The Bomber That Created a Bridge to Modern Airliners

Ride along on a ‘Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020’ journey in a Boeing 307 Stratoliner.

Patrick Chovanec

Friday, July 12, 2024 at 01:30 PM ET

Verified

Edited By: tccjeremy

The Boeing 307 Stratoliner in Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020. [Courtesy: Patrick Chovanec]

Key Takeaways:

The Boeing 307 Stratoliner, derived from the B-17 bomber, was the first commercial airliner featuring a pressurized cabin, enabling higher-altitude, smoother, and more luxurious passenger travel in the 1940s.
Introduced by TWA and Pan Am, it offered significantly reduced travel times and enhanced comfort by cruising at altitudes of up to 20,000 feet, above much of the turbulence experienced by earlier aircraft.
Only 10 Stratoliners were ever produced; their commercial service was short-lived due to high costs, complex maintenance, and World War II, during which TWA's fleet served as crucial C-75 military transports.
Despite its pioneering innovations, the Stratoliner was quickly superseded post-WWII by more efficient and advanced aircraft, leading to its rapid retirement, with only one fuselage partially surviving today as a houseboat.

See a mistake? Contact us.

Today in Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020, I’ll be flying the Boeing 307 Stratoliner, the first commercial airliner with a pressurized cabin that shared much of its DNA with the B-17 bomber.

In 1935, the major airlines in the U.S. had a problem. They had contributed $100,000 each for Douglas Aircraft to develop a four-engine successor to the two-engine DC-3. But it was clear that the new DC-4 had problems and would be delayed. So they dropped out of the program and TWA (Transcontinental & Western Air) approached Boeing Corp. to see if it could adapt its promising new B-17 bomber into a passenger plane.