Flying Boats
Page 5
In July 1938 Boeing released a sketch of the interior layout of a proposed successor to the 314. This would have resembled a scaled-up version of its predecessor, but with retractable wing-floats and a hull of improved aerodynamic profile. Power would have been provided by six engines built into the wing. In the event, the proposal was not proceeded with. After a series of route-proving flights the Pan American Boeing 314 NC18606 American Clipper inaugurated a twice-monthly service between San Francisco and Auckland via Honolulu, Canton Island, and Noumea in New Caledonia on 12 July 1940, arriving in New Zealand six days later. From 16 September that year the service connected at Auckland with the TEAL Empire flying boat service to Sydney. During October 1941 the Pan American flights between Honolulu and Auckland also included a stop at Suva in Fiji, but following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on 7 December 1941 the airline suspended its Pacific routes, and Pan American flying boats were not to be seen again at Auckland until June 1946.
3
TRANSATLANTIC BEGINNINGS
At the start of the 1930s the ambitions of the airlines of operating regular services linking North America and Europe remained unattainable as the contemporary airliners lacked the range to tackle the vast distances across the North Atlantic. Until more capable aircraft could be introduced Pan American Airways decided to devote its energies to opening air services between New York and the British colonial island of Bermuda, and managed to persuade Imperial Airways to co-operate on a joint operation. In 1934 the British government and the Bermudan authorities granted permission for mail and passenger services on the route. This was followed in 1935 by an agreement between the two airlines not to compete directly on this route or on future services between the UK and New York. This became known as the ‘Gentlemen’s Agreement’, and specified that each airline would operate two round trips between London and New York each week when this became possible. Until then, preparations went ahead for the more modest New York–Bermuda service.
On 12 June 1937 a flying boat base was opened at Darrell’s Island, close to Hamilton, Bermuda. The location had been selected because of the sheltered nature of the surrounding stretches of water, and the base incorporated a hangar large enough to house the flying boats of Pan American and Imperial. As befitted an island playground of the rich and famous, the terminal building was luxurious, with lounges, showers and a restaurant. Imperial Airways planned to allocate two Empire flying boats, Centaurus and Cavalier to the route, and fitted them with additional fuel tanks in the wings to increase their still-air range to 1,078 nautical miles. However, the airline’s management was under great pressure to allocate more flying boats to the Empire and Mediterranean routes, and was forced to announce that only Cavalier could be spared for the Bermuda service. This aircraft was not flown out to Bermuda, instead being dismantled and despatched by sea inside twenty-one crates. It arrived safely, was re-assembled, and made a test flight on 19 February 1937. By mid June of that year both airlines had completed their proving flights over the route and were ready to commence scheduled services. Imperial Airways inaugurated its services on the morning of 16 June, when Cavalier flew from Bermuda to Port Washington, New York, with fourteen passengers. The aircraft alighted at New York thirty minutes behind schedule as its captain had taken his passengers for a sightseeing detour over the city before landing. The distance of around 700 miles had been covered in a little over six hours, and throughout the flight messages from the flightdeck were broadcast to the public over their wireless sets. That evening, the aircraft’s commander, Captain Cumming, was the guest of honour at a dinner hosted by Pan American in the Cloud Room of the Chrysler Building.
One of the passenger compartments in a Pan American Boeing 314. (Pan American Historical Foundation)
Pan American inaugurated its own services on 18 June when its Sikorsky S-42B NC16735 Bermuda Clipper transported twenty-eight passengers from New York to Bermuda. It had been agreed that each airline would initially operate one round trip each week, increasing to twice-weekly from August or September. As the Port Washington base at New York was prone to becoming ice-bound from November to March, the US mainland terminal point would be transferred to Baltimore during the winter months. Many celebrities were carried by both carriers, who tried various innovations to attract well-heeled clientele to their services. On Thanksgiving Day in November 1938 Imperial Airways served a traditional Thanksgiving dinner of turkey with cranberry sauce to its passengers en route to Bermuda. However, the airline’s Bermuda service came to an abrupt end on 21 January 1939. Cavalier, with eight passengers and five crew aboard, developed engine trouble on its way to the island and had to force-land on the sea. The aircraft was evacuated and broke up after fifteen minutes in the heavy swell. Sadly, three of the occupants perished before a rescue ship picked up the survivors. A replacement aircraft could not be spared, and Imperial withdrew from the route, leaving Pan American to maintain services on its own and to eventually introduce larger Boeing 314 equipment.
A Pan American Boeing 314 is made secure after its arrival at Southampton. (via author)
During 1937 Pan American had used Sikorsky S-42B NC16736 Clipper III for several route survey flights out of New York in preparation for the eventual opening of scheduled services across the North Atlantic to Europe. Each flight ventured a little further towards Europe. The first one went as far as Shediac in New Brunswick, Canada, and the second one to Botswood, Newfoundland, again in Canada. On 5 July Clipper III flew from New York to Botwood via Shediac, and stayed overnight before continuing onward to Foynes in Ireland and finally to Southampton, where it arrived on 8 July and stayed for almost a week. The final survey flight was over a southerly routeing, to Southampton via Lisbon and Marseilles.
Imperial Airways was also conducting trials of its own, in the opposite direction. Although it had been accepted that the C-class flying boats were impractical for scheduled transatlantic service, it was felt that they could provide valuable operating experience if two of them were stripped of all passenger facilities and fitted with extra fuel tanks. Thus modified, Caledonia was flown across to Botwood via Foynes on 5 July 1937, later continuing onward to Montreal and New York. In July 1938 Imperial trialled a more unusual method of achieving the necessary range for flights across the Atlantic. A small four-engined seaplane named Mercury was mounted on top of a modified Empire flying boat called Maia, and on 21 July this two-aircraft combination lifted off from the River Shannon in Ireland using the power of all eight engines of both machines. At a pre-determined altitude the locking device holding Mercury in position was released and the seaplane successfully flew on to Montreal with a payload of around 1,000lb of mail and newsreel films. After alighting there twenty hours later the aircraft was refuelled and later flew on to Port Washington, New York, arriving to a tremendous reception from the waiting crowds. A few days later, taking advantage of the favourable prevailing winds, Mercury took off under its own power and flew back to the UK via Botwood, the Azores, and Lisbon. Imperial harboured hopes of gaining Air Ministry support for the construction of ten more such combinations for transatlantic and Empire route mail services, but this was not forthcoming.
Another experiment aimed at giving the Imperial Airways flying boats transatlantic range took place during 1939, this time involving air-to-air refuelling. Two C-class machines, Cabot and Caribou, were used, supported by several Handley Page Harrow transport aircraft that Sir Alan Cobham’s Flight Refuelling Ltd had acquired and converted into tankers. One Harrow was based at Shannon in Ireland, and two more at Hattie’s Camp (later to be renamed Gander Airport) in Newfoundland. During the trials, which were usually conducted at an altitude of 1,000ft, the Harrow tanker aircraft transferred by hose 800 gallons of fuel to the flying boat in the space of around twelve minutes. Fifteen successful fuel transfers were accomplished over the Atlantic before the trials were terminated.
Imperial Airways Short S.23 G-ADUU Cavalier at the Darrell’s Island flying-boat base on Bermuda. (via a
uthor)
In late 1937 Imperial Airways had been in discussions with Short Bros regarding the possibility of producing a development of the C-class flying boat fitted with the powerful new 1,380hp Bristol Hercules IV engines. The proposed S.26 aircraft would be larger and heavier than the C class, with a cruising speed of around 180mph and twice the range, enough for transatlantic service. An order for three examples, to be known as the G class in Imperial Airways service, was duly placed and the first example, G-AFCI Golden Hind, made its maiden flight on 21 July 1939. It was handed over to the airline for crew training on 24 September that year, but before it could enter passenger service the Second World War intervened and all three examples built were transferred to the RAF.
This was also the year in which Pan American Airways was able to make serious progress with its plans for services to Europe, having taken delivery of a suitable aircraft, the Boeing 314. On 23 February the first example to be allocated to the airline’s Atlantic Division, NC18603, was ferried from San Francisco to its new base, the Marine Terminal at Baltimore’s Logan Airport. On 3 March it was flown to Anacosta, Maryland, where the First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt christened it Atlantic Clipper using a bottle filled with water from the ‘seven seas’. After completing a route survey flight around Europe the same aircraft inaugurated a scheduled mail service from Port Washington, New York, to Marseilles over the southern routeing via the Azores and Lisbon on 20 March, and also inaugurated mail services over the northern routeing to Southampton via Shediac, Botwood and Foynes on 24 June. Under the terms of its operating licence Pan American was required to successfully complete five mail-only round trips across the Atlantic before it could be permitted to carry fare-paying passengers. Once passenger-carrying services began these would be restricted to two landings in Europe each week. After completing the specified number of mail services, Pan American opened regular passenger services on 28 June 1939 when NC18605 Dixie Clipper, under the command of Captain R.O.D. Sullivan, carried twenty-two passengers to Southampton on the southern routeing via Horta in the Azores, Lisbon and Marseilles. Passenger services over the northern routeing were inaugurated by the Yankee Clipper carrying seventeen passengers, and these two Boeing 314s were later joined on the North Atlantic run by NC18606 American Clipper. Departures from the small floating dock at the Marine Air Terminal at La Guardia, New York were complicated by the fact that, once they had boarded, the passengers would only be able to use one of the doors to exit in the event of an engine fire during start-up. Therefore, as a precaution, a routine was introduced whereby the two flight engineers would board the Boeing first, and would be running through their checklists by the time the rest of the crew smartly marched aboard. Only once all four engines were running satisfactorily would the passengers be permitted to board. At the other end of the journey, the pontoons at Berth 108 at Southampton could not at that time accommodate aircraft as large as the Boeing 314, and so the passengers and crew had to be transported out to their Clipper by motor launch. With the outbreak of the Second World War the northern routeing across the Atlantic was suspended, but Pan American’s Boeings continued to maintain transatlantic services over a South Atlantic routeing via Brazil and West Africa. Pan American’s last Boeing 314, NC18602 California Clipper, was not retired by the airline until 1946.
Pan American Airways Sikorsky S-42B NC16736 during a visit to Hythe, near Southampton. (via author)
4
WARTIME INTERLUDE
The wartime efforts of Pan American Airways and Imperial Airways (which on 1 April 1940 was merged with the pre-war British Airways to form the British Overseas Airways Corporation, usually shortened to BOAC) to maintain some sort of passenger and mail service under trying wartime conditions would fill several books, so what follows is a brief résumé of their flying boat activities.
Upon the declaration of war in 1939 the Imperial Airways base at Southampton was considered to be vulnerable to air attack in view of the proximity of the nearby docks and Supermarine aircraft factory, and the flying boat services were transferred to a more remote location at Poole in Dorset, although the servicing facilities were to remain at nearby Hythe throughout the war. The absence of bombing raids during the so-called ‘Phoney War’ period lulled the authorities into a false sense of security, and the flying boat services returned to Southampton, only to be moved back to Poole in January 1940. At Poole, a workforce of around 400 was employed including stevedores and foreman stevedores, and a novel sight for that period were the seawomen employed to help crew the launches. By November 1940 BOAC’s Marine Section at Poole had on charge a number of motor launches, some of which were used for ferrying passengers to and from the flying boats, others as rescue craft, and others for general duties. When a flying boat alighted at Poole a launch transferred the passengers to the harbour, around ¾ mile away. A fuel barge then came alongside and engineers went aboard to assist with the refuelling and rectify any reported defects. Riggers then attached a 4in diameter cable to a hook under the rear of the hull and secured the other end of the cable to help steady the aircraft while the engines were being worked on. When the aircraft was ready to taxi out again the pilot would pull a lever to release the cable, which the riggers would pull hand over hand into their boat.
A sketch map of the flying-boat services operated out of Poole during the Second World War. (Poole Flying-Boat Celebration)
The entry of Italy into the Second World War denied safe access to the Mediterranean to Allied commercial aircraft, and in June 1940 the terminal point for BOAC’s flying boat services to and from the Far East was relocated to Durban in South Africa for use on what became known as the Horseshoe route. From the Durban base at the Congella Basin the BOAC ‘Empire’ flying boats flew to Singapore via Mozambique, Kenya, Uganda, the Sudan, Egypt, Bahrain, India, Burma and Thailand. At Singapore the C-class flying boats of Qantas took over for the rest of the journey. Seventeen BOAC flying boats that were positioned to the south or east of Cairo at this time were ferried to the new Durban base, and three more were sent out from Poole to join them. The necessary ground staff travelled out by sea, and once the base had been established the initial weekly flight frequency was doubled. A link with Britain was maintained by using converted RAF Sunderland machines on flights down the west coast of Africa to Lagos. To avoid interception by the Luftwaffe they first flew westwards from Poole to Foynes in Ireland. Here they waited for nightfall before undertaking the long leg to Lisbon in neutral Portugal. After a day in Portugal the aircraft and their loads of diplomatic mail, civil servants and military personnel made another night-time flight, to Lagos via Bathurst and Freetown. From Lagos they flew inland, following the Congo River, and connecting at Khartoum with the service to Calcutta. Facilities aboard the flying boats were spartan, and often no steward was carried, his duties being carried out by the purser. With variations as the wartime situation changed, this routeing was to be maintained for the next seven years, with the burden on BOAC’s hard-pressed aircraft being eased from October 1941 when Qantas agreed to extend its westbound services to Karachi instead of Singapore. By the spring of 1941 the BOAC C-class Empire flying boat fleet was undergoing conversion to Austerity Standard interior configuration. The removal of all luxury fittings and the installation of bench seating on the promenade deck and in the spar cabins allowed the passenger capacity to be increased to thirty.
In addition to maintaining the Horseshoe route to Singapore the BOAC machines were also called upon to undertake special duties in Europe and further afield. On the evening of 5 August 1940 Clyde was at her moorings at Poole when her captain, A.C. Lorraine, received instructions to ready her for departure to Lagos the following day carrying some priority passengers. These turned out to be staff officers of General de Gaulle’s newly formed Free French movement. The first leg of the journey took them to Lisbon without incident. At nightfall Captain Lorraine prepared for take-off along the flarepath with a total load of 53,000lb, the heaviest weight a C-class aircraft had ever been
asked to lift. During the take-off run the lights of a fishing vessel were spotted dead ahead. Avoiding action was taken and the crew managed to take off successfully, thinking that they had narrowly avoided a collision. The aircraft flew on through the night on the 1,900-mile leg to Bathurst, and at daybreak the co-pilot went below to speak to the passengers. While he was in the passenger cabin he saw through a window that a large V-shaped gash had been made on the underside of the starboard wing, and a whole section of aileron had been torn off. They had not missed the fishing boat after all! After a flight of almost fifteen hours they landed safely at Bathurst and naval engineers made temporary repairs to the wing. On the following day the flying boat continued onward to Freetown, where refuelling was accomplished using drums of petrol brought alongside in canoes. This laborious process took all day, and Lagos was finally reached the next morning. The whole journey had been carried out in strict radio silence, and no weather reports had been received since Lisbon. The crew then received orders to fly the leader of the delegation on to Leopoldville in the Belgian Congo for negotiations with the Vichy French officers in Brazzaville across the Congo River. No flying boat had previously alighted on that stretch of water, but a safe landing was made, and the talks resulted in a coup that brought French Equatorial Africa over to the Allied side and ensured safe passage by air to the Middle East.