China Clipper

by Robert Gandt

  Despite the politics of the North Atlantic, the German mail planes received en-route support from both the French and the Americans. The weather ship Carimare, halfway between the Azores and Bermuda, supplied weather reports and direction-finding assistance. The approach to New York was on the radio guard of Pan American.4

  While the Do 18 was still undergoing her proving flights, an even larger boat, the Do 24, was being designed for the Dutch government for service in the Dutch East Indies. Though similar in lines to the Do 18, the Do 24 was slightly larger. Her wings spanned eighty-eight feet, eleven feet greater than the Do 18, and she was powered by three tractor-mounted 1,000-horsepower BMW Bramo Fafnir 323R-2 radial engines. Her tail group featured twin outboard vertical stabilizers. Soon after the aircraft began her commercial career, however, war had begun and the Do 24 was produced exclusively for Luftwaffe use.

  In 1937 DLH ordered three models of a new Dornier flying boat, the Do 26. This elegant machine represented the culmination of Claudius Dornier’s flying boat designs. She had a slender, all-metal fuselage with a two-step hull. Instead of the usual Dornier sea wings, outrigger floats retracted into the wing and were completely enclosed while airborne. The cantilevered wing, instead of being mounted atop a pylon as in earlier Dornier boats, was joined to the upper fuselage and swept upwards in a graceful gull design. The four Junkers Jumo 205C 600-horsepower liquid-cooled six-cylinder diesel engines, tandem-mounted in sleek above-wing cowlings, drove three-bladed controllable-pitch metal propellers. The front propellers turned on a direct drive, and the rear propellers were driven on extension shafts. A unique engineering feature of the Do 26 allowed the rear propellers to tilt upwards six degrees to avoid spray during takeoff. When the aircraft was airborne, the propellers could then be lowered to their normal position.

  The Do 26 was a superb flying boat both in aesthetics and performance. Her fuel-efficient diesel engines and race-plane wing (bearing at takeoff weight a load of 34.12 pounds per square foot of wing area) provided a range of 5,592 miles. She could comfortably fly any over-ocean segment on the planet. She boasted a short-range cruising speed of 192 miles per hour and, for extended flights, could maintain an economy cruise of 164 miles per hour. Her empty weight of 23,589 pounds versus an all-up weight of 44,092 pounds produced an impressive load-to-tare of 49:51. Her gross weight and dimensions—a ninety-eight-foot wing span and eighty-foot fuselage length—were comparable to those of the Sikorsky S-42, the Martin M-130, and the Short Empire-class boats. But the Do 26, at least in her inception, was not intended to carry passengers. Her 14,881-pound maximum fuel load left little capacity for them. She was a high-speed mail plane designed to be catapulted from depot ships on the high seas.

  In late 1938 DLH deployed the Do 26 to the South Atlantic. There the Dornier flying boats made eighteen mail-service crossings before war ended their civilian careers.

  Towards the end of 1936 Deutsche Luft Hansa solicited designs from German aircraft manufacturers for a giant transatlantic, passenger-carrying flying boat. Winner of the competition was the Hamburger Flugzeugbau (Blohm und Voss), who produced plans for a clean-lined, six-engined flying boat with a range of 4,630 miles.

  At a takeoff gross weight of 100,530 pounds, the BV 222 Wiking was one of the most formidable commercial craft in the world. Powered by six BMW Bramo 323 Fafnir 1,000-horsepower engines, the Wiking boasted a maximum speed of 193 miles per hour and could cruise at 157 miles per hour. Its empty weight of 62,810 pounds produced a load-to-tare of 37:63.

  Despite the Wiking’s great size and capacity, DLH specified cabin accommodations for only sixteen passengers. This paradox reflected, presumably, the growing German determination to gather prestige in all matters aeronautical. It had been ordained by the Third Reich that DLH’s passengers would fly the North Atlantic in unequaled aerial opulence.

  Nearly four years passed before the BV 222 made its maiden flight, 7 September 1940, from the Elbe River at Finkenwerder. In the meantime the world had changed. DLH did not commence its North Atlantic service, nor did the mighty Wiking ever transport her eminent would-be passengers to the New World. Instead, the Luftwaffe put the new boat, as well as her thirteen sister ships, into war service as supply and reconnaissance aircraft.

  A 1940 DLH order for a behemoth Dornier-built flying boat also went unfilled. Though hull construction had already been completed, the project was canceled in 1942. This would have been the Do 214, an eight-engined, double-deck transoceanic flying boat. Designed with a wing span of 197 feet and a gross weight of 319,670, this Dornier airplane, had she not become a casualty of war, would have been one of the last and, perhaps, the most successful of the oceangoing flying boats.5

  21

  American Export Airlines

  In the reciprocity negotiations between Imperial Airways and Pan American, Juan Trippe had negotiated from the premise of exclusivity. It was presumed by both parties that Pan American, in its de facto role as “chosen instrument,” had an American monopoly on the North Atlantic air routes.

  By the second half of the 1930s, this premise was being challenged. The development of bigger and more advanced long-range aircraft made it clear that commercial airline service to Europe would soon become a reality. With the reality would come, to a favored few, enormous profit, particularly if the profit were sweetened by U.S. mail subsidies.

  One of the challengers was a steamship company, American Export Lines. In the spring of 1937 the shipping line incorporated a subsidiary company, American Export Airlines (AEA), and made immediate application to commence a series of survey flights to European ports. Their rationale was simple: Since American Export already plied the historic trade routes with their steamships, was not their airline subsidiary, supported by the same corporate and logistical network, imminently qualified to serve the public interest on the Atlantic?

  Juan Trippe, for one, didn’t think so. With the tenacity of a bulldog Trippe had held on to Pan American’s Atlantic monopoly even though he had not yet broken the constraint of the odious Clause H, which forbade Pan Am to commence service between America and Britain until Britain was ready to do the same. But times were changing, and Trippe and his high-handed, unilateral dealings with foreign governments had cost him support in Washington. The Roosevelt administration, no friend to the Republican-oriented Trippe, made clear its opposition to a monopoly by any single carrier, particularly Pan American, on the forthcoming Atlantic routes.

  In the spring of 1939 a new Consolidated Model 28 Catalina twin-engined flying boat was delivered to American Export Airlines. That summer AEA conducted a series of survey flights with the Catalina over six different routes over the Atlantic. With the experience gained from these operations, AEA filed its application for a route to the United Kingdom and a route to France. In December, smelling success in the air, the airline placed an order with the Vought-Sikorsky division of United Aircraft for the preliminary engineering, and option for construction, of three four-engined, long-range S-44-type flying boats configured for nonstop transatlantic service.

  By the time hearings on these applications commenced in October 1939, war had broken out in Europe. Because the recently passed Neutrality Act prohibited commercial flights into belligerent countries, the Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB) then permitted AEA to amend its application to include temporary permission to operate to Rome, via Lisbon.

  On 15 July 1940, the CAB granted a Certificate of Convenience and Necessity to AEA to serve Lisbon, via Bermuda and the Azores. The Rome destination was deleted because of Italy’s entry into the European conflict.1

  The news landed like a thunderclap at the Pan American offices in the Chrysler Building. AEA had the Atlantic route! Pan American’s lock on the Atlantic had been breached, at least on paper.

  There were more battles to be fought, however. One inescapable truth about international airline routes still remained: Such an operation, to be profitable, depended on the infusion of mail subsidy, which required the approval of Congress.
On Capitol Hill Pan American mounted an all-out campaign to block the upstart airline that had intruded into their exclusive territory. Thus Trippe’s lobbyists, wielding far more influence in Congress than in the White House, managed to deny the crucial mail subsidy to AEA. The new airline could have its Atlantic route, but without the boon of mail revenues.

  Trippe’s victory would be only temporary. In a few months the rules by which Pan American had so successfully played the game were about to change.

  * * *

  With the Atlantic route award in hand, AEA immediately exercised its option for the three Sikorsky flying boats.

  AEA’s three S-44s were to be the last of the lineage of Sikorsky flying boats. The prototype aircraft, the XPBS-1 Flying Dreadnought, was the product of U.S. Navy contract No. 42868, dated 25 June 1936, for a four-engined, cantilevered high-wing monoplane flying boat. The XPBS-1 made her maiden flight from the Housatonic River, near Stratford Lighthouse, on 13 August 1937. Her test pilot was Edmund Allen, who would later perform the demanding test series of the new Boeing B-314.

  The “Dreadnought,” featuring nose, dorsal, and tail-gun turrets, an auxiliary power unit producing 110-volt AC electricity, had a gross weight of 47,455 pounds and, with a war load of 4,000 pounds, boasted a range of 3,170 miles. She mounted four Pratt and Whitney XR-1830-68 engines of 1,500 horsepower.

  But she was to be one of a kind. In the course of her construction, the navy approved a second experimental aircraft, this one built by Consolidated. In the subsequent competition for a production order, the contract went to Consolidated. The winning aircraft was the PB2Y, a patrol plane similar in lines to the famous B-24 Liberator bomber.2

  Design work on AEA’s transatlantic flying boat, designated the VS-44A, began in February 1940. By this time Sikorsky’s parent corporation, United Aircraft, had moved its Chance Vought division to Stratford, combining it with Sikorsky as the Vought-Sikorsky Aircraft Division and prefixing the aircraft designation with VS. The combination lasted from 1 April 1939 until 31 December 1942, the Vought company producing fighters and scout aircraft while Sikorsky constructed the last of his flying boats. Already under development in another wing of the plant was a mysterious new contraption called a helicopter.

  AEA’s three Sikorsky flying boats, collectively called the Flying Aces, were the Excalibur, Excambian, and Exeter. On 17 January 1942, in a ceremony at the Sikorsky plant, Mrs. Henry Wallace, wife of the vice president of the United States, bounced a bottle of champagne against Excalibur’s duralumin-skinned bow. The bottle refused to break. Mrs. Wallace delivered another blow. Again the bottle didn’t break. When it seemed that the ship’s nose would crack before the bottle, a thoughtful Sikorsky employee interceded. He taped a length of angle iron to the bow. Mrs. Wallace swung once more, the champagne gushed, and Excalibur, now officially blessed, began her career.3

  The next day Captain Charles F. Blair, AEA’s chief pilot, began testing the VS-44A. After two proving flights from freezing Long Island Sound, Blair and his crew took the new flying boat to the warmer waters of the St. Johns River at Jacksonville Naval Air Station in Florida. For two months Excalibur underwent her shakedown.

  In the meantime, the world was changing. The new Sikorsky flying boats had to comply not only with performance specifications for AEA, but also for the U.S. Navy. With the United States officially at war, all three VS-44As had been requisitioned by the navy.

  Thus was solved AEA’s problem of subsidy, which, because of peacetime politics, had been denied them. On 12 January 1942 AEA signed a contract with the Naval Air Transport Service (NATS) to operate a wartime transatlantic route and on 12 February received its temporary certificate to fly between New York and Foynes, Ireland.

  The first nonstop proving flight from New York to Foynes was made by Excalibur on 26 May 1942. Regular service began on 20 June with weekly round trips until the other two VS-44As arrived, and then three weekly trips began. Excambian was delivered to AEA in May 1942, and her sister ship, Exeter, arrived the next month. All the Flying Aces wore the subdued navy camouflage of sky blue on top and light gray underneath. Large American flags were painted on their bows.

  The first westbound trip, flown on 22 June 1942, encountered powerful headwinds. Charles Blair, commanding Excalibur, descended to minimum altitude over the water, taking advantage of “ground effect” and a resultant lessened fuel burn, and continued nonstop to New York. Excalibur’s flight time from Foynes to New York totaled twenty-five hours forty minutes. “Remarkable voyage,” reported an astonished passenger, Admiral Cunningham, Royal Navy.4

  AEA’s Flying Aces proved to be the longest-legged airliners of the era. In their time they alone possessed the capability of flying nonstop commercial flights with a capacity payload in both directions over the Atlantic. Early Atlantic operations in winter favored a more southerly route, but as wartime weather forecasting became more accurate, nonstop eastbound flights of 3,100 miles were regularly flown in twenty hours or less. Wintertime westbound flights were often routed as far south as the west coast of Africa and then west to Trinidad.

  Records fell regularly. The Flying Aces established new times for the fastest flight from the United States to Europe (New York to Foynes, 3,329 miles) in fourteen hours, seventeen minutes, and the fastest westbound flight, over the same route, in sixteen hours, fifty-seven minutes. The VS-44As made the first nonstop flights along the wartime supply routes between Bermuda and North Africa, Africa and Trinidad, and between Africa and Puerto Rico.5

  The brilliant record of the VS-44As was marred on October 1942 by the loss of AEA’s flagship, Excalibur. During a hurried takeoff from Botwood’s Bay of Exploits on the coast of Newfoundland, the VS-44A’s flaps were inadvertently lowered to the fully extended position, normally only used for landing. As the big flying boat gathered speed, the improperly set flaps caused a nose-heavy, downward pitching moment. The aircraft porpoised across the surface of the bay, trying to bury her nose into the water. The captain, a pilot known for manhandling airplanes, hauled mightily on the yoke, yanking Excalibur into the air. She flew briefly, then plunged nose first back into the bay. In the ensuing crash, half the passengers and one crew member, Flight Engineer Mike Doyle, lost their lives.6

  The VS-44A correctly owes a part of her success to her Pratt and Whitney power plants. The R-1830 Twin Wasp engine became known as one of the most reliable reciprocating aircraft engines of all time. This power plant produced 1,200 horsepower at takeoff, driving a three-bladed Hamilton Standard hydromatic quick-feathering propeller.

  With the VS-44A, Sikorsky finally abandoned his preference for the structural economy of strut-braced wings, as with the S-42 and its predecessors. The VS-44A had sharply tapered, fully cantilevered wings, spanning 142 feet. As with the S-42, the VS-44A’s wings were loaded like a fighter’s. Their 1,670 square feet of wing area bore a highly efficient loading of 34.43 pounds per square foot. The fully cowled Pratt and Whitney engines faired smoothly into the leading edge. Sikorsky’s design retained the outrigger floats instead of adopting Boeing and Martin’s aesthetically pleasing but less stable sea-wing configuration. The trailing edge, flaps, and ailerons were covered with a fire-proofed fabric. Her 3,900 gallons of fuel were carried in the wing center section, which was compartmented into three separate tanks.7

  The VS-44A’s fuselage had an overall length of nearly eighty feet. The tail surfaces, similar in shape to the wings, were also fully cantilevered. The fin and horizontal stabilizer had duralumin covering, while the rudder and elevators were fabric covered. The hull was of aluminum alloy, semi-monocoque construction with six watertight bulkheads.8

  The VS-44A’s original maximum takeoff weight was 57,500 pounds (later raised to 59,534). With an empty weight of 30,200 pounds, this afforded a useful load of some 27,300 pounds, impressive numbers for any airliner of the 1940s. Her transatlantic performance was evidenced by her load-to-tare ratio of 47:53.

  Was the VS-44A a successful flying boat? To the airmen wh
o flew her—and compared her to other seagoing aircraft—she was the ultimate flying boat, the best and the last.

  But her timing was bad. In the form of the XPBS-1, she first appeared on Sikorsky’s drawing board in 1936. Six years amounted to a lifetime in the evolution of the flying boat. By the time of her launching as a commercial airliner in 1942, she was already obsolete because of her size. The VS-44A, fueled for an Atlantic crossing, could carry only sixteen passengers. With a filled cabin on a short haul, she had a maximum load of forty-seven. The Boeing 314, even with its limitations of load versus range, could carry twenty-four paying passengers across the Atlantic and, on shorter legs requiring less fuel, could transport seventy-four.

  In 1945 the Civil Aeronautics Board approved the purchase of AEA by American Airlines, renaming the overseas carrier American Overseas Airlines. In September the airline acquired six Douglas C-54s, and on 23–24 October flew the first commercial scheduled transatlantic flight by land plane, from New York to Bournemouth, England. On the previous day, flying from the opposite direction, Excambian had journeyed westbound from Foynes to New York. It was the last transatlantic flight of a VS-44A.9

  The VS-44A came too late, and when she arrived she lived her life in the shadow of the larger, more glamorous Boeing 314.

  22

  Boeing

  With the Sikorsky S-42 and the new Martin M-130, Pan American had intercontinental flying boats that its competitors could only dream about. But carrying sacks of mail long distances between land masses had never been Juan Trippe’s ultimate goal. Neither the Sikorsky nor Martin flying boats possessed the capacity to carry a profitable passenger load across an ocean. Profit, if any, came only from the artifice of mail subsidies. On its longest segment, California-to-Hawaii, the M-130 could transport a maximum of fifteen paying passengers. Such loads, without the cushion of taxpayers’ dollars, did not translate to black ink in airline ledgers.