JANUARY 1968 River of Ice On a trip to Alaska to take pictures for a Boeing Magazine story ("Gravel Gertie," December issue), staff photographer Ver- non Manion exercised his camera a few times on the flight. He snapped the accompanying photo- graph from an Alaska Airlines Model 727 on its way to arctic Kotzebue. What appears to be a river in the photograph is a moving glacier-solid ice oozing down the mountain in a lava-like flow but infinitely slower. Hear the Wind Blow Enrique B. Santos, editor of The PALiner, em- ployee newspaper of Philippine Air Lines, explained to his readers how PAL had contributed to the an- tique airplane collection of the Smithsonian Institu- tion in 1946. Three unnamed antique aircraft were on display at the Oakland (California) Airport. The Smithsonian had bid for the planes but been turned down by their owners. Came the day when PAL began its first transpacific service, its DC-4 on the apron near the antique airplanes. "Then our pilots fired up the engines," wrote Santos, "increased power to taxi away and blew the three airplanes into pieces on the ramp." The owners were at last willing to sell the airplanes to the Smithsonian-piece by piece. "Thus, in a manner of speaking," concludes Santos, "did PAL make a contribution to the Smithsonian." The Flying Sieve Master Sergeant Stephen N. Garlock, 22nd Air Force detachment at Hickam Air Force Base, Hawaii, was looking at a group of posters commemorating the Air Force's 20th anniversary in September. He saw a picture of the B-17 Thunderbird, a plane on which he flew the Mannheim mission in 1944. He was a gunnery instructor checking out a new man in the squadron. The objective was to teach the new man gunnery under fire. The lesson was almost too good. When Thunderbird came home to Molesworth, Eng- land, Sergeant Garlock counted more than 200 flak holes in the plane. C3 SATURN HISlORY DOCUMENT In Vietnam University of Alabama Research Institute History of Science EI Technology Group old Stratoliners are By KENNETH L. CALKINS pleasure airline based in Saigon. It was leased to Air Laos in 1960 and N APRIL, Boeing Magazine carried damaged on May 22, 1961, attempt- a small item in the page 2 "Brief- I ing a three-engine landing at Tan- ing," an item which asked readers to our Son-Nhut, Saigon. There were no for more information on three Mod- injuries and the plane is now used el 307s reportedly in service in as a source of parts for other Strat- South Vietnam. The readers re- eyes' oliners in Vietnam. sponded, among them John C. Greenaway of Air America, Bob Trans World's Comanche (C/n Cousens of Qantas, Keith Petrich 1996) also saw war duty as a (2-75 Old 307 in Vietnam is viewed from and then returned to civilian life of Pan American World Airways, under wing of Pan American 707. David Gauthier of Northwest Ori- as a TWA airliner. It too went ent Airlines and M. J. Hardy, air to Aigle Azur which leased it to transport journalist in Angmering, Air Laos. Later, the plane was England; Dennis Powell, aircraft owned by Compagmie Internation- historian of Nairobi, Kenya; Wilf ale de Transports Civil Aeriens G. White of Glasgow, Scotland; and (CITCA) and operated for the Philip G. Mack, Robert G. Struth, International Control Commission. David Anderson, Frank Manely The ICC was established by the and C. G. Robinson, all of Bming. Geneva Agreement of 1954 to mon- itor compliance of parties to that From them and from materials agreement. Comanche disappeared supplied by them, we've compiled on a flight from Vietiane, Laos, to a rather complete account of what Hanoi in October, 1965. has happened to the 10 Model 307 Stratoliners built by Boeing in The reason for the disappearance 1939 and 1940. is unknown but might be surmised from an account in Life magazine Boeing sold five of the original several months ago of a Vietiane- 10 planes to Transcontinental & to-Hanoi flight. Life writer Lee Western (now Trans World Air- Lockwood told about a recent trip lines), three to Pan American, one he made to Hanoi aboard a Model to Howard Hughes and one was lost 307 Stratoliner: on a company demonstration flight in 1939. "At Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia, I picked up the Interna- J. M. G. Gradidge, writing in the tional Control Commission plane, British publication Air Pictorial in which flies every Friday and every February, 1966, and Robert H. other Tuesday to Hanoi. The Scheppler, writing in the Journal ICC plane, piIoted by three French- of the American Aviation Historical men, was an ancient four-engine Society, Spring 1963, gave brief Boeing 307. We let down en route run-downs on the other nine planes. at Vietiane, Laos. The plane had to Clipper Rainbow (C/n 1995) was leave from here and arrive in Hanoi one of the Pan American planes. -exactly on schedule, flying within A Pan Am crew flew it for the U.S. a 20-mile corridor. Clearance for Army Air Forces during World War any deviation in flight plan must 2, returning it to Pan Am duty after be obtained several days in ad- the war. vance-from the North Vietna- From 1948 until 1951 Rainbow mese, the U. S. Air Force, the U. S. was owned by Airline Training, Inc., Navy, the Royal Laotian military and was then sold to Aerovias Ec- and the commands of the Pathet uatorianas, C. A. In 1957, it was Lao guerrilla forces, any of which purchased by Aigle Azur Extreme is quite likely to open fire on any Orient, a privately owned French stray airplanes." Cherokee was a luxury ship in air transportarton The next Model 307 off the Boe- a new wing and a luxuriously fur- from Bolling Field, Washington, ing assembly line after the Com- nished cabin, according to Dennis D.C., in March of 1942, the passen- manche was the Howard Hughes Powell, one of our correspondents ger list included General George Stratoliner (C/n 1997), purchased mentioned earlier. Marshall, General 13. H. Arnold, by that world-famous industrialist The fifth plane, Cherokee, (C/n General Dwight Eisenhower, Ad- for an around-the-world flight 1998) was one of the original five miral E. J. King and Admiral John which, because of World War 2, TWA planes. As C-75s working for H. Towers. was never made. Hughes sold the the Army Air Force Air Transport On one flight for the Army in plane in 1948 to Glenn McCarthy, Command, these five planes flew November, 1942, a Pan American Texas hotel magnate and oil man. 7% million miles in 45,000 airborne 307 was headed westward from Ice- The present owner is Joseph F. hours which included 9,000 trans- land when it was hit in the tail by MacCaughtry who has named it atlantic crossings. Famous passen- 20-mrn shell fire. The plane com- "The Flying Penthouse." gers who traveled by C-75 during pleted the flight without mishap. The plane received storm dam- the war included President Rome- It was determined later that the age while at Broward International velt, President Vargas of Brazil, Stratoliner probably had been mis- Airport, Fort Lauderdale, Florida, Queen Wilhelmina of The Nether- taken for a German bomber by an in the winter of 1965. Hurricane lands, Madame Chiang-Kai-Shek, Allied freighter. Cleo almost broke the old bird's General Giraud, and General James Cherokee was another of the back but she has been repaired, has Doolittle. On one particular flight Stratoliners leased by Aigle Azure to Air Laos and later sold to CITCA years after that, the Comet was op- This accounts for all 10 of the for operation for the International erated in the U. S. by Quaker City Stratoliners. Five of them are in Control Commission in Vietnam. At Airways. In 1958 the plane was flying shape, three on duty in Viet- this writing, it is still on duty there. modified by placing additional nam. Five are gone. But none of Another TWA Stratoliner, Zuni, tanks in the fuselage to increase them will ever quite be forgotten. (C/n 1999) followed the same its range. On October 5, 1958, the Captain Greenaway wrote last route as Cherokee and is now Comet caught fire on a test flight month that the "307s are a pleasure working for the ICC. The same is and was landed on a butte 15 miles to our eyes over here. They are true of the old TWA 307 Apache west of Madras, Oregon. The crew being well kept." (C/n 2000), which accounts for the was uninjured but could not con- "After discussing the aircraft three Stratoliners now in Vietnam. trol the fire. The plane was com- with the head of the CITCA main- Originally designed to carry 33 pas- pletely burned out. tenance department and some of sengers, the Vietnam Model 307s The 10th and last Model 307 was the mechanics," said Captain are equipped to carry 60 passen- also a Pan American plane, Clipper Greenaway, "it became very obvi- gers in the five-abreast seating, ac- Flying Cloud (C/n 2003) . The ship ous that all of the people involved cording to Capt. J. R. Greenaway, was sold to an airplane chartering in the work on and flying of the an Air America pilot in South Viet- company and thence to a pilot planes are highly impressed with nam. The three planes make 18 training firm before it joined the their old beauties.