China Clipper

by Robert Gandt

  A Pan American 314 arrives in West Africa. (E. F. Blackburn)

  The bubble octant was the flying boat navigator’s primary tool for over-ocean celestial navigation. (E. F. Blackburn)

  With the entry of the United States in WW II, the China Clipper was placed in the service of the U.S. Navy. Here she appears in camouflage war paint. (Pan American)

  The 314 Capetown Clipper at anchor at New York’s La Guardia airport. Her glory days have come to an end as the faster, more efficient DC-4 replaces her on the route to Europe. (Pan American)

  While developing the jet-age De Havilland Comet I in the late 1940s, Britain was simultaneously producing an airliner from the past—the behemoth Saunders Roe Princess flying boat. (British Airways)

  While the Latécoère 631 spent the war years mouldering on the assembly line, the age of the flying boats passed her by. (Musée de l’Air)

  To Glenn Martin, the Mars was to be the forerunner of a new lineage of commercial flying boats. Instead, it became the highly successful JRM series of the U.S. Navy. (Martin Marietta)

  China Clipper “on the step.” (Pan American)

  Orient Express. On her way to Asia, the China Clipper stops at Pearl Harbor. (Pan American)

  The Laté 521’s hull was a deep two-decker. In the lower deck, behind the mooring compartment, were a twenty-seat cabin, six two-berth cabins, and another twenty-six-seat compartment. A companionway led to the upper deck and the galley, lavatory, and baggage compartments. Another eighteen-seat cabin and a space for three flight engineers occupied the upper deck.

  The prow of the flying boat resembled the snout of a dolphin. In a style peculiar to French flying boats, the “bridge” of the aircraft was recessed backwards from the bow, and atop this structure, recessed farther aft, was the pilots’ compartment.

  The broad, slightly swept back upper wing was mounted atop the fuselage and braced by struts to the lower, stubby sea wing. This Dornier-style surface, which contained most of the ship’s fuel, was attached to the hull near the waterline and fitted with shallow floats.

  The Hispano-Suiza engines were suspended from the wings in four nacelles, with the inner engines mounted in the customary tandem, pusher-puller configuration. Each engine drove a three-bladed Ratier propeller with electrically controlled pitch.7

  By the time the Laté 521 made her first voyage to the New World in December 1935, the Martin-built China Clipper had already captured the imagination of the world with her inaugural Pacific flight. The larger and, in many respects, more capable Laté 521 arrived in the United States, via Dakar, Natal, and Martinique, only to rendezvous with calamity. On 4 January 1936 she was sunk by a hurricane while at her mooring in Pensacola, Florida. Not until mid-1937, when she had been rebuilt in France, did her career resume.

  Commanded by the veteran airmail pilot, Henri Guillaumet, the Lieutenant de Vaisseau Paris set a seaplane distance record in October 1937, flying a 3,586-mile nonstop journey from Morocco to Brazil. Before the end of the year she had garnered three more speed records with various loads, and an altitude record (6,561 feet) carrying a load of 39,771 pounds.8 All these records were set by Guillaumet, who, after the death of Mermoz, was France’s most prominent aviator.

  Beginning in 1938 the Laté 521 made three round-trip flights to America over the North Atlantic route, flying from Biscarosse, via Lisbon and the Azores, to Port Washington in New York. In April 1939, the Lieutenant de Vaisseau Paris was joined by a sister ship, the Ville de Saint-Pierre. This new ship, designated the Laté 522, was powered by 920-horsepower Hispano-Suiza engines, and soon thereafter the prototype Laté 521 was refitted with the larger engines. Though owned by the government and on loan to Air France’s Transatlantique Division, neither of these flying boats entered regular service. With the onset of war in 1939, both were pressed into duty with the French Navy.

  Though the Laté 521 and 522 had the same dimensions, the latter ship had a maximum weight of 92,594 pounds, nearly 9,000 pounds more than the prototype, and an empty weight of 52,911 pounds. This represented a respectable load-to-tare ratio of 43:57. With a maximum fuel load of 31,967 pounds, she could carry a payload of 7,716 pounds over a distance of 2,485 miles. Her broad, round-tipped wings supported a load of 26.1 pounds per square foot.9

  These statistics made the Laté 521 and 522 formidable flying boats, well ahead of their time. They might have entered the record books as significant players in maritime aviation. But like most French transport aircraft of the period, they were tied to the Hispano-Suiza engine, a power plant of dubious reliability. And then at the apex of their careers, war intervened. Bad timing and, worse, bad luck, denied the elegant Laté 520 series a prominent role in the history of air transport.

  With a firm footing on both shores of the South Atlantic, Air France began to cast an ambitious eye toward the North Atlantic. In 1936 the French Air Ministry issued a specification for a large flying boat that would transport forty passengers over a route of 3,730 miles (6,000 kilometers) against a thirty-seven-mile-per-hour headwind. Although three manufacturers—Lioré et Olivier, Potez, and Latécoère—constructed prototype examples of such a flying boat, only the Latécoère actually went into production and entered commercial service.

  The prototype was ordered in 1938, but it had not yet flown when war interrupted her construction. Not until 4 November 1942, after the fall of France, did the prototype fly, and at that time two more aircraft were placed on order by the Vichy government.

  The Laté 631 was, arguably, the most beautiful flying boat of all time. Her long, slender lines and finely tapered wings gave her an elegance unlike any transport aircraft of the era. In her original configuration, the Laté 631 was powered by six 1,650-horsepower Gnome Rhone engines and had a maximum takeoff weight of 145,505 pounds.

  She had a high, tapered, cantilevered wing with a span of 188 feet and full-span ailerons. She was of all-metal, stressed-skin construction. The horizontal stabilizer had a marked dihedral with twin vertical stabilizers and rudders mounted at each tip. The cockpit was mounted far aft of the bow, just forward of the wing’s leading edge, and contributed to the Laté 631’s rakish good looks.

  The production version did not appear until after the end of the war. Four aircraft were produced, each powered by six American-built 1,600-horsepower Wright Cyclone GR-2600-A5B, twin-row radial engines. These engines had two-stage superchargers and drove three-bladed, fully feathering Ratier three-bladed propellers.

  In July 1947 three Laté 631s entered the service of Air France, Africa, and began flying the route from Biscarosse to Port-Etienne, Africa, to Fort-de-France, Martinique. Their cabins were configured to carry forty-six passengers in the lower deck of the spacious hulls, which were compartmented with lavatories, a galley, a restaurant and bar, and a central corridor. On the upper deck, just forward of the wing, was the flight deck with widely separated pilots’ seats and, farther aft, the navigation compartment and the flight engineer’s station.

  With their Wright power plants, the Laté boats had a maximum gross weight of 157,300 pounds and an empty weight of 71,280, yielding a remarkable load-to-tare of 55:45. The long, low-aspect-ratio wings supported a loading, at maximum weight, of forty-one pounds per square foot of wing area, equal to that of a Douglas DC-4. The advertised cruising speed of the Laté 631 was 185 miles per hour with a range of 3,750 miles against a headwind of thirty-five miles per hour.10

  These were impressive statistics and should have placed the Latécoère 631 among the front-ranking transport aircraft of the world. But it was too late; the age of the flying boat passed.

  In the story of the great flying boats, the six-engined Latécoère 631 would earn one lasting distinction: She was the largest passenger-carrying flying boat ever to enter commercial service.

  15

  Martin

  The giant, passenger-carrying flying boat had its share of devotees in 1935. None of these was more zealous in his devotion than the builder of America’s largest aircraft, the
Martin M-130.

  Glenn L. Martin was a midwesterner by birth and by disposition. Fiercely independent, prudish and conservative, stubborn as a prairie mule, he embodied the best and the worst qualities of his generation of American entrepreneurs.

  Born in Macksburg, Iowa, 17 January 1886, he was the only son of Clarence and Araminta Martin. Early in his life his family moved to Liberal, Kansas, then to Salina where Martin worked as a garage mechanic between semesters at Kansas Wesleyan University. His mother, “Minta” Martin, made her son’s welfare her personal mission, becoming his lifelong advisor and constant companion.

  In 1905 the family moved to Santa Ana, California, where, at age nineteen, Martin worked briefly in a hardware store before opening up his own shop and sales agency. It was here that he was first drawn to the newborn craft of flight. In 1907 he began to build gliders and, in 1908, designed and built his own pusher biplane. Along the way he taught himself to fly, becoming the third man in history to fly a heavier-than-air machine of his own design.1

  Thereafter, Martin’s name figured prominently in the records of American aviation. Known as “The Flying Dude” for his dapper dress and fastidious manner, Martin barnstormed about the country setting speed and altitude records with aircraft of his own manufacture. In May of 1912 he made headlines with a round-trip flight between Newport Beach, California, and Catalina Island in a Martin-built floatplane. In another floatplane he called the Great Lakes Tourer, he made a business of taking passengers for thrill flights over Lake Michigan.2 He incorporated the Glenn L. Martin Company in 1911 and the next year moved the factory to Los Angeles.

  The first of a generation of Martin military aircraft, the Martin TT, appeared in 1913. New versions of this training aircraft were then produced not only for the army but for the governments of the Netherlands and their East Indies colonies. In 1917 Martin briefly merged his corporation with the Wright Company, resulting in the Wright-Martin Corporation of New York. Soon, though, Martin withdrew from this partnership and moved the Glenn L. Martin Company from Los Angeles to Cleveland.

  Martin’s cantankerousness was already legend. Photographs of the period show his sober expression, eyes set in a razor-thin face, peering intently through rimless glasses. Neither a smoker nor a drinker, he was known as a humorless, prissy, hardheaded businessman who quarreled frequently with his associates and employees. One such was his chief engineer, Donald Douglas, who left Martin to build his own family of famous aircraft.3

  With the approach of WW I, Martin became a builder of heavy bombers, designing the first multi-engine airplanes to mount the new Liberty engine. In the early twenties he continued to develop new bombers, including the MB-2 employed by General Billy Mitchell to sink the “unsinkable” German battleship Ostfriesland.

  The U.S. Navy became a Martin customer in 1929 with the purchase of the PM-1, the first of a Martin-built lineage of navy flying boats. Powered by two Wright Cyclone engines, this sturdy biplane had a wing span of seventy-two feet, ten inches, and an overall length of forty-nine feet. First delivered in 1930, a total of thirty PM-1s were operated by the navy during the early thirties. In 1931 an improved aircraft, the PM-2 appeared, powered by improved engines and fitted with twin rudders.

  Although neither of these designs showed particular innovativeness, the success of the PM series emboldened Glenn Martin to test new waters. He had become convinced that the future belonged to the flying boat. “Great new markets will open up all over the world,” he predicted. “Especially in the Orient.”4

  The first great market he had in mind was the transocean service now being envisioned by Pan American’s Juan Trippe. When he received Trippe’s request for a bid for the construction of a giant flying boat, Martin had already convinced himself that he could fill the order.

  Glenn Martin’s vision, however, tended to outreach day-to-day reality. One such reality was that his company was nearly on the rocks. As Martin entered the negotiating battle with Pan American, he faced opposition from his own business manager, C. A. Van Dusen, and chief engineer Lassiter Milburn. It was their conclusion that Martin could fill Trippe’s specifications for three flying boats for a total of no less than two million dollars. Juan Trippe, the quintessential poker player, had in mind a number half that amount.

  But Glenn Martin was a man driven by a dream. He wanted to make money, but even more did he want to join in a venture that would make history. He was determined that he would build Pan American’s flying boat, even at a loss. Against the advice of an angry Van Dusen and Lassiter Milburn, he signed a contract with Trippe for a price of $417,201 per airplane.5 Three aircraft would be built in the initial order, with options for more. Martin, unwisely as it turned out, was gambling that he would recoup his losses on re-orders of the flying boat.

  Despite Martin’s financial problems, construction of the new flying boat began in November of 1932, even before the contract was signed with Pan American. Given the company designation M-130, the three aircraft began to take shape at the plant at Middle River, Maryland, near Baltimore, under the direction of Milburn and W. K. “Ken” Ebel, who served in the unique dual roles of engineer and chief test pilot. The keel of the first aircraft, NC 14714, was laid in May 1933 and would be given the Pan American name Hawaii Clipper. NC 14715, the Philippine Clipper, and NC 14716—“Sweet Sixteen”—the most famous of flying boats, the China Clipper, followed.

  Glenn Martin was ill on 9 October 1935, the day of the official acceptance ceremony. Lassiter Milburn took his place, delivering a brief speech about “this great flying boat, the largest airliner ever developed in America . . . the first airliner in the world developed to carry swiftly and safely men and mail and merchandise across the oceans.”6

  Trippe, with Lindbergh at his side, then gave the great ship a name. “This flying boat will be named the China Clipper, after her famous predecessor that carried the American flag and crossed the Pacific a hundred years ago.”

  Though Pan American’s publicity department had credited Lindbergh as the developmental mastermind behind the M-130, the Lone Eagle had been preoccupied with other matters. He had recently undergone the ordeal of his son’s kidnapping and murder and the subsequent trial of the accused kidnapper, Bruno Hauptmann. Hounded by the press, Lindbergh and his wife had become virtual recluses and would soon leave the country to take up residence in England.

  Pan American’s guiding genius was, in fact, Andre Priester. From his office in the Chrysler Building, the little Dutchman issued a steady barrage of instructions and specifications to the Martin engineers. He conceived ideas for improved engine cowlings, for redundant electrical and hydraulic systems (features that would become standard on future designs), and for a strengthened hull design. He wanted to cure the old electrolysis problem encountered on the Sikorsky aircraft—the corrosion resulting from dissimilar metals (brass nuts fastened to aluminum) exposed to salt waiter—by coating the metal surfaces and incorporating impregnated fabric between parts. His requirements specified a soundproofed, luxuriously appointed cabin that equalled the stateroom of an ocean liner.

  By any standard, the M-130 was in a class by herself. She was, in 1935, the largest flying boat ever constructed in America.

  The M-130’s empty weight was 25,363 pounds. Fully loaded to her maximum weight of 52,252 pounds, the China Clipper could carry more than her own structural weight in useable load. This translated to a load-to-tare ratio of 52:48, a remarkable engineering achievement for 1935. Her advertised passenger load was forty-one, though that load would be severely restricted for the long San Francisco–Honolulu route.

  She had a fuselage length of over ninety feet. Her wings, braced at the center section by two struts on either side and cantilevered from the outboard engines, spanned 130 feet. With an area of 2,315 square feet, the broad wings supported a loading of 22.46 pounds per square foot.

  The new Pratt and Whitney Wasp R-1830 engines, the first twin-row, air-cooled engines to enter commercial service, were the most adva
nced power plants of their day. Geared and supercharged, each delivered 830 horsepower (later upgraded to 950 horsepower). The China Clipper came equipped with the new Hamilton Standard constant-speed propellers.

  Aesthetically, the Martin clipper pleased the eye. The wings perched atop a streamlined cabane on the upper fuselage. Her lines were clean. Except for the tail group, she was constructed without wires and protuberances and without the usual cumbersome outrigger floats. Instead, she had Dornier-style “sea wings.” These sponsons served as fuel tanks and afforded both stability in the water and, in the air, additional aerodynamic lift.

  To depression-weary Americans, the new Martin clipper possessed magical qualities. She conjured up visions of the exotic East, of faraway places and mysterious lands. She was a fantasy craft, a magic carpet built and flown by Americans, destined for adventure.

  Following the ceremony, the China Clipper was turned over to Ed Musick. Time was short because Trippe, certain that Pan American would receive the new transpacific mail route award, FAM 14, had already announced the commencement of service within the next month. Musick had only six weeks to ready his new flying boat and crew for the Pacific inaugural.

  He took the clipper to Miami, where a series of publicity and test flights were performed. Then, with his crew and a pair of NBC broadcasters, Musick flew the China Clipper across the Gulf of Mexico, over the narrowest portion of Mexico at the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, stopping at Acapulco, then onward to San Francisco. There, while excitement mounted, Ed Musick prepared to cross the ocean.

  16

  China Clipper