Pan American Airways  Consolidated 16-1 Commodore  NC669M      (c/n  13)

                                          

                                                 Pan American's CEO Juan Trippe was a firm believer in "expansion through acquisition", and
                                                 in August 1930 he purchased the NYRBA Line (New York, Rio and Buenos Aires Line).
                                                 With it came a fleet of 14 Consolidated Commodores, plus the elimination of the competition
                                                 on the Miami to Buenos Aires route.  To be quite blunt,  Juan Trippe held Postmaster General
                                                 Walter Folger Brown in the palm of his hand so poor old NYRBA didn't stand a chance at
                                                 acquiring the lucrative air mail subsidy to run the mails down the east coast of South America,
                                                 even though founder Capt Ralph O'Neill (a former Boeing salesman) had developed the route.
                                                 Since Pan Am was also developing routes along this same coast, as can be imagined, relations
                                                 before the merger became quite strained between the two companies.   What little material
                                                 I have on NYRBA will be posted on this site at a later date.  The above shot is quite common,
                                                 although the lower one (of NC663M,  c/n  7) is rarer and shows the aircraft "up on the step"
                                                 just prior to take off.