Boeing 377 Stratocruiser: El Avión Demasiado LUJOSO para Sobrevivir

Video from the channel Tiempos Dorados del Viaje about Boeing 377 Stratocruiser, linked on its Above Ten Thousand entry. Duration: 1:01:52. Language: Spanish. Video type: Documentary.

This narrated documentary traces the history of the Boeing 377 Stratocruiser, the luxury commercial aircraft of the postwar era. It explains how it was conceived, what its cabin was like, what technical problems it had, and why it ended up being a financial failure for its manufacturer. It closes with the derivatives that outlived it.

Juan Trippe, head of Pan Am, asked Boeing for a long-range aircraft that could compete with the ocean liners. The 377 started from the B-29 bomber and had a double-bubble fuselage with a figure-eight cross-section. On November 29, 1945, Pan Am ordered 20 units for $24.5 million, and Boeing put 50 into production. The prototype flew for the first time on July 8, 1947. There were three test aircraft, and the plane entered service in 1949 on the San Francisco–Honolulu route. The Boeing 707 jet made it obsolete: Pan Am ordered it in October 1955 and began flying it on October 26, 1958. United sold its aircraft to BOAC in 1954. BOAC operated the type until 1959, Northwest until September 15, 1960, and Pan Am until 1961.

The interior was designed by Walter Dorwin Teague. It had armchairs, Pullman-style berths, a private compartment known as the "honeymoon suite," and dressing rooms. On the lower deck there was a bar lounge for 14 people, reached by a spiral staircase, and the menus were prepared with Maxim's. Among its passengers, the video cites Mike Hawthorn, Ian Fleming and Elizabeth II. The engines were Pratt & Whitney R-4360 Wasp Major, with 28 cylinders and 3,500 hp, which burned a lot of fuel and demanded a lot of maintenance. Propeller failures led the CAB to issue directives in 1955, 1957 and 1958. According to the documentary, 56 units were built and 11 were lost, seven of them Pan Am's. One of the cases it covers is the ditching of the Sovereign of the Skies in October 1956, on the Honolulu–San Francisco flight, in which all 31 occupants survived. The program cost Boeing losses of around $15 million. The Pregnant Guppy and the Super Guppy, which were used in the Apollo program, were derived from the 377.