Woodley
Airways Boeing 247-D NC13310
(c/n 1691)
Woodley
Airways was formerly incorporated in January of 1945 after Arthur
Woodley had been
awarded the important trunk line from
Anchorage to Juneau. Clearly this could not be flown with
his ancient Travel Airs and hence he
purchased a couple of Boeing 247Ds. After WW II, if
you
wanted to start up an airline on
the
cheap you bought an ex-military C-47A and set up shop. If
you
wanted to do it really cheap,
you latched onto a
Boeing 247-D. NC13310, seen here in this
image from the archives of the
Museum of Alaska Transportation and Industry, was decked out in
National Air Transport livery and
was exhibited at the
Chicago Century of Progress exhibition in
April of 1934. It
passed on to
the United Airlines assets register when that company was born a
month
later. In 1938 it was sold to
Wyoming Air Service which soon became Inland Air Lines after
a
re-organization. The Boeing was impressed during WW II as a C-73
with serial number 42-56642.
Woodley purchased in 1946 when
his fledgling line began to expand.
When Woodley changed the
name to the more
grandiose Pacific Northern Airlines on 1 August 1947, the 247 was still
on the
books.
Whether it was actually
re-painted in PNA
markings is not known.