Pan American Liveries

The intention of this page is to describe and show all the Pan American liveries from 1945 until its demise in 1991.

1945-1958: WINGED GLOBE

The immediate post-war era saw Pan Am massively develop its reach and land-plane fleet with large numbers of Douglas C-54s, Lockheed L-049/749 Constellations and Boeing 377 Stratocruisers. Convair 240s and Curtiss C-46 Commandos joined the fleet in 1948. All of these types wore the first post-war livery.

The winged globe logo was revised to incorporate a much larger chunk of the globe than the North and South America of the pre-war scheme (worn by DC-2s, DC-3s and Stratoliners).

Around 1950 Pan Am adopted a white crown to the livery, which otherwise remained largely the same aside from a much larger PAA on the tail. This was the first scheme worn by the DC-6s and DC-7Cs.

1958-1970: JET AGE / GLOBE SCHEME

The approach of the jet-age spurred Pan American into thinking of a new livery but the result, although classic, was hardly radical. The cheatline was simplified into simply a thin blue line and the titles were PAN AMERICAN in black. The biggest change was the creation of the classic globe, designed by Edward Larrabee Barnes and Charles Forberg, although this version of it would last only until 1973.

The livery was out early enough to make it onto not just the DC-7Cs, but also DC-4s, DC-6s, B-377 Stratocruisers and even some DC-3s. Obviously it was also featured on the jet fleet of Boeing 707s, 720s, 727-100s and Douglas DC-8s. The jets were known as Jet Clippers.

One unusual aircraft to wear this scheme was the sole DC-8-62 operated in Pan Am colours. It was actually a Braniff aircraft but was being flown on an interchange route.

1970-1973: GLOBE SCHEME SHORT TITLES

For the arrival of its first 747s Pan Am gave into the fact that nobody called it Pan American anymore and changed the titles to simply PAN AM. The titles were not enlarged for the 747s on which they looked tiny. The old style widely spaced PAN AM lettering remained in use.

1970-1973: HELVETICA FONT

When Najeeb Halaby became Chairman of Pan Am in 1970 he wanted to inject new life into the old and conservative airline. He commissioned Ivan Chermayeff for the job. Chermayeff, along with Tom Geisnar, ran one of New York's most influential design practices. They created a new font and logo for Pan Am, which was the frontispiece for a new promotional campaign of posters. The new Pan Am logo was in Helvetica Medium and the Globe was simplified.

Into 1972 the theme changed to Pan Am's World on the posters. The new font and titles was tried out on both a 707 and a 727 but never became part of a wider livery refresh.

The airline's staff never took to it and with Halaby gone by the end of 1972 the design change was forgotten.

1973-1976: UPDATED GLOBE TITLES

With Halaby out the door there was no interest in reshaping the company's visual identity. Instead the Pan Am logo from 1973 was back to being very similar to that of before 1970 albeit the PAN AM letters were closer together and slightly curvier (see the globe below).

This change can be seen in photos of the 707s and 727s from 1973, although it doesn't seem to have gotten onto many, if any 747s.

Compare the font on the globe to the left with that of the livery variants worn from 1958-1973.

1976-1984: 747SP DELIVERY

The arrival of the first Boeing 747SPs signaled another update to the simple Globe livery, which had remained basically unchanged since 1958. Yet again major change was avoided and instead the Globe scheme was simply modified to fit the 747s better.

Changes were limited to:

Larger black PAN AM titles using the modified font with less spacing between the letters
The blue cheatline terminating at the radome on the 747s
Clipper titles in a script font
The flag on the tail enlarged and slanted

This scheme was worn by the new Boeing 747SPs and Lockheed Tristar 500s as well as the 707s, 727s, 737-200s, 747s and DC-10s, the latter inherited from National.

Many of the 727s and DC-10s inherited from National kept their white bellys:

1977: FLIGHT 50

Pan Am had already flown the 747SP N533PA 'Clipper Liberty Bell' around the world in May 1976 but in October 1977 she was rechristened as Clipper New Horizons and performed the famous Flight 50 route circumnavigating the globe from pole to pole. More details of the flight can be found here and here. For the flight the SP wore a special Flight 50 logo behind the main titles. The aircraft kept this logo after the completion of the record-breaking feat.

Subsequently when the billboard livery was rolled out the aircraft was repainted, gained a new Clipper name but kept a modified version of the Flight 50 logo, now moved behind the cockpit.

1982 EXPERIMENTAL 747 SCHEMES

Sometime in 1982 Pan Am started playing with its livery. Two different schemes were trialled from 1982 onwards both with substantially larger fuselage titles and a thicker cheatline. In the end neither were taken up and a more radical design adopted.

The version worn by N735PA ‘Clipper Spark of the Ocean’ only, had such large titles that they broke the cheatline. N735PA wore her colours at least until August 1987, by which time the final Billboard scheme was three years old.

The version worn by N748PA ‘Clipper Crest of the Wave’, and also N724PA 'Clipper Fairwind', had an unbroken cheatline and larger titles. N748PA wore her colours at least until August 1989 by which time the final Billboard scheme was five years old and Pan An was effectively out of time. N724PA was repainted between December 1987 and June 1988.

1984-1991: BILLBOARD

Following its dalliance with the experimental schemes Pan Am switched to full billboard titles on a white fuselage. All the new Airbus A300s and A310s were delivered in this scheme, which was also worn by the 747-100/200, 747SPs, 727-200s and remaining 737-200s. The Airbuses had an all white fuselage whilst the Boeings kept a natural metal belly. The livery was also worn by the Dash-7s and ATR-42s of Pan Am Express (formerly Ransome Airlines).

1991: GULF WAR RIBBON

Pan Am was involved in the airlift of US troops to and from the Middle East during and after the First Gulf War. One aircraft, N744PA 'Clipper ocean Spray', had a small yellow rosette added to mark the returning trooping operation.

Aero Icarus from Zürich, Switzerland / CC BY-SA (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)