The Boeing 377 Stratocruiser was a long range double-deck airliner that first flew on 8 July 1947. Entering service on 1 April 1949 with Pan American, it was also operated by BOAC, Northwest Orient Airlines, United Airlines and American Overseas Airlines.
Seating generally between 50 and 75 passengers, the pressurised Stratocruiser featured sleeping berths for longer flights. Just 56 aircraft were produced, with Pan Am retiring the last one in 1961.
Boeing Stratocruiser Video
Following on from last weeks video about the Lockheed Constellation, this week we visit Seattle for a look at producing the Stratocruiser. This colour film from 1946 runs just under 20 minutes.
In the beginning, it goes through some of the Boeing history to date, including the Boeing 247, the Boeing 314 flying boat and others. Seeing the factory camouflaged for the war is interesting, and remember, Boeing has always built “tomorrow’s airplanes today”!
From about 6 minutes 30 seconds, the film shows how the Stratocruiser set a record of 6 hours, 3 minutes and 56 seconds for a Seattle to Washington DC flight. It is followed then by interesting cabins shots, then charts showing seating configurations.
Enjoyable is seeing the long explanations about how the pressurisation works as it was such a novel thing at the time. Seeing the lower deck lounge and the berths is also interesting, so check it out!
Pan American Stratocruiser Video
There’s another colour film about the aircraft, which was made when Pan American introduced it into service. It is also in colour and runs for about 24 minutes.
Pratt & Whitney’s Wasp engines fitted to the aircraft were problematic on many occasions. Several aircraft experienced incidents and a number of people lost their lives due to accidents stemming from the powerplant.
Overall Thoughts
With its lower deck lounge reached by spiral staircase, the Boeing 377 Stratocruiser was the forerunner of the Boeing 747, which originally had a spiral staircase to an upper deck lounge.
Long range luxury travel in the late 1940s and through the 1950s was on this aircraft. As it was expensive to operate, it was put on the premium routes where high prices could be charged in order to make a profit. Spending an overnight flight on one of these would an experience!
Have you ever flown on board a Stratocruiser? What did you think of the videos? Thank you for reading and if you have any comments or questions, please leave them below.
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Featured image by Boeing.
[…] began and finished with the Boeing 747 and Airbus A380. In fact, they have been around a long time, with the Boeing Stratocruiser being one. Another is the Breguet […]
yes!
Excellent!
Never saw one in person, WAY before my time. But I’ve seen pics and old airline ads featuring what must have been the ultimate in long range luxury at the time. I think my favorite use of the aircraft was on Northwest. If you HAD to spend the better part of two days getting from the US to East Asia, well there are worse ways to go!
Happy Holidays Trent and keep up these awesome throwbacks. -Chuck in St Louis, USA
I definitely haven’t seen one of them in person myself. Agree with you – I have seen some cutaways of the interiors – there’s a site that has a lot of the old Boeing 377 brochures from each airline. Looks pretty good!
Thanks Chuck, all the best for Christmas and the upcoming year! Always appreciate you taking the time to write. Cheers! Trent.
As a youngster, my dad took my brothers and me to what is now JFK to see my aunt & uncle fly to somewhere in Europe on a Pan Am Stratocruiser. I recall that my uncle wore a business suit and and my aunt wore suit that included a fox stole. While most info says the plane was based on the B-29 bomber it actually was from the B-50. It had the more powerful P & W engines which were supposed to be more reliable although they were frequently troublesome. I started flying business class internationally in 1983 on 767s… Read more »
Good ole Idlewild Airport 🙂 A fox stole – that’s something that would have the PETA people throwing paint in a heartbeat these days. That’s pretty cool that you got to see that as even the whole airport experience was quite different back then. 767s and L-1011s – would that be with TWA then? That’s my guess at any rate. I hear you on Qatar’s business class, it’s truly exceptional service wise. I’ve never come across anything like it! Thanks for the comment!
I grew up in Los Angeles and I loved seeing all the different airlines and their planes at LAX in the 1950s. My father would take me to the airport on the weekends and it was very exciting time for me. I would meet ground personnel and they would sometimes let me go on a plane to see the interiors. Usually they were DC-6, DC-6B, a connie and convairs. I remember seeing the Pan American Stratocruisers arriving and departing for Hawaii and beyond. They were magnificent planes and very exciting to see and go on board. I remember the dramatic… Read more »
It’s definitely another world compared to today, isn’t it? I can barely imagine meeting ground personnel and being taken on board aircraft just sitting on the ramp like that – awesome stuff. I have also read the story of that Pan American Stratocruiser that ditched – the pilot did a fantastic job there. You’re very lucky to have had such excellent experiences. Thanks for the comment!
Actually it was the US Coast Guard that rescued the ditched 377’s passengers and crew. The cutter Pontchartrain was stationed midway between Hawaii and the US coast to provide weather support. The Pan Am plane circled above the cutter on its remaining two engines until dawn made the ditching easier. After the rescue, the Pontchartrain took everybody to San Francisco. This Wikipedia link has a longer version of the story: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pan_Am_Flight_6
You are correct, it was the Ponchartrain, which is a Coast Guard cutter. The story is an amazing one and everyone worked really well together. In Air Disaster Volume 4 by Macarthur Job (excellent series of four books by the way!), it is noted that the Captain had the passengers moved forward, as he had read that the tail of the Stratocruiser often broke away in ditching situations. It happened in this one too, but no-one was injured or died, thanks to Captain Ogg’s foresight. A really interesting ditching story, that one! Thanks for the comment!
Thanks for reminding me that it was a coast guard cutter, and not a navy destroyer, that rescued the passengers and flight crew and took them to san francisco. it was a very memorable event to live through and it was an amazing landing and rescue at sea.
david
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