National Parks
Airways Boeing 247-D
NC13354
(c/n 1736)
To say that images of National Parks Airways Boeing 247-Ds were hard to
come by would be an
understatement! I am indebted to Craig Neumayer for the
rare shot above which came from the
Ray Ellinghouse
collection.
The
reproduction below (#2) was very
kindly scanned for me by
Bjorn Larsson from
his vast collection of
airline timetables, in
this case the NPA one for June of
1936. National Parks
operated three ex-United Air
Lines' Boeing 247-Ds. NC
13349 (below)
was
leased from UAL, but I believe NC13354 and the third
one, NC13337 were purchased. The
latter is shown at the foot
of the page (#3) in another image from the Craig Neumayer
collection,
taken at West Yellowstone.
. This aircraft was ex-WAE and another
shot of this same machine,
also
via Craig, appears on the Western
Air Lines Boeing 247D entry page. National Parks
had
previously run into
PMG Walter Brown's arrogance when Alfred Frank applied to have his
line
extended to Missoula and Billings
(a
natural for someone with so much western Montana
experience)
only to
have the air mail route given to Northwest Airlines. The
decision
to acquire
the Boeing airliners,
therefore, was a bold one.
In the event National Parks struggled on until 1 August 1937 when
it was
absorbed by
Western Air
Express, who were looking to regain much of the territory it
had lost before
their forced merger with
TWA
Boeing
247-D
NC13349
(c/n 1731)
2.
3.
Boeing 247-D
NC13337
(c/n 1719)
