By Robert G. Waldvogel

Fokker designed the F.27 Friendship as a high-performance and capacity, next-generation Douglas DC-3 replacement.

Having undertaken a refurbishment of that very aircraft after World War II, it converted military C-47s into civil sector-applicable airliners, whose experience enabled it to combine the high wing of its own F.VIIb/3m Tri-motor with the all-metal construction of its Ford counterpart.

The resulting F.27-200, the culmination of design features that the majority of surveyed carriers believed necessary in such an aircraft, offered a circular-section fuselage with a forward baggage and cargo compartment, oval passenger windows, and an aft, left boarding door, giving it a 77-foot, 3.5-inch overall length. The pressurized cabin had a 40-passenger capacity in a four-abreast arrangement.

The high, straight wing, with a 95.2-foot span and a 753.5-square-foot area, initially featured double-slotted trailing edge Fowler flaps, but later reverted to single ones, to provide short-field capability, enabling it to serve the small, ill-equipped airports that would, to a significant extent, comprise its operational realm.

Power, generated by two 2,020-hp Rolls Royce RDa.7Dart 528 engines, endowed it with a 45,000-pound gross weight, a 300-mph speed, and a maximum, 10,300-pound payload range of 1,285 miles.

Two static and two flight test airframes were constructed after receipt of Dutch government backing. The first prototype, powered by lower-rated, 1,540-hp RDa.6 Dart 507s and the originally intended double-slotted high-lift devices, took to the sky on November 24, 1955. It was not initially pressurized.

The three-foot longer second aircraft, accommodating 36, offered 1,720-hp RDa.6 Dart 511s.

The initial F.27-100 production version, first flying on March 23, 1958, was inaugurated into service by Aer Lingus nine months later, on December 15.

Integral to the program’s success was the April 1956 license-manufacture agreement with the Fairchild Engine and Airplane Company in the US, which later became Fairchild-Hiller. Because most of the US local service carriers operated antiquated DC-3s, the agreement was seen as an opportunity to replace a significant number of aircraft.

The resulting Fairchild F-27, which first flew from Hagerstown, Maryland, on April 12, 1958, incorporated a lengthened nose for weather radar installation, an increased fuel capacity, and seating for 40, all of which were subsequently applied to its Fokker counterpart.

After it was granted its FAA type certificate on July 16, it was placed into service by West Coast Airlines two months later, on September 27 actually beating the Fokker F.27-100 into service!

Aside from the subsequent, already described, hot-and-high F.27-200, there were several other variants, including the F.27-300 with a port-side cargo door and a strengthened cabin floor; the F-27B, the Fairchild equivalent of it; the F.27-400, a combi version; and the F.27-500, the first to feature a fuselage stretch.

The latter, sparked by Air France’s Postale de Nuit night airmail service and thus equipped with an in-cabin sorting system, retained the F.27-300’s cargo door, but introduced a 4.11-foot longer fuselage for 48 passengers and 2,230-hp RDa.7 Dart 532s. It first flew on November 15, 1967.

Fairchild-Hiller’s own version, The FH-227, with an even greater, six-foot fuselage stretch, was powered by Dart 532-7s and increased the F.27-500’s maximum passenger capacity from 56 to 60. It had a 43,500-pound gross weight. Later versions of the FH-227 had an increase in gross weight to 45,500 pounds.

Despite the difficulty foreign aircraft manufacturers usually had in making inroads into the US market, Fokker, because of its optimum payload and performance turboprop design, and its Fairchild agreement, was very successful.

US local service F.27 operators included West Coast, Piedmont, Bonanza, Pacific, and Ozark. Trans-Pacific Airlines, which was later renamed Aloha and competed with Hawaiian Airlines on virtually the same inter-island network, replaced its piston Convair 340s with Fairchild F-27 turboprops in the summer of 1959, increasing its traffic share from 30 to 43 percent in the process.

Fairchild Hiller’s Longer-fuselage FH-227 initial operators included Mohawk, Northeast, Ozark, Piedmont and Paraense-Brazil.

As the western world’s best-selling turboprop twin in its class, the aircraft achieved an impressive production run—586 Fokker F.27s, 128 Fairchild F-27s, and 78 Fairchild-Hiller FH-227s.

By Marvin G. Goldman

By the end of World War II in 1945, Chicago’s main airport, Midway, was barely coping with accelerating passenger numbers and no significant room for facility expansion. The City had no alternative but to select an entirely new location to meet future needs for additional capacity. In 1945 it selected Orchard Field, northwest of downtown Chicago. The site had been home to a Douglas Aircraft C-54 assembly plant during the war and had four intersecting runways.

In 1949 the Chicago City Council renamed Orchard Field as “Chicago-O’Hare Field,” in honor of naval aviator Lt. Cmdr. Edward H. “Butch” O’Hare, a Chicago native and Medal of Honor recipient. The original airport code “ORD,” taken from the Orchard Field name, was retained.

O’Hare became the first major airport in the U.S. to be planned and constructed after World War II. Development took several years, and it was only in 1955 that O’Hare officially opened to scheduled commercial airline service. Growth was slow at first, as Midway Airport, being close to downtown Chicago, was much more popular at that time. However, with the arrival of the “jet age” in 1958-1959, and the resultant need for longer runways that Midway Airport didn’t have and lacked room to build, O’Hare took off on its path to becoming America’s busiest airport.

I am aware of only two postcards of O’Hare issued prior to 1959:

In 1959 pure jets started flying into O’Hare.  The early model pure jets, Boeing 707s and Douglas DC-8s, could not fly into Midway Airport because of Midway’s shorter runways.  My own first flight, on 17 December 1959, was aboard a new Continental Airlines 707 which flew from Los Angeles to Chicago O’Hare with a stop in Denver.

Most postcards of O’Hare were issued during the 1960s, the early jet-age years. By July 1962 all scheduled operations at Midway airport were transferred to O’Hare. In that year O’Hare served 10 million passengers and claimed to be the “World’s Busiest Airport.” By 1965 that number doubled to 20 million, and by 1968 it rose to 30 million. Here is a selection of postcards from that decade:

O’Hare (through United Airlines) and San Francisco International (through Pan Am) each claim to have been the first airport to use jetways.

Very few postcards on Chicago O’Hare have been published from the 1970s to date. Here are some examples:

Note: All the postcards shown are in the author’s collection. They are all fairly common.

Since 1990, Chicago O’Hare International Airport has continuously been expanding to meet the demands of growing passenger volume. In 1990 American Airlines, the second-largest carrier at O’Hare next to United, completed a large renovation and expansion of its facilities in Terminal 3; and in 1993 a newer international terminal, Terminal 5, opened.

In 2005 the airport embarked on an “O’Hare Modernization Plan,” a $6 billion airfield reconfiguration designed to transform O’Hare from an air traffic bottleneck into a more modern airport with fewer ‘”system-impact delays.”. Sixteen years later, in September 2021, O’Hare celebrated the completion of this project which included four new runways, the extension of two other runways, two new air traffic control towers (South and North), and the replacement of intersecting runways with parallel runways.

Yet more plans are underway at O’Hare. In 2018, a year when O’Hare handled over 84 million passengers, with about 2,400 daily flights to over 200 scheduled destinations, the airport adopted its latest master plan, called “O’Hare 21.” This plan includes, most significantly, a Terminal Area Plan whose centerpiece is a new O’Hare Global Terminal, to replace Terminal 2 and be a gateway to the airport. The Plan also intends to integrate domestic and international terminal operations, allowing airlines in each of the three major airline alliances (Oneworld, Skyteam, and Star Alliance) to consolidate operations in one terminal. Other features include increasing gate capacity by 25%, improving baggage and security services, and near-term expansion of Terminals 3 and 5.

References

• flychicago.com. Chicago Department of Aviation site, tab “O’Hare History.”
• wikipedia.org. “O’Hare International Airport.”
• chicagotribune.com/news. “O’Hare International Airport timeline: From farm to global terminal,” by Kori Rumore (September 9, 2021).
• Spiselman, Anne, “Chicago O’Hare and Its Next 25 Years,” Airways Magazine, March/April 2019, pp. 78-87.

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With all the new developments and activity at Chicago O’Hare International Airport, I hope to see you at Airliners International™ 2022 Chicago, June 23-25, 2022, at the Hilton Rosemount/Chicago O’Hare Hotel. This is the world’s largest airline history and airline collectibles show and convention, with nearly 200 vendor tables for buying, selling, and swapping airline memorabilia (including, of course, airline postcards), seminars, the annual meeting of the World Airline Historical Society, annual banquet, tours and more. You might want to enter the Postcard Contest at the show. More information on AI2022 is available at airlinersinternational.org. Follow this link for Postcard Contest Rules.

Until then, Happy Collecting,

Marvin

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By Arthur Smit-Roeters

For over five years I had the opportunity to fly as a steward on board a De Havilland DH114 Heron, in addition to Catalina flying boats, C-47s/DC-3s, and Convair 240s/340s. 100 flying hours a month were the norm.

What was it like to fly on board a De Havilland 114 Heron 1? I will relate a little story of one of my many adventures on the Heron.

Pictured below is a DH114 Heron 1B (fixed gear), the aircraft I served on in the 1950s.

A Snake on Board

In the early 1950s, I was assigned to fly as a steward on board a chartered 14 passenger Garuda Indonesian Airways De Havilland Heron 1B¹, with the Vice President of Indonesia, Dr. Mohamed Hatta on board. Because the plane was not air-conditioned and flew at lower altitudes, the cabin temperature stayed warm and became unbearably hot on the ground in the sweltering equatorial heat and high humidity. The plane was not designed to carry a steward and was not equipped with a galley. One could hardly stand up straight in the cabin and less so in the tail section where the improvised galley was located.

After our takeoff, I was going to prepare snacks and noticed a beautiful green-colored rope with a red argyle pattern hanging over two cold-drink containers. When I reached out to pick it up, the rope curled up and the end showed a snake’s head with a nervous split tongue. It was ready to bite me. The vivid colors indicated that the “rope” was a very poisonous snake. I could not jump up or sideways due to the confined space but, I did step back at high speed and slammed the cabin door shut. Dr. Hatta and his entourage were told about the extra passenger.

Everybody became very edgy. A fly, an additional stowaway the flight, made life in the cabin very interesting. Every time it landed on a person, that person made some extremely quick evasive movements as if the snake was on him. The perceived intruder must have moved around quickly because many people were literally sitting on the edge of their seats while swatting away at the imaginary snake, but Dr. Hatta kept his composure. In the meantime, I kept an eye on the door threshold in case the snake slithered into the cabin. That was not possible, but I needed to be sure.

Our captain changed course, back to Sepinggan (Balikpapan, BPN, Kalimantan) Airport. We landed uneventfully but, I was not brave enough to open the door to the galley. I reasoned the serpent could have grown into a dragon and I was not a dragon slayer. Meanwhile, the captain had radioed to local flight operations that we had a snake on board and asked for plane handlers to remove it.

As soon as the Heron came to a stop on the ramp, none of the ground personnel dared to open the door since the snake would probably strike at a ramp worker. After our uncomfortable flight of about 15 minutes, we were now confined for what seemed an eternity in this narrow hot aluminum tube and everybody was soaked with perspiration. A very brave person opened the outside door and emptied the contents of a fire extinguisher into the galley. The critter was stunned by this unwelcome treatment. Finally, somebody using a long stick and with enough courage, removed the incapacitated snake and we were then able to exit the plane. After our 15 minute flight, the outside air felt cool to the skin.

So there ends my adventure of a snake on the plane.

¹ In 1952 Garuda Indonesian Airways ordered 14 Heron 1B aircraft to replace their 16-passenger Catalina flying boats. The Heron 1B was designed to carry 14-17 passengers, but GIA’s configuration was for 12.

By Tiemen Spits

The flag pins were a private issue and were allowed by the Airline’s corporate office to adorn the Pan Am uniform. No clear policy existed about the usage of the pins; the popularity of it was purely driven by the flight personnel. Research shows that the use was multi-purpose.

• As a destination pin: the flight attendant wore the flag of the country or state that was the final destination of the flight. For ease of use, we have divided the pins in three groups:
  • Country contains the pins from the different foreign countries,
  • USA State/Territory/Commonwealth contains the USA state and Commonwealth pins,
  • Special/other, for example Berlin and the Pan Am globe pins are found in this group.
• As an indication of the country/state of origin of the flight attendants: this was not the original intention of the pins, but developed over time and was widely embraced in support of national pride of the individuals.
• As an indication of the linguistic skills of the person wearing it: this is not to be confused with the language pin/badge.

The pins are a simple but elegant form: two flags crossed at the pole with the Pan Am stylized globe underneath. The flag on the left is always the flag of the USA, while the flag on the right varies with the country of origin. The example below is the flag pin of Guatemala.

From ex-Pan Am employees we learned that the pins started to show up in the mid to late 1980s. However, the existence of the Cuba pin indicates that the earliest use must be before 1963 when the Cuba travel restrictions were put in place. These were not lifted until the year after Pan Am’s bankruptcy in 1991.

There are a few pins that do not adhere to the general format described above. These include the Joint Venture pins, the EU pin, and the Pan Am logo pin.

Joint Venture (JV) Pins

The Joint Venture (JV) pins were issued to show the commitment of Pan Am to partnerships with Russia and Hungary with respectively Aeroflot and Malev airlines. The Russia/Aeroflot partnership was signed in 1988 and operated flights between New York Kennedy Airport and Moscow International Airport. The flights used the Pan Am 747’s and the cockpit and cabin crews were Pan Am, while three of the flight attendants were Aeroflot. They would also act as interpreters. The Malev partnership was signed in 1989 and committed to non-stop flights between New York and Budapest. Both joint ventures lasted until Pan Am’s demise in 1991.

The Pan Am logo pin is distinguished from the others by the fact it does not sport the blue ball/globe.

The European Union Pin

The European Union pin depicts the European Union logo which was designed in the mid-1950s when the European Economic Community (EEC) was formed.

The Berlin Pin

The Berlin pin is a special issue to show that Pan Am was one of only three airlines to fly into West Berlin, Germany after Berlin was isolated at the end of World War II. Commercial flights into Berlin were limited during the Cold War. The only three airlines flying into Tegelhoff were British Airways, Air France, and Pan Am.

The Flying Flag Pin

Instead of a static flag, the flag is designed actively flying in the wind. The pin is thicker, the wells are deeper, and the cloisonné has been deposited thicker. In my years of collecting I have only found one pin in this style: Indonesia.

Variant Versions of the Same Country Pin

Finally, there are country pins that exist in multiple variant issues due to a change of the national flag while the pins were in use at Pan Am. These pins are

• Austria
  • Without any device in the horizontal white bar.
  • With the Austrian coat of arms in the horizontal white horizontal bar (variant version). Because the new Austrian coat of arms was officially approved/adopted in its current form in 1984, it is possible that this variant version started to appear in the same year.
• Romania
  • With the communist device in the yellow vertical bar. (30 Dec. 1947 – 27 Dec. 1989).
  • Without any device in the yellow vertical bar (from 27 Dec. 1989 – end of use).

How to Use This Guide

To find whether a pin was issued for the country/region of interest, use this alphabetical index.  For easy identification we have divided the pins into three main groups:

1. International destination pins
2. USA State/Territory/Commonwealth pins
3. Other pins

Within each group, the pins are listed in alphabetical order by their country/state/commonwealth’s name. Each pin’s image is accompanied by the country represented by the flag and a one-line note elaborating on the image when needed. The author is still looking for Honduras and Portugal and any other pin not shown in this collector’s guide.

International flag pins

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USA flag pins

In the USA these pins present the state of origin or destination. According to some sources, pins existed for all 50 states; however, I have found no evidence of this. Below are the currently known state pins.

Miscellaneous Flag Pins

There are two pins in this group that deviate from the “standard” issue, namely the Pan Am logo and the Indonesia pins. The Pan Am logo pin does not have the globe in the center below the flags and the Indonesia pin is made thicker than the “normal” pin and the cloisonné wells are deeper. Also, the flag is not draped but waving.

Each pin is approximately 1” wide by 1 ¼” high, except for the Aeroflot pin, which is approximately 1 ½ “high.

As of March 2018 – a total of 77 pins have been identified. If you have additional information about the pin usage, personal experience with them, or want to trade, please contact me at terschellin49@gmail.com or leave a comment below. Happy collecting!

This article and all images originally appeared on www.halpostcards.com (copyright 2017-2021) and are used here with the author’s permission.

By Charlie Dolan

After spending several months concentrating on the airlines of the British Isles, I think we need to get some warmth into our bones with a quick visit to Central America. I might regret this decision because with September temperatures in the nineties and “feel like” temperatures in the hundreds here in Florida we might long for the north again.

I have a few insignia from that part of the world in my collection, but one of the carriers with the most extensive route structures and most colorful insignia is TACA. In the 1930s, TACA (Transportes Aereos Centro-Americanos) was founded by Lowell Yerex. It was started as a cargo carrier and eventually operated flights ranging from Miami in the north to Rio de Janeiro in the south. Most of these services were short-haul, but the presence of TACA touched just about all the countries of Central America, As air commerce developed in Central America, competition arose between TACA and carriers affiliated with Juan Trippe’s Pan American World Airways (PAA). TACA was based in El Salvador and maintains its headquarters there today. Over the years, its fortunes waxed and waned as it formed companies such as TACA of Venezuela, TACA Brasil, TACA de Costa Rica, and TACA de Nicaragua. Pan American-backed companies operated in Honduras (SAHSA), Nicaragua (LANICA), and Costa Rica (LACSA). The backing offered by PAA and TACA generally was about forty percent of the local carriers’ budgets. By the late 1940s the larger carriers had withdrawn their backing of the smaller companies.

Panama was served by Aerovias Panama and later Air Panama. Air Panama was backed by Spain’s Iberia and the earlier Aerovias Panama had been aided in operating to the USA by Trans Caribbean Airways.

There were a few independent airlines operating in Central America as well. One of those was Aviateca (Compania Guatamalteca de Aviacion, S.A.) of Guatamala.

I have some photos of one of this company’s Convair 440s taken by my father when he flew from Belize International Airport to Tikal to view the Mayan ruins.  He had been serving as a ship’s medical officer after having retired from private practice in New York.

So, here are some Central American airline insignia to check over. All are in my collection, with the exception of TACA Venezuela and Aerovias Panama. The heraldry of the “parent” companies can be seen in The TACA affiliates’ blue parrot and the Pan American style cap badge seen in companies operating in South and Central America, the Caribbean, and even as far as Afghanistan (Ariana). Hope you enjoy them.

Written by Charlie Dolan

As I continued with my romp through the British Iles in my collection, I came up with these ten carriers for the May installation. Two of these airlines operated the De Havilland Comet after the fatal design flaws had been identified and corrected.  Those were Channel Airways and Dan-Air London. The Comet, redesigned after its introduction in the mid-1950s served BOAC well and went on to serve these carriers well as it did for Middle East Airlines, Mexicana, BEA, Olympic, and East African Airways.

Channel Airways, Dan-Air London, Jersey European Airways and G B Airways were scheduled carriers. Highland Express was conceived as a scheduled airline, but with a fleet of only one Boeing 747-400, that vision could not be realized. The remaining carriers were charter companies, with Heavylift providing specialized cargo services utilizing a fleet that included Shorts Belfast, Boeing 707, and Antonov AN124-100 aircraft.

Both Dan-Air London and G B Airways had their backgrounds in marine shipping and brokerage firms. Their insignia feature designs resembling the “house” flags of shipping lines.

Flying Colours, Excalibur, Donaldson and Invicta were primarily charter operations.

I’m sure not if the insignia of Highland Express is a pilot wing or a jacket brevet used by cabin or ground staff. It is one of the only insignia of that airline that I have seen. Any information about it would be appreciated.

Hope you enjoy this installation. More British carriers to follow shortly.