more at http://travel.quickfound.net/ "Aerial travelogue of South America." Public domain film from the Library of Congress Prelinger Archive, slightly cropped to remove uneven edges, with the aspect ratio corrected, and mild video noise reduction applied. The soundtrack was also processed with volume normalization, noise reduction, clipping reduction, and equalization (the resulting sound, though not perfect, is far less noisy than the original). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pan_American_World_Airways Pan American World Airways, commonly known as Pan Am, was the principal and largest international air carrier in the United States from 1927 until its collapse on December 4, 1991... Pan American Airways, Incorporated (PAA) was founded as a shell company on March 14, 1927, by Air Corps Majors Henry H. "Hap" Arnold, Carl A. Spaatz, and John H. Jouett as a counterbalance to the German-owned Colombian carrier SCADTA, operating in Colombia since 1920. SCADTA lobbied hard for landing rights in the Panama Canal Zone, ostensibly to survey air routes for a connection to the United States, which the Air Corps viewed as a precursor to a possible German aerial threat to the canal. Arnold and Spaatz drew up the prospectus for Pan American when SCADTA chartered a company in Delaware to obtain air mail contracts from the US government. Pan American was able to obtain the US mail delivery contract to Cuba, but lacked any aircraft to perform the job and did not have landing rights in Cuba. On June 2, 1927, Juan Trippe formed the Aviation Corporation of the Americas (ACA) with the backing of powerful and politically connected financiers who included Cornelius Vanderbilt Whitney and W. Averell Harriman, and raised $250,000 in startup capital from the sale of stock. Their operation had the all-important landing rights for Havana... Pan Am inaugurated its South American routes using Sikorsky S-38 and S-40 flying boats. The latter were three large passenger craft put in service by Trippe in 1931 to provide greater carrying capacity than the eight-passenger S-38. Carrying the nicknames American Clipper, Southern Clipper, and Caribbean Clipper, they were the first of the series of 28 Clippers that came to symbolize Pan Am between 1931 and 1946. In 1937 Pan Am turned to Britain and France to begin seaplane service between the United States and Europe. Pan Am reached an agreement with both countries to offer service from Norfolk, Virginia, to Europe via Bermuda and the Azores using the S-40s. Starting in June 1937, a joint service from the US mainland to Bermuda was inaugurated, with Pan Am using Sikorsky flying boats and Imperial Airways using the C class flying boat RMA Cavalier. On July 5, 1937 the first commercial survey flights across the North Atlantic were conducted. The Pan Am Clipper III, a Sikorsky S-42, landed at Botwood in the Bay of Exploits in Newfoundland from Port Washington, New York, via Shediac, New Brunswick. The next day Pan Am Clipper III left Botwood for Foynes in Ireland. The same day, a Short Empire C-Class flying boat, the Caledonia, left Foynes for Botwood, and landed July 6, 1937, reaching Montreal on July 8 and New York on July 9. These test flights marked the first steps toward the beginning of commercial transatlantic flights. Trippe then decided to start a service from San Francisco to Honolulu, and from there to Hong Kong and Auckland following existing steamship routes. After negotiating traffic rights in 1934 to land at Pearl Harbor, Midway Island, Wake Island, Guam, and Subic Bay (Manila), Pan Am shipped $500,000 worth of aeronautical equipment westward in March 1935 using the North Haven a 15,000 ton merchant ship it chartered for the purpose of provisioning each island that the clippers would stop at on their 4 to 5 day flight. Pan Am ran its first survey flight to Honolulu in April 1935 with a Sikorsky S-42 flying boat. The airline won the contract for a San Francisco -- Canton mail route later that year and operated its first commercial flight carrying mail and express in a Martin M-130 from Alameda to Manila amid massive media fanfare on November 22, 1935. The five-leg, 8,000-mile (12,875 km) flight arrived in Manila on November 29 and returned to San Francisco on December 6, cutting the one way travel time in either direction between the two cities via the fastest scheduled steamship service by over two weeks. (Both the United States and Philippine Islands issued special stamps for the two flights.) The first passenger flight over this route left Alameda on October 21, 1936. The fare from San Francisco to both Manila and Hong Kong in 1937 was $950 one way (approximately $14,700 in 2010) and $1,710 round trip (approximately $26,400)...

• published: 11 Jan 2012
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