DC-6 services to the Uzbek capital of Tashkent in a pooling agreement with Aeroflot and in the following month, services to Europe resumed with DC-6 services from both Kabul and Kandahar to London Gatwick, stopping only in Beirut and Frankfurt. In April 1968, Ariana got its first jet equipment with a Boeing 727-100 which replaced the DC-6s on the European services. The route to London was reconfigured to route via Teheran, Istanbul and Frankfurt, but as Ariana had no fifth freedom rights, only Kabul/Kandahar-bound passengers could be boarded at London Gatwick. That first 727 crashed in dense fog on approach to London on 5 January 1969, but two more 727s were added- the first a lease from World Airways that was bought outright and a second purchase from Executive Jet Aviation, arriving in 1971. 

Ariana Afghan Airlines Tu-154- note the continued use of the Pan Am font!

The domestic routes of Ariana were spun off under a subsidiary airline called Bakhtar Afghan Airlines. This was a political move more than anything else as some Afghan officials wanted to limit US influence in the northern tier of cities along the Soviet frontier- this was accomplished by cutting Pan Am out of Bakhtar's operations. In 1973, Bakhtar took delivery of three Yakovlev Yak-40 trijets, becoming one of the few non-Soviet client state customers for the 28-seat feeder jet. Pan Am was still needed in the Ariana international operation, though, as Pan Am sold Ariana a Boeing 720B on very generous terms (again, it was pretty much a gift) in May 1973. That year, though, on the heels of a severe drought 1971-1972, Prime Minister Mohammed Daoud Khan seized power in a non-violent coup, deposing King Zahir Shah and ending the Afghan monarchy. A republic was proclaimed to institute economic reforms but only political instability was established as various Afghan leaders relying on tribal loyalties began to vie for control of the country. A series of coups followed starting in 1978, but despite this, Ariana launched Douglas DC-10 Series 30 services with a single aircraft in October 1979 on its services to London which could now be served nonstop. On 24 December 1979, the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan which for all intents and purposes ended Ariana's operations. The two 727s and DC-10 were parked and eventually sold off under Soviet pressure by 1985. Its regional subsidiary, Bakhtar, took over Ariana's operations with two Tupolev Tu-154M aircraft starting in 1987, but the following year the Ariana name was resurrected and Bakhtar's domestic routes and operations folded into Ariana. 

Ariana's sole Douglas DC-10

The country descended into outright civil war following the Soviet withdrawal in 1989. Communist President Najibullah's regime only lasted to 1992 and with the Taliban takeover in 1996, worldwide sanctions crippled what was left of Ariana's operation. Pakistan set up a temporary maintenance base for the airline in Karachi, and only Dubai remained as the airline's only international destination. During the Taliaban's regime, Al-Qaeda operatives were given Ariana identification to allow them to move arms, personnel and opium shipments between Dubai and Pakistan. There were indications that Russian arms dealers were operating Ariana during this period. By November 2001, only a month before US-led forces toppled the Taliban regime, Ariana was finally grounded for good. Ariana would be resurrected in the post-Taliban era, but that's a subject for another blog posting in the future!

Source: Airlines of Asia Since 1920 by R.E.G. Davies. Palawdr Press, 1997, pp 84-88. Photos: Marc Riboud/Magnum Photos, Wikipedia, National Archives

1981: "I'M AN ACKER BACKER" pins are on everyone's lapels.
1985: "I'M AN ACKER BACKER" pins are in everyone's trashcans.

For years labor negotiations at Pan Am were always cordial and easily managed by both managers and union representatives who both passionate about the near-imperial status of their airline. Labor strife? That's below us. Strikes? That's below us here an Pan Am, too. Usually new labor agreements were hammered out at some local bar down the street from Pan Am's landmark New York City headquarters building. But that changed from 1981. Was it the airline's new chairman, smooth talking Texan C. Edward Acker? Was it the infusion of the employees of National Airlines in 1979? Was it deregulation?

Historians argue about where the fall of Pan Am begins, but there's no arguing the dismal financial record that continued even with Ed Acker at the helm. In 1982 Pan Am set an industry record with a half-billion dollar loss for the year- of course today, in the paraparetic state of the US domestic airline industry, that's a good year. Loss after loss mounted as Pan Am found itself lacking decent domestic feed (even after the acquisition of National Airlines) and under siege from more savvy competitors both domestically and internationally. Acker pushed through pay cuts which at first were readily agreed to by the employees of Pan Am and agreed in principle to what was called a "snapback"- after a given period of time, the pay scales would be restored. Acker reneged on the snapback and court litigation started flying.

Of course, it's not just losses alone that sank morale at Pan Am. In 1984 Acker's negotiating representatives (led by Raymond Grebey- the guy who precipitated the baseball players' strike in 1981) did an remarkably efficient job at angering the various union leaders. And then there was an internal consultants' report commissioned by the board that blamed the airline management for an inability to confront its mounting problems.

First to break ranks and offer concessions was the pilots' union. But their lead wasn't followed by the other unions of the airline. The Transport Workers Union were fed up dealing with Grebey and walked out February 28, 1985. With the mechanics walking out in the first strike in Pan Am's history, the other unions, including ALPA, followed suit.

It was the strike the broke the morale of Pan Am for good.

Friendships ended as some returned to work after only a week- death threats were exchanged between those returning and those manning the picket lines. Pilots returning to work would get spit on by former friends, flight attendants found themselves socially alienated whether they stayed on strike or returned to work. By the time the strike was officially over as each union group hastily signed new contracts, the airline would be littered with the corpses and carcasses of broken friendships, damaged work relationships, and simmering resentment not just at fellow employees but directed at C. Edward Acker and his management team.

Growing up, Pan Am was one of those airlines that was in a category all of its own and I remember following the events at Pan Am in the newspapers. Pan Am wasn't just an American icon, Pan Am was THE American Icon. Ever since the 1920s under Juan Trippe and his successors, Pan Am was the defacto "other" State Department of this nation as it carried the US flag on the tails of its jetliners worldwide. Aviation enthusiasts talk about Braniff or TWA and their overseas destinations and operations, and while those airlines had substantial contributions to the history of US aviation and commerce, it always paled in comparison to the rich history implied by that famous blue globe.

The strike at Pam Am damaged that image. The shine, the luster of what was an iconic airline of what it was to be American and the expression of that history wasn't what it was after the winter of 1985. It wasn't the beginning of the end. It was another step on the road to the airline's shut down in 1991 but for a lot of folks like myself who grew up with the mystique of Pan Am, it was a big shock.

Source: Skygods- The Fall of Pan Am by Robert Gandt. Palawdr Press, 1989.

How a Small Airline First Cracked Pan American's Monopoly

Prior to the Second World War, international airline services from the United States were dominated by Pan American World Airways and its politically influential chairman, Juan Trippe. With implicit backing from the US State Department, Trippe forged Pan American into a "Chosen Instrument" of overseas American commerce with his extensive air network of services covering the Pacific, Latin America, and across the Atlantic. However, the demands of the Second World War resulted in most of the US airlines expanding their operations into overseas flying for the military to support the war effort. As a result, many airlines that had traditionally not flown outside US borders gained valuable experience in overseas operations.

As a result, many of those airlines began to look at what the postwar commercial aviation market might look like and airlines like American (via its subsidiary American Overseas Airlines), Trans World Airlines, and even smaller airlines like Northeast began to prepare applications to the Civil Aeronautics Board for international route authorities.

In March 1944, Senator Patrick McCarran of Nevada proposed a bill in Congress that would create what he called the "All-American Flag Line", a single international airline that would be jointly-0wned and operated by existing US airlines with an operating certificate dating prior to the 1938 passage of the Civil Aeronautics Act. McCarran's airline would be prohibited from domestic services and US airlines would be prohibited from international services outside of their participation in the "All-American Flag Line". Senator McCarran wanted to a single prestigious American international airline that all the other US airlines funneled traffic into from domestic gateways.

The "All-American Flag Line" would be a federally-chartered private airline starting with $200 million of federal capital and each participating US airline could purchase up to $50 million in stock of the airline. As Pan American had developed most of the international routes before the Second World War, Juan Trippe would hold ownership of 25% of the proposed airline.

This arrangement, of course, did not sit well with the smaller US airlines. While the US majors like TWA, United, American, and Eastern saw the McCarran bill as a way to gain entry into the international arena without the capital expenditure of expanding overseas on their own (since this seed money would be provided by the federal government), smaller airlines balked at the price of investment and being consigned to having a small voice compared to that of Juan Trippe, much less that of the larger airlines as well.

One of the most eloquent and vocal critics of the McCarran bill was Carleton Putnam of Chicago & Southern Airlines. In June 1933 as a young law student, Carleton Putnam started Pacific Seaboard Airlines operating Bellanca Pacemakers between San Francisco and Los Angeles. When President Roosevelt canceled the air mail contracts in 1934 during the infamous Air Mail Scandal, Pacific Seaboard Airlines lost its primary revenue stream. After the US Army Air Corps tried in vain to carry air mail, the contracts were once again put up for bid and Putnam in desperation to save his small airline bid on an air mail route in the Mississippi Valley that connected Chicago to New Orleans. To the surprise of many, Putnam won the contract and in 1934 he moved his entire operation to Memphis, Tennessee and on 17 July 1935 he launched passenger services as Chicago & Southern Airlines.

During the Second World War, Chicago & Southern operated a vital contract flying troops and cargo throughout Alaska during the Aleutian campaign to oust the Japanese from the area. Putnam even applied for postwar international route authorities to fly to Singapore and Batavia (modern day Jakarta) from Chicago via Alaska in what may very well be the first proposal to use a Great Circle Route that is now a primary routing for air traffic between North America and Asia.

Trippe of course was supportive of the McCarran bill and he certainly didn't expect such tenacious opposition from someone like Chicago & Southern and Carleton Putnam. Putnam rallied the other smaller airlines, pointing out that it should be the free market and competition that should determine who was most suitable for international services rather than have the government virtually enshrine Pan American as the default international airline.

To go against someone as powerful in Congress as Senator McCarran who was highly influential in aviation affairs and to simultaneously take on Juan Trippe of Pan American, probably the most influential airline head of the day? That's quite a set of brass ones and Putnam managed to pull it off and have the McCarran bill killed off. While Chicago & Southern Airlines didn't get its Great Circle route to Asia, it was handsomely rewarded by the CAB with route authorities into Pan Am's traditional Caribbean stronghold with services to Cuba, Jamaica, Haiti and the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico and all the way to Caracas, Venezuela from New Orleans.

Carleton Putnam won the admiration of many in the industry for his stand against McCarran and Trippe, most importantly with C.E. Woolman, founder and head of Delta Air Lines. Woolman saw in Putnam and Chicago & Southern a kindred spirit that shared his own business ethics and ideals. Having grown weary of trying to expand services to New York but failing thanks to the maneuverings of Eastern Air Lines and its acerbic president, Eddie Rickenbacker, Woolman embarked on expanding Delta westward through a merger with Chicago & Southern that was finalized in 1953.

And perhaps more importantly, the stage was set for overseas services by any US airline that could show to the CAB that it had the wherewithal to operate internationally, cracking Pan Am's long dominance of international services.

Source: Delta: The History of the Airline by W. David Lewis and Wesley Phillips Newton. University of Georgia Press, 1979, p200-201.

The Rise and Fall of Air Florida under Ed Acker

Aviation history is often a study in technology as well as events but sometimes the really fascinating parts concern the personalities and how personal traits shaped major decisions that impacted the course of history. One of the those personalities was C. Edward Acker, one of the airline industry's CEOs during the chaotic deregulation period in the United States in the 1980s. If there was one quote that summed up the titanic personality of this Texan, it was something he himself once said: "Once you get hooked on the airline business, it's worse than dope."

But to really understand what Ed Acker did to airlines, you have to go back before deregulation to the state of Florida. After twenty-some years of running various businesses ranging from a candy company to a roofing business, Miami businessman Eli Timoner decided in 1972 to start an airline called Air Florida with some second-hand Lockheed Electras. But Timoner himself admitted that his only airline experience was that of "being a frequent flier". But he had seen the rise of Pacific Southwest Airlines as an intrastate carrier in California and probably was aware of the beginnings of Southwest Airlines in Texas. By being in intrastate carrier, he wouldn't have to deal with the Civil Aeronautics Board which in the days before deregulation controlled all aspects of the industry from routes to fares and even to some degree, aircraft acquisition. Timoner felt that the time was right for Florida to have its own intrastate carrier.

But as a Miami newspaper reporter once put it, Timoner was "long on ambition and short on experience". In its first seven years of operation Air Florida scratched out a small niche for itself in the Florida market, but it was hard going and in 1977 the small airline lost $2 million and Timoner pondered whether it was worth continuing.

Back in 1975, a federal investigation was underway at Braniff International that accused officials of the Dallas-based airline of illegally distributing over $1 million in airline tickets to travel agents throughout Latin America, Braniff's traditional international stronghold. Some of the proceeds made their way into Richard Nixon's 1972 presidential campaign and with Watergate still bringing federal scrutiny in every back room and corner of the corridors of power, Ed Acker, the Braniff president and Harding Lawrence, the Braniff chairman, were the two highest ranking Braniff officials named in the settlement with the CAB that resulted in a $300,000 fine against the airline. Acker stepped down but he wasn't going to stay out of the business for long. That was when he found out Eli Timoner and Air Florida needed help.

Using his Dallas business contacts to bring new capital investment into Air Florida, Acker became Air Florida's new president by purchasing controlling interest in the airline for only $1.5 million in July 1977 with Eli Timoner becoming its chairman. At the time Acker came to Air Florida, the shoestring operation flew only three Lockheed Electras. Acker immediately began to pick up jet aircraft second hand all over North America to replace the Electras, first with DC-9 Series 10s, then Boeing 737-100s and 737-200s. Acker had the airline's colors revamped from orange and blue to blue and green. Inflight service was overhauled and ever the marketing wonk, Acker introduced orange juice with champagne called "Sunshine Sparklers" on Air Florida flights. Certain passengers could fly for free on new routes by getting a "Sunshine Kiss" by kissing a designated "Kiss Miss"- an attractive airline employee at the gate. Southwest's style of pricing discounts was introduced with deep price cuts for flying during off-peak hours. Within the first year, passenger numbers doubled. And they kept on growing.

And then came deregulation. Air Florida was no longer constrained to just serving the state of Florida. Acker carried an OAG in his pocket that was dog-eared and well-worn and he'd thumb through it thinking of new cities to connect. Any city that got a service cut back inevitably got Air Florida service. When Pan Am acquired National, Pan Am got National's route authority between Miami and London and Acker got DC-10s to compete with Pan Am to London. First class seats were covered in sheepskin and free limo service in a Rolls-Royce was available in London. No promotion, no level of service escaped Acker's attention.

Soon the press was lauding praise on C. Edward Acker as one of the darlings of deregulation and he got what in retrospect was an ill-conceived reputation as a "turnaround king" for what he was doing with Air Florida. In 1981, two years after the acquisition of National Airlines, Pan Am was still bungling the merger and had to drastically cut back its services between New York and Florida that had been one of National's traditional trademark services. Practically overnight Acker threw half of Air Florida's fleet into that market and snapped up even Boeing 727s to augment the rapid expansion. Only Eastern at the time had a larger market share than Air Florida in 1981.

And all of it was ballooning Air Florida's debt.

Not one mention in Wall Street or amongst industry analysts was made that Air Florida's debt was growing at a time when interest rates were high and the company's bottom line was actually being subsidized by Acker's financial dealings on the foreign currency market as well as the stock market. No, the meteoric rise of Air Florida won it and Acker praise in the financial press- Acker's a genius! Acker and Air Florida are corporate success stories!

In August of 1981, Acker was in New York City to speak to a group of industry analysts for several Wall Street brokerage firms. Expecting an in-depth analysis of Air Florida's operation and finances, Acker rose to the podium and told all of them that he wasn't able to discuss the financial affairs of Air Florida with them. "I talked to Cunard Lines and told them I was interested in a job as captain of the Titanic. They informed me that I was too late. Not having that challenge available, I decided to try to find one comparable to that. And so I am accepting the chairmanship of a company called Pan American World Airways."

With that, he turned over the podium to Eli Timoner and left. On 1 September 1981 he took over from William T. Sewell at Pan Am. One of Acker's first acts as head of Pan Am was to re-institute all of the flight cutbacks Sewell had made on the New York-Florida market- the very same market he threw Air Florida into with gusto. Eli Timoner now found the airline he started saddled with a massive debt and facing a reinvigorated Pan Am juggernaut determined to drive Air Florida out of business.

And then, one snowy January afternoon in 1982, a tower controller at Washington National cleared an Air Florida flight: "Palm 90, taxi into position and hold. Be ready for an immediate. No delay on departure, if you will."

Within days of the Air Florida crash in the icy Potomac River, approximately 100,000 reservations on Air Florida were canceled. Weeks later, Eli Timoner suffered a stroke and Donald Lloyd Jones from American Airlines was brought in. Jones was edged out at American by Robert Crandall to run American. But it was too late for Jones to save the airline. Acker's foreign currency trading was no longer boosting Air Florida's bottom line. Acker's marketing engine was sucking passengers from Air Florida to Pan Am in droves. Within several weeks $14 million in profit evaporated and creditors moved into seize the airline's assets. The airline even got slapped with an IRS tax lien. That year, Air Florida suffered a $78 million loss. Two years of massive downsizing stripped Air Florida to the bone.

On 3 July 1984, an airline that went in five years from an intrastate carrier with three airplanes to one that spanned the eastern United States, Europe, and the Caribbean declared bankruptcy and abruptly grounded all of its aircraft and sent all of its employees home. Thousands of passengers were stranded on the Independence Day holiday weekend. After weeks of deliberations in bankruptcy court, Air Florida failed to come up with a restructuring plan as it lacked flexibility as most of its assets were already encumbered with debt and all it had left that were worth anything were its routes to Europe and its slots at New York La Guardia and Washington National. The airline reached out Midway Airlines for a rescue plan that involved financing with the eventual acquisition of the airline by Midway, but the deadlines set by the bankruptcy court could not be met and Air Florida faded into the history books of aviation enthusiasts.

And Ed Acker? What happened at Pan Am will be story for another day!

Source: Hard Landing: The Epic Contest for Power and Profits That Plunged the Airlines into Chaos by Thomas Petzinger, Jr. Three Rivers Press, 1996, p201-208.

In 1960 the British aircraft manufacturer Vickers gave an extensive contract proposal to Pan American World Airways on a custom-tailored version of the VC-10 airliner for the airline's centerpiece trans-Atlantic routes. Pan American was in need of a prestige jetliner for its transcontinental and Pacific routes as well. What was needed was a 200-seat jetliner with nonstop capability across the Atlantic in all but the most severe winter conditions.

With an American-designed interior (by Butler of New York), the Pan American VC-10 featured a developed version of the Rolls-Royce Conway engine with 24,000 lbs of thrust designated the Conway 7 as well as prominent leading edge root extensions on the wings that housed more fuel as well as increasing the wing area. Wingtip fuel tanks were also a part of the design for a total fuel capacity of over 24,000 US gallons. An underfloor compartment could be used as a passenger lounge or a crew rest area and, in a prescient move, Vickers developed a two-crew flight deck using cathode-ray tube displays in one of the first proposals for a glass cockpit. There was a third crew member in the flight deck referred to in Vickers' proposal as an "engineering and systems manager".

Also part of the proposal was an all-cargo version of the VC-10 that featured straight-in loading via a swing nose developed for the unbuilt VC-10 F4 freighter. A roller-bearing loading floor would ease the loading of palletized cargo long before palletized cargo became a reality.

Although the negotiations never bore fruit, it was considered very serious business by Vickers as a copy of the proposed contract is in the Vickers archive at the Brooklands. It was a proposal ahead of its time, a fleet of highly efficient passenger and cargo variants that would have provided a common fleet without having two totally different aircraft types.

Source: Vickers VC-10 by Lance Cole (Crowood Aviation Series). The Crowood Press, 2000, p93-95.

In 1946 a Pan Am Lockheed Constellation departed New York La Guardia bound for London when an engine fire developed soon after takeoff. The Constellation belly-landed on a 4500 foot grass strip in Connecticut with no injuries to the crew or passengers. The engine fire burned through the engine mounts and by the time the Connie came back over land, the engine and its prop fell off completely before the aircraft landed. With stainless steel firewalls, an engine fire could be contained within the nacelle for 30 minutes.

Pan Am repaired the aircraft and lightened it as much as possible with minimal fuel and it was able to take off from the grass strip in only 2000 feet. Back at La Guardia, the burnt out nacelle was faired over the three-engined aircraft ferried to Lockheed in California for rework. Until the arrival of the Boeing 727, that was the fastest flight yet by a three-engined aircraft.

Source: Aviation History, July 2009. "Call Her Connie" by Stephen Wilkinson, p26.