Boeing 307 Clipper Flying Cloud

This Pan American Clipper has quite a story. Pan American Airways Clipper Flying Cloud began service in 1940, flying the Brownsville-Mexico City-Los Angeles run. During World War II, it was flown by Pan American in South America under the direction of the US Army Air Forces Air Transport Command. Then, in 1946, it was returned to Pan American, making daily commercial flights between New York and Bermuda. Pan American retired its Stratoliner fleet in 1948. Throughout the next two decades, Clipper Flying Cloud passed through the hands of several owners. Most notably, in March 1954, the Stratoliner was purchased by the Haitian Air Force. In 1956, when the notorious Haitian leader, "Papa Doc" Duvalier gained control of the government, it served as his presidential aircraft. Dan Hagedorn, National Air and Space Museum archivist and historian of Latin American Aviation, mentions in his book, Central American and Caribbean Air Forces, "Distrustful of his pilots and flying - 'Papa Doc' ordered the aircraft sold in 1957 as an 'unwarranted extravagance.'" Clipper Flying Cloud was returned to the United States and registered as N9307R. The plane was later re-registered with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) as N19903 before it was acquired by the National Air and Space Museum in 1972.