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Seattle Times Article on Boeing 307

Posted by bdk on Fri Jul 18, 2003 02:39:46 PM

"...and the six Studebaker-made engines survived."????
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Ready for final takeoff: Former luxury liner heading to flight museum
Seattle Times 07/18/03
author: Mary Spicuzza
(Copyright 2003)


They've checked the fuel tanks. They've tested the engines.


And they just might be ready for takeoff.


Boeing officials still aren't making any promises about flight plans for the Clipper Flying Cloud, the last surviving Boeing 307 Stratoliner. The vintage plane might fly today after engine tests.


"It's a 60-year-old plane. It tells us what it's ready to do," Boeing spokeswoman Liz Verdier said.


Boeing, determined to avoid last year's nightmare, has no intention to rush restoration efforts. During a test flight in March 2002, the meticulously restored 1939 passenger airplane ran out of fuel and plunged into Elliott Bay just off Alki. No one was injured in the crash, but the plane had to be rescued from 100-foot-deep salt water and re-restored.


The restoration team, mostly made up of Boeing retirees, says today's final engine tests and crew training session will decide when the 64-year-old plane takes flight. If all goes according to tentative plans, the flight crew will do a test flight today or tomorrow, then fly to Oshkosh, Wis., in time for a national air show, which begins July 29. The plane's final destination is the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center at Washington Dulles International Airport in northern Virginia. The center is an annex to the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum.


"There will never be another one like this one," volunteer Gary Dawson said of the Herculean re-restoration effort.


Dawson, who worked for Boeing for nearly 40 years, first saw the Stratoliner "live" ? or flying ? nearly 10 years ago, when pilot Richard "Buzz" Nelson and others flew the plane from the Pima Air & Space Museum in Arizona.


"It was a mess," said Dawson, who retired in 1994 and has been involved in both rounds of Stratoliner restoration efforts.


The historic plane made its first flight on July 4, 1940, when it flew a commercial route to the Caribbean for Pan American World Airways. Since then it was used by the Army Air Transport Command, served as a commercial plane for Bermuda-New York flights and was the personal plane of Haitian President Francois "Papa Doc" Duvalier.


Years of its history are muddled, though, until the Smithsonian bought it in 1972. At that time, its owner was trying to convert the 33-passenger plane into a crop-duster. The Smithsonian kept the plane in the Arizona museum until 1991, when Boeing employees were looking for a vintage Dash-80 plane and found the Stratoliner instead. They were able to persuade Boeing and the Smithsonian to help fund restoration efforts.


With its seats ripped out and interior torn, walking through it was like "going through a haunted house," according to flight-crew member Pat DeRoberts. It's the last Stratoliner in existence, aside from one in Florida that was previously owned by Howard Hughes and has since been converted into a houseboat, Dawson said.


In 2002, after six years of restoration, it was almost identical to its original condition.


Then it took the plunge into Elliott Bay while on a test flight.


"I was right here waiting for it to come back when it crashed," Dawson said, standing inside the Stratoliner's hangar at Boeing Field. "When we got the call, we didn't know what to do. When I saw it, the nose was down, the tail was up."


A tour of the airplane yesterday showed that restoration crews were able to work quickly to repair damage. Its silver aluminum exterior shimmered even inside the dark hangar. Vintage cream-colored fabric embossed with a map of the Southern Hemisphere, compasses and the Pan Am logo ? identical to an old, ripped swatch found inside the plane ? lined its interior walls. Its seats, arranged in pairs of triple-seat divans facing one another with curtains that can be drawn for privacy, have been cleaned.


Dawson proudly showed off every art-deco detail, down to the hot-pink powder room complete with round red and blue knobs on its silver sink.


Although some things needed to be replaced after last year's crash, most of the radio equipment and the six Studebaker-made engines survived.


Crews have done fuel tests on each of the engines, measuring each with a dipstick, Dawson said.


Boeing spokeswoman Cindy Wall says it's impossible to estimate how much money has been spent on the restoration efforts, which were paid for by Boeing, the Smithsonian and others.


When the Stratoliner finally takes off on its final flight, the crew plans to stop to refuel in Montana and Minnesota, then spend about a week at the Experimental Aircraft Association AirVenture Oshkosh show. The Smithsonian staff is waiting for the plane so they can construct the new building around it and other vintage planes.


"It's pretty historical," project manager Mark Kempton said. "Once it's gone, it's gone."

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