KERMIT WEEKS

Kermit Weeks acquires unique Boeing Stratoliner houseboat

When discussing the extensive collection of Kermit Weeks and Fantasy of Flight of Polk City, Florida, the question is not 'How many planes does Kermit have?' but rather 'What are the planes he does not have?' If anyone has been keeping score, make sure to check the Boeing 307 Stratoliner off the list. Mr. Weeks, known around the world as one of the planet's most prolific and longest-standing collectors of vintage aircraft, announced on 2 February that he had been granted ownership of what he will be calling 'The Floating Penthouse, a bizarrely wonderful adaptation of a particularly historic Stratoliner into houseboat form.

Perhaps one of the most beautiful prop liners ever built, the Boeing 307 Stratoliner is the epitome of Art Deco design in airplane form and was the first pressurised airliner to enter commercial service. If there was one person most responsible for the existence of the Stratoliner outside Boeing, it would be Donald Webb Tomlinson, a former US Navy pilot who had conducted five years of high-altitude flight testing for Transcontinental and Western Airlines (TWA; later rebranded as Trans World Airlines) flying both the Douglas DC-1 and Northrop Gamma and determined that a four-engined, pressurised airliner would be best suited to take advantage of flying above the hazardous weather that all airliners at this point had to travel through, especially thunderstorms that could block mountain passes within the Rocky Mountains on transcontinental flights.