"KDSP "As a child, Juan Trippe watched Wilbur Wright fly around the Statue of Liberty in 1909; as a teenager, he learned to fly.In 1917, he left Yale to become a military pilot. He didn't see the bat, but aviation continued to fascinate him after he returned to college. Tripp founded Pan American Airways in 1927, creating a model of elegant air travel that was far removed from today's commercial airline system. An antique globe occupies a pride of place in Tripp's office in Manhattan's Chrysler Building. Dating back to the 1840s, the artifact is a family heirloom left to Tripp by his father, an investment banker. Related ContentChia PetAbraham Lincoln was the only president to own the patented "KDSP" globe represents much more than office decor; it symbolizes a man's ambitionTripp was no dictator, but he did want to take over the world," said Robert L. Ross, director of the aeronautics department at the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum ("NASM"). NASM) aeronautics department head F. Robert van der Linden said. In fact, Tripp consulted the world when he changed course. Today, the fabled sphere has been installed at NASM as part of a new permanent exhibit, "American Aviation," opening this month.

Air warfare and aerial bombardment began in World War I, when some prescient military men saw a future for airplanes as weapons. But when Tripp graduated from Yale University in 1921, few imagined air as the ultimate highway for the traveling public. Tripp convinced friends to invest in his dream; he then purchased an airmail delivery service in the Northeast, Colonial Air Transport. By 1927, he had merged three small airlines into Pan American Airways, transporting passengers from Key West to Cuba. Thus began the most attractive airline ever to offer catering services in the real China.

The long-haul routes pioneered by Pan Am required airplanes big enough to carry a lot of fuel, but because there were no landing strips in Asia or South America long enough to handle the big planes, trip bought Sikorsky seaplanes. In a poetic metaphor, he called the airplane a "speedboat", after the fast sailing ships that crossed the oceans in the 19th century.

The bulwarks, speed, and range of the speedboat attracted movie stars and moguls, guaranteeing coverage and romance in the Pan-American press, and in 1928, for reasons of practicality and publicity, Tripp hired Charles Lindbergh, one of the greatest heroes of his time, to help him open up new routes to South America, Japan, and China. In 1945,

became the first airline to introduce travel class, slashing fares from New York to London by more than half, effectively ushering in the modern era of air travel.In 1955, Tripp purchased the Boeing 707, a risky gamble at the time, and he ushered in the age of the airplane as well.

Tripp married Betty Stettinius; the couple had four children.He retired in 1968 as chairman and CEO of Pan Am, and died in 1981 at age 81. A decade later, his airline succumbed to a changing travel economy and rising fuel prices. When the airline's assets were sold, Vanderlinden said, Trip's Globe "became the property of the Pan American Historical Foundation." In the end, the consensus was that the Air and Space Museum should own it.

As it turns out, Earth has one more role to play before it reaches Washington. Director Martin Scorsese played Tripp in the 2004 Howard Hughes biopic The Aviator. Scorsese, a stickler for accuracy, wanted Baldwin to consult Tripp's actual globe, not a fax machine. So after it surfaced, the artifact was carefully packaged and shipped to Washington, D.C., where it stands today alongside one of the original three-bladed propellers from the China Clipper. Juan's World...Delivered.

Owen Edwards is a freelance writer and the author of Elegant Solutions