Pan American World Airways teacher, Vol. XIV, No. 1, October 1957

              
October 1957
Published by Pan American World Airways
VOL. XIV No. 1
FLYING CLIPPERS CELEBRATE THEIR THIRTIETH BIRTHDAY
October marks the thirtieth birthday of Pan American World Airways.
On October 28, 1927, an airplane carrying the first scheduled international U.S. mail, and with Captain Edwin C. Musick at the controls, made the 90-mile aerial crossing from Key West, Florida to Havana, Cuba.
From that small beginning, Pan American has built up a world-wide system of American flag airways with 64,085 miles of routes serving 82 countries and colonies.
The first flight was made with the first tri-motored transport built in the United States, the Fokker F-7. This plane thus became the first American overseas transport. The flight established other firsts; it made Pan American the first United States air line to operate a multi-enginecl aircraft as well as the first to operate land planes on over-water routes.
The operational base was moved to Miami, and in 1928, the Sikorsky S-38 amphibian was introduced for extension of the Pan American routes across the Caribbean to South America, and from Miami via Yucatan and Central America to Panama. In 1929, Charles A. Lindbergh, as technical adviser of Pan American Airways, flew the first United States air mail to South America over the 2,000-mile Central American route from the United States to Western Cuba, Honduras, Nicaragua and Panama to the Canal Zone.
Compania Mexicana de Aviación, which had been operating in Mexico, became part of the PAA System in 1929.
Lindbergh's Survey
Also in 1929, Lindbergh surveyed and extended the West Indies route, via the Leeward and Windward Islands and Trinidad, 1,250 miles to British and Dutch Guiana. And in 1929 an arrangement was consummated with W. R. Grace Co., and a partnership established, for an air service from Panama down the West Coast of South America to Santiago, Chile, and over the Andes, flown by Pan American-Grace Airways, known also as PANAGRA.
In 1930 the first long range radio direction finding technique was developed and utilized. In 1931 PAA participated in the development of the Sikorsky S-40, the first American four-engine flying boat used in air transport operation.
On November 23, 1931, Pan American completed the flight on which it took its first commercial passengers from Miami to Buenos, completing the circle of South America.
Up to this time, the operations of the Flying Clippers were confined to Latin America, but the company’s technicians were eyeing the Atlantic and Pacific, and studying ways and means of meeting the challenges of ocean flying.
In 1930 Pan Am made plans with the Bermuda government for a United States-to-Bermuda service, which was established later to become the first link in the mid-Atlantic service.
On the Pacific side, Charles and Anne Morrow Lindbergh, on July 27, 1931, started on the flight for Pan American which Mrs. Lindbergh chronicled in her book “North to the Orient’’. Lindbergh made this flight, as PAA Technical Consultant, to survey the Great Circle route to the Orient, by way of Alaska. This was followed up in 1932 by acquisition of control of Alaskan air routes, the nucleus of Pan American’s service from the West Coast to Alaska.
Stefansson's Studies
A landing concession in Iceland was secured in 1932, and in that same year Dr. Vilhjalmur Stefansson, the noted Arctic student and explorer, became associated with Pan American. From that day forward he contributed knowledge and experience of the North to the problems of conquest of both the Atlantic and the Pacific. In 1932 and 1933, Pan American backed expeditions to study flying conditions in Greenland, including the voyage of the Jelling, and a new flight by Col. (now General) and Mrs. Lindbergh which eventually encircled the North and South Atlantic.
Meanwhile Pan American set out to obtain aircraft big and dependable enough for regular ocean service. The specifications: These aircraft must be capable of flying 2400 miles, with sufficient fuel reserve; must operate satisfactorily with one engine out of service; must be able to get back to base with one engine inoperative; must provide separate stations for the members of a multiple crew, including flight radio operator and flight engineer. (These basic specifications still apply in substance to over-ocean operations, changed only by technical advances. Present day ranges are longer. Today’s multiple crews do not include radio operators, because the perfection of voice radio for use by the pilot officers makes it unnecessary to have a radio operator. Otherwise, the basic considerations are the same.)
The aircraft manufacturers who accepted
this challenge were Sikorsky, Martin and Boeing. The aircraft they supplied all were flying boats.
Sikorsky finished the first S-42 in the spring of 1934, and during its test flights it broke nine world records. In the fall of that same year, Martin flew the first M-130 — its name was “China Clipper”.
By this time it was clear that the Pacific would be flown first, so the first S-42 and three M-130’s were delivered to San Francisco — the Sikorsky for preliminary surveys, and the larger Martins, with their superior load-carrying capacities, for the inauguration of service with mail, cargo and passengers. (S-42’s afterward went into regular service on shorter routes in Latin America.)
Preparations for ground and service and weather reporting were made by sending a surface expedition to Midway, Wake and Guam to establish operating bases.
The bases built and surveys completed, the China Clipper took off at 3 p.m. on November 22, 1935 on the first scheduled air mail flight across the Pacific. Twenty-one hours later China Clipper was in Honolulu. She then flew on to Midway, Wake, Guam and Manila. In October, 1936, Pan American extended the service from Manila to Hong Kong.
Plans for the Atlantic
During all this time studies had continued looking to conquest of the Atlantic, the last, most challenging, and most important air transport frontier. Two routes had been developed, the northern one from New York via New Brunswick, Newfoundland, Ireland, to Southampton, England. The southern route was to be via the Azores to Europe.
While the 26-ton Martin M-130 flying boats were the largest transport aircraft in the world, experience with them showed that still larger ships would be required for efficient operation over the long trans-ocean routes. So Pan American determined to pioneer again, and led the way in the progress toward bigger and bigger planes, as its engineers prepared specifications for the giant super-Clipper ships. These were to have a take-off gross weight of 42 tons, 16 tons more than that of the M-130’s. The Boeing Company responded with satisfactory plans and designs, and started work on a Pan American order for six of the new giants, to be known as Boeing 314’s. Pan American was the sole participant in development of the 314’s, as it was in development of the Sikorsky S-38,
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