In the same year as when Charles Lindbergh made his solo flight across the Atlantic (1927), Juan Terry Trippe secured his first US mail contract to fly mail, from Key West, Florida across the 90 miles of ocean to Havana, Cuba. Thus began a new airline, eventually to be called Pan American Airways or simply Pan Am!
From Pan American's meager beginnings (one single Fokker F-7 float plane that Juan purchased for the sum of $145.50 US) grew an airline that would effect, not only the way people traveled around the world, but it would even influence nations and society as a whole. After 3 or 4 years of securing more and more mail routes (between North and South America), Juan Trippe began including passengers along with the cargo of US mail, from that day the world and how we see it would never be the same. There is and probably will be a continuing argument about which was the world's first airline, but the fact is that because of the US Mail service awarding numerous contracts for Air Mail, all at about the same time, it proves no purpose to indicate which airline was actually first as the early airlines all started at about the same time. Pan American was a bit different in that they started flying routes that many felt were impossible, but they proved all the nea-sayers wrong and opened up the entire world to flights of their specialized aircraft, the massive flying boats of the nineteen thirties.
From 1927 until 1991, Pan Am would be the world's airline and its history is afloat with many firsts and many records, a few of which still hold today. Of all its history though, it is the period of 1934 through 1946 that holds the most nostalgic interest and it was during this period when air travel, across the world's great oceans, was adventuresome, exotic, and would remain in memory as aviation's most romantic period.
As Pan Am began extending its mail contracts throughout the Caribbean and finally down the length of South America to Buenos Aires, several different aircraft were used and all of which were float equipped or flying boats, including the Sikorsky S-38 (8 passenger) and the Consolidated Commodore (22 seat flying boat). It was in 1929 that Juan Trippe contracted with Igor Sikorsky to begin designing a much larger aircraft and the Sikorsky group came up with the Sikorsky S-40, basically an enlarged 4-engined version of the twin-engined S-38. The Sikorsky group was somewhat criticized for being too conservative and lacking in technical advancements with the S-40 by Pan American's spokesperson Charles Lindbergh, but 3 examples were ultimately built regardless and they went into service in 1931. Juan Trippe, wishing to conjure up romantic images of the past, decided on calling each aircraft in the name of one of the grand sailing ships of the late 19th century and so the first of the S-40s was called the American Clipper! Thus began a tradition that held until Pan Am's collapse in 1991.
Almost immediately after introducing the S-40, Sikorsky started work on their next design and Juan Trippe placed an order for 10, based entirely on viewing the drawings only and this of course was the Sikorsky S-42.
There were a total of 28 Pan-American Clipper flying boats built (3 Sikorsky S-40s, 10 Sikorsky S-42s, 3 Martin M-130s, and 12 of the giant Boeing 314s) and they operated from 1931 through 1945 flying around the earth on regularly scheduled routes (the Sikorsky's were limited to flying the Caribbean and South American routes due to their short range). There were 3 of the Boeing 314s sent to England in 1942 (Lend-Lease program) and those 3 aircraft were given to the BOAC (British Overseas Airways Corporation) and were primarily used by the Prime Minister (Churchill) for travel to distance locations to meet with President Roosevelt (who by the way also used the Boeing Pan American Clippers to travel about during the war years). There is even one well published photograph (LIFE magazine) showing Prime Minister Churchill sitting in the 1st Officer's position, flying one of those lend-lease Boeing 314s!
What was it like to travel on these great powered clipper ships of the skies? During the time of my research, I did run across numerous accounts from those that had to opportunity to travel in this fashion and their stories told of traveling in great comfort while dining in large dining rooms and being served food prepared by some of the world's greatest chefs of the time. Traveling on the Pan-American Clippers was not unlike traveling on a modern cruise ship of today, except that in the 1930s traveling in this way was considered very exotic and of course limited to the wealthy.
The Transpacific flights were inaugurated on the 21st of October in 1936 and one-way airfare from San Francisco to Manila (Philippines) was a mere $799.00, which adjusted to 2002 dollars calculates out to be roughly $10,425 today. It wasn't until 1939 that Transatlantic crossings were being made on a regular schedule (Boeing 314 Clippers) and the round-trip airfare on the Atlantic route was only $650 (about $8,400 in today's dollars), so as you can see, travel by Pan American Clipper was not only luxurious, it was quite expensive too. Pan American received the Collier Trophy (1936) for their inauguration of their Transpacific air routes.
These Clippers overseas routes were being run on a regular schedule and this was just as America was coming out of the Great Depression, but despite it all it seemed that each flight was at or near full capacity.
Posters advertising the Pan-American Clippers displayed almost dreamlike views of far away exotic lands and it was not uncommon to see hundreds, even thousands of people gathering to watch the departure of these flying boats. Many of the routes involved traveling overnight (as an example, the flight from Treasure Island in San Francisco to Honolulu required approximately 19 hours to complete), so the seating areas for the passengers were designed not too dissimilar from what you would find on luxury steamships or transcontinental steam trains, in that the seating compartments would convert into sleeping quarters at night for the passengers. The crew operational areas were also very unusual, on the Boeing 314s for instance, the cockpit area was so large that it looked more like the bridge on a naval ship rather than the cockpit of an aircraft. Behind the flight crew was a large table where full size navigational charts could be spread and there was even a popup bubble so that the navigator could take star shots using a sextant. No GPS or long range com radios for these fellows, just star-navigation and dead-reckoning, all outside of any radio contact for what may be hours on end.
Sikorsky S-42
Initially, the Sikorsky S-42 became what was Pan-American's first of the large flying boats to go into service, which it did in May of 1934 (after only having made its maiden flight the month before) and it begin its regularly scheduled trips from Miami to Rio de Janeiro. Designed in America by the infamous Igor Sikorsky (a Russian immigrate to the United States in 1917, following his escape from his native homeland during the Soviet Revolution) the Sikorsky S-42 was the largest and most advanced aircraft in the world. When the Sikorsky went into service, the largest land plane at that time was the Douglas DC-2 and so the S-42, with a maximum takeoff weight of 38,000 pounds, was nearly twice as large (the DC-2 had a maximum takeoff weight of 18,560 lbs). Because of its limited range (roughly 1,200 miles with 16 passengers, separated into 4 compartments, and 4 or 5 crew) the S-42s were basically restricted to flights between North and South America and for operations in the Caribbean!
All ten of the Sikorsky S-42s entered service between 1934 and 1937, but by the early 1940s, all had been removed from service and the 5 last remaining examples of the S-42 were scrapped in 1946. Of the ten S-42s, 3 had crashed, 1 sunk in Hong Kong, and the last one burned to its waterline in Manos, Brazil. It was a specially prepared version of the S-42 that made the first crossing of the Pacific from San Francisco to Honolulu, but it carried no passengers at the time.
Martin M-130
In December of that same year (1934) the Martin M-130 began service and the first of the three built was christened the China Clipper to be followed by the Philippine Clipper, and the Hawaii Clipper, but it was the China Clipper that became the common way that anyone referred to Pacific air travel. It became normal for anyone, when referring to traveling out to Hawaii or beyond by air to say, "...I am taking a China Clipper!" Unlike the S-42, the Martin M-130 had sufficient range (about 3,500 miles with an equal passenger and crew contingent as the S-42) to include flights across the Atlantic as well as the Pacific and with its maximum takeoff weight of 52,300 lbs, it was much larger physically. In the late 1930s, much of the advertisement and posters of the Pan-American Clippers depicted this aircraft or more specifically, the China Clipper, which most likely accounts for why most people referred to international air-travel generically as taking a China Clipper somewhere. Unfortunately in 1938, the Hawaii Clipper disappeared on its flight between Wake Island and Guam, no radio contact had been made nor has any wreckage ever been found. The Philippine Clipper crashed into the Oakland Hills east of San Francisco (1943), and in 1945 the China Clipper itself crashed in Trinidad. No survivors were reported from any of the M-130 crashes, except for 9 individuals that escaped serious injury in Trinidad.
The Boeing B314 Clipper!
By 1935, Pan-American had been calling for even larger versions of the flying boat, larger than what they had received from both Sikorsky or Martin and it was the Boeing Aircraft Company of Seattle, Washington that answered the call with their gigantic Boeing 314 Clipper! The Boeing Clipper was the first aircraft that could truly be classified a "Jumbo", with its maximum 84,000 lb takeoff weight, it could carry 74 passengers and 10 crew in true comfort, while cruising at speeds nearly 20 mph faster than any other aircraft in its class (on the long transoceanic flights the passenger number rarely exceeded 25 to 30 passengers, due to the extra weight in fuel required). Wind tunnel data collected by Boeing, in the design of the 314, would be reused some 30 years later with the design of the Boeing 747 Jumbo Jet. If you compare the profile of the nose section of the 314 to the 747, the similarity is more than coincidental.
Though the 314's range was about 20% less than the Martin M-130, the Boeing was capable of carrying a slightly greater payload and because of it offering additional room and creature comforts, the Boeing was much preferred by the paying customer. It was a general rule that each aircraft took-off with a fuel load that would provide a 4 1/2 hour cushion of reserve fuel beyond its intended destination, but even with this level of fuel reserve, the Honolulu Clipper (B314) ran into a 80+ mph headwind going west from England to New York. The Honolulu Clipper made a mid-Atlantic emergency landing and its passengers had to be off-loaded onto a US Navy destroyer. Because of the heavy seas during the passenger-crew pickup, the Navy destroyer crushed the bow section of the Boeing and it was left to sink on its own, but after several days the Honolulu Clipper was still afloat and was now considered a menace to navigation, so the US Navy was ordered to sink it with several rounds from a pair of 5-inch guns! Though many of the Clippers ran into problems (failed engines, running out of fuel, etc.), the Honolulu Clipper was the only Boeing lost due to this type of situation. The only Boeing Clipper to be lost due to an in-flight accident was the Yankee Clipper when it crashed while landing on the Tagus River near Lisbon (24 of the Yankee Clipper's passenger and crew were killed in the crash).
It wasn't until 1939 that the Boeing 314 entered service with Pan-American and they served regularly scheduled flights across both the Atlantic and the Pacific, right up until the war. All of the Pan-American Boeing Clippers were called upon for duty during the war years and they were both effective and efficient in their efforts. Transporting military and government officials to all points of the globe, even including one meeting between Prime Minister Churchill and President Roosevelt (Casablanca) where each leader secretly arrived in their own Boeing Clipper.
Between the four Pan American Clipper flying boat design types (S-40, S-42, M-130, and B314) only the S-40/S-42s had wing-tip mounted floats, whereas the M-130 and B314 each had fuselage mounted sponsons. The sponsons had the additional advantage of added lift and they also provided a nice platform for the arriving and departing passengers to enter or exit the aircraft (boat). The S-40/42 and M-130 contained additional wing support by flying wires or struts, while the Boeing Clipper incorporated the advanced design of a true cantilever wing. These aircraft were quite literally flying boats and they were neither amphibious (except for the Sikorskys) nor were they easily capable of maneuvering at slow speeds (in the water) on their own, as small tugboats were often utilized to move them to and from their docks as well into their takeoff positions.
Traveling in Boeing Clippers was unique and it was air travel luxury at a level the likes of which not only had not been seen before, frankly has not been seen since. From the forward lounge (below the flightdeck) to the rather large dining room, passengers were catered to in ways only seen before on luxury ocean going steamships and luxury railway trains at the time, except with the Boeing Clippers, passengers were traveling high above the world's surface at nearly 120 mph.
Travel in this way wasn't so much about the numbers I could quote nor was it about the speed, but what is was about was the opening of the world and its peoples to each other. Nations, once isolated out in the world's oceans, now could receive passengers, mail, cargo, and information in only hours or days, rather than in weeks or months. It now became possible for world leaders to meet, with very little lead or travel time required. Barely a decade earlier the thought of this kind of world travel was considered unrealistic and highly unlikely, but because of the dreams of a select few (Charles Lindbergh, Juan Trippe, and many others like them), the world and its peoples, which had seemed so distant and separated from each other, began to come closer together and people began to realize just how small our planet really is.
After the first Pan American Clipper completed its first passenger carrying flight across the Pacific in October of 1936, President Roosevelt awarded the Pan American Airways company the Collier Trophy. The Collier Trophy was awarded by the National Aeronautic Association for the greatest achievement in aviation in America. Engraved on the trophy's placard is:
From that first flight across the Pacific in 1936, regularly scheduled flights began to stretch out even further and further, until finally Pan American's routes circumnavigated the world, connecting lands and peoples that most Americans had never heard of. It also meant that wealthy individuals, businessmen, or government officials could reach even the most distant point on the earth in a matter of days, rather than the weeks or months it required by other means of transportation. These passengers were also treated to food prepared onboard by noted Chef's of that era and I presume many hours were spent in chat, while smoking expensive cigars and drinking brandy in these aircraft's parlor rooms. Because these aircraft rarely flew but a few hundred feet above the ocean, cruise ships could often be seen as you slipped by at over 100 mph.
Arrival of a Pan American Clipper was an event that would bring out many onlookers as the Clippers would first fly low over their destination's harbor before making their final approach and landing. At Pearl Harbor, small tug boats would move the just arrived Clipper to its dock, then as several Hawaiian native girls covered the disembarking passengers in flower leis, a local band would be playing traditional Hawaiian music. All the while the warm tropical breezes would be swaying the Palm trees surrounding the dock and Pan American's marine air terminal. Most certainly not like today whereas you walk up the jetways at Honolulu International, you aren't quite sure you are in Hawaii, as you could be at Boston Logan or Miami International for all you can tell.
It had been barely 5 or 6 years since Wiley Post or Emelia Earheart had crossed the Pacific, in their specially prepared aircraft, that passengers were being transported on a regularly scheduled airline, flying in complete luxury and comfort of the giant flying boats.
The Clippers at War!
By late 1941, the flights of these flying boats had become an accepted part of everyday life in America and it was often that firsthand news of the war in Europe first arrived by Clipper. Though the world had been at war since September of 1939, America still stayed on the sidelines and most felt that the war raging in Europe was in fact their war and America was not ready to send American boys into battle so soon after World War I. That all changed on the morning of December 7th, 1941.
During the war years, civilian travel had all been curtailed by the US Military and all of the Pan American Clippers were performing duties on behalf of the war effort. The morning of December 7, 1941, 3 Clippers were out in the Pacific when news arrived of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. The Philippine Clipper (a Martin M-130) was an hour out of Wake Island headed toward Guam, when they received the radio message:
Barely an hour after the Philippine Clipper arrived back at Wake Island, the Japanese attacked and as several aircraft of the Imperial Japanese Naval forces bombed and strafed everything in sight, one lone Japanese attack plane spotted the Philippine Clipper docked at the Pan American base and strafed the helpless flying boat. A total of nine employees of Pan American were killed during the attack at Wake Island and all of the Pan American facilities were destroyed, so orders were given to get the Philippine Clipper back to stateside, immediately. With over 90 bullet holes, the wounded and grossly overloaded (all remaining Pan American employees) clipper required 3 attempts at a takeoff before the Philippine Clipper finally limped into the air and off toward Midway, Pearl Harbor, then finally on to San Francisco (the Philippine Clipper landed in the San Francisco Bay, 3 days later on December 10th and its passengers gave the first eyewitness accounts of the war in the Pacific).
On December 7th, one of the extended range Sikorsky S-42Bs, was docked in the harbor at Hong Kong and it was hit by incendiary bombs from Japanese dive bombers and it burned to the waterline then sank.
The Pacific Clipper (Boeing 314 Clipper), was in the air and on its way from New Caledonia down to Auckland, New Zealand when their radio crackled with news of the Japanese attack on the US Navy at Pearl and Wake Island, so the crew decided to refuel in New Zealand and then head west. It was felt that there would be unnecessary danger flying across a Japanese controlled Pacific back to San Francisco, so a month long journey lie ahead of them. On January 6th, 1942, the Pacific Clipper arrived in New York City after a 31,500 mile flight that included 18 stops in 12 different countries and they crossed the equator 6 times along the way. This trip was the longest that had ever been made by a single commercial aircraft and it was the first to be an around-the-world flight as well (commercial aircraft). It was a mighty surprised LaGuardia tower officer when he heard over his radio that the Pacific Clipper was inbound to the Pan American Marine Terminal arriving from Auckland, New Zealand! Because the Pacific Clipper had arrived at New York in the very early hours just before sunrise, it was ordered to circle for an hour and a half off shore before being allowed to attempt a landing in the New York Harbor. The total flight time by that Pan American Clipper crew was 209 hours and 30 minutes to complete their journey.
The 9,000 Pan American employees became some of the most important civilians to the US Military, particularly in the first months of the war, as Clipper flight crews trained hundreds and hundreds of Military personal in the art of long over-sea navigational techniques, charts developed by Pan American became valuable in training Pacific combat pilots in not just navigation, but as providing highly accurate intelligence information on many of the islands of the South Pacific.
All of the Pan American Clippers were stripped of their luxurious interiors and became highlift, long-range cargo aircraft that the Pan American flight crews flew almost nonstop, setting record after record during their many ocean crossings. Many of the Pan American pilots making as many as 20 Atlantic crossings in 25 days.
Pan American's involvement in World War II went far beyond just the Clippers, as Pan American became the primary source of moving priority cargo around the world. Using the Clippers and C-54 transport aircraft, Pan American established the infamous Cannonball route; Miami to South America, then across the Atlantic to Africa, up to India and finally across the hump to China. The Cannonball route was 11,500 (one-way) miles in length and each day 7 aircraft were enroute to China, while 7 aircraft were enroute back to Miami. Operated not unlike the Pony-Express of the 19th Century American West, the vital cargo delivered to China on the Cannonball route greatly contributed to the final success of the allies winning in the China-Burma theater war effort.
By wars end (1945) it was obvious that the service life of the luxury flying boats had ended, as now there were numerous converted wartime aircraft that could easily carry twice the passengers much faster and much further than the infamous Pan-American Clippers of the 1930s, plus the necessary airport runways, long enough to handle these newer and larger land-based aircraft, had sprung up all around the world. The luxury Pan-American Clippers, like the luxury railway trains and steamships of prior years, had succumbed to advances in efficient aircraft designs that allowed people of lesser means to travel by air. In 1946 the remaining Boeing Clippers were either sold to private groups or were scrapped. The last remaining B314 ended service in 1950 with an air charter service in the Bahamas and it is unknown if any of the Boeing Clippers have survived the 50 years since the last flew the skies of the World.
So ended the golden era of passenger air travel, where people traveled to faraway exotic lands in complete luxury with the Pan-American Clippers. Pan-American Airways continued their tradition of calling their individual aircraft by the Clipper name, but it simply was never the same. The romantic dreams of exotic and luxurious travel in the Great Flying Boats of the 1930s are all but a distant memory now to a very select few.
To read more on the Pan American Clippers, the following books or websites are suggested: Books:
Websites:
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