HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE Above the weather Boeing’s Stratoliner was world’s first pressurized commercial airplane By Mike Lombardi Only 10 were built and Hollywood movie producer and aviation pioneer Howard Hughes bought one of them. But Boeing’s Stratoliner changed commercial aviation. For the first time, passengers could “fly above the weather” at high altitudes because of the airplane’s pressurized cabin. Or as a Boeing advertisement of the day proclaimed: “Blue skies, bright sunshine await you up above the winter clouds and snow ... up where 4-engine Boeing Stratoliners have opened a smoother skyway for over-the-weather travel.” The Stratoliner, the world’s first pressurized commercial airplane, was born in the 1930s, during a time of rapid evolution in the science and technology of flight, beginning with dramatic advancements in aircraft structures. Wood and fabric gave way to metal, monoplanes replaced biplanes and, before the decade was out, another great innovation would revolutionize flight—cabin pressurization. Throughout the 1930s, pressurization experiments were taking place in Europe as well as the United States, where the U.S. Army was testing cabin pressurization with a modified Lockheed Electra designated XC-45. Boeing researchers were also experimenting with the technology and made it workable with the innovation 12 BOEING FRONTIERS / DECEMBER 2013–JANUARY 2014 “Blue skies, bright sunshine await you up above the winter clouds and snow ... up where 4-engine Boeing Stratoliners have opened a smoother skyway for over-the-weather travel.” – From a Boeing advertisement about the Stratoliner
Frontiers December 2013—January 2014 Issue
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