Last of its Kind
A look inside the Smithsonian's Stratoliner.
- By Paul Hoversten
- AirSpaceMag.com, August 14, 2009
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Eric Long, NASM
With a cabin width of nearly 12 feet, the Stratoliner’s cockpit had room for a flight crew of five: pilot, copilot, flight engineer, radio operator, and navigator. The overhead window between the pilot and copilot seats is an escape hatch. The seats are covered in Scottish leather, making the Clipper Flying Cloud look just as it did when Pan American took delivery of the airplane in 1940.
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Comments (6)
I saw this aircraft at Oshkosh 2003. Talking with the pilot, who was also flying it when it went down in Seattle,I pointed to a puddle of water under the plane and joked "looks like you didn't get all the water out of it yet.
Posted by Jim Olson on August 17,2009 | 02:08 AM
I worked as an FAA- Designated Engineering Representative
on this airplane when it was returned to United States from
Haiti. The B-307 was certificated under Part 4a of the
Civil Air Regulations, which consisted of four Pages.
To-day an Airliner is certificated under Part 25 which is
a very large book.
Posted by Robert M Jensen on August 20,2009 | 04:45 PM
Only at EAA Airventure '03 could you view two historial aircraft side by side: C-17 "Globemaster III" and the Boeing 307 "Stratoliner"(C-75)
Posted by thomas C. Voigt on August 22,2009 | 10:08 AM
wow, it still has square windows! Lucky that it didn't went to the same fate with the de Havilland Comet, who had rapid decompression due structural failure with square windows.
Posted by Egz Aguilar on September 15,2009 | 01:09 PM
As a kid riding with my parents from Everett to Tacoma, I can remember seeing one of two of these Stratoliners sitting outside one of the final assembly buildings, ready to be moved across the road over to the flight line area on the airport. During the 1948/1949 time period, I worked as a Boeing flight line mechanic on all of Northwest Airlines Stratocruisers. (About 15 to 20 years in between the two "Strato" models.)
Posted by Stan Rober on December 8,2009 | 12:10 AM
I never saw it fly but there was what appeared to be a 307 parked on the ramp outside the Air America hangar at Ton Son Nhut during my 1968-69 tour. I've always wondered what happened to it.
Posted by Jay Swindle on December 15,2011 | 07:11 PM