Pacific Alaska Airways  Fairchild 71   NC9709                (c/n  601)

                                 

                                   In the early days of planning for trans-Pacific routes, it was thought that the only way was to fly a great
                                   circle route (true) but, since the aircraft lacked the range, to kind of island hop through the Aleutians.  To
                                   that end Pan American floated Pacific Alaska Airlines on 11 June 1932 as a subsidiary company.   They
                                   did this by amalgamating two airlines;  Alaskan Airways (which had been developed by the Aviation Corp-
                                   oration of America (and was kind of an American Airlines subsidiary) and Pacific International Airlines, a
                                    private corporation.   Initially Pan Am also hoped to be able to serve Europe by crossing the USSR, but
                                    the Russians were having none of that.  Both merged companies were large users of the Fairchild 71 and
                                    it was this aircraft that made up the backbone of the new airline.  Seen above and below are two of them                                                                                         The upper illustration is from the book "Sourdough Sky:  A Pictorial History of Flights and Flyers in
                                    the Bush Country" by Stephen Mills. (Superior Publishing Co, 1969), whilst the lower is also from a
                                    publication; this one "Alaska Bush Pilots in the Float Country" by  Satterfield, Archie, & Lloyd Jarman.
                                    (Superior Publishing. 1969).   My thanks to Lars Opland for the scans. 

                                   Fairchild 71    NC119H                   (c/n  657)