The Flying Boat Airliner
The flying boat airliner dominated international airline service in the 1920s and 1930s.
Although aerodynamically less efficient than streamlined landplanes, flying boats could provide scheduled passenger service to any city with a sheltered harbor, which made them the ideal international airliner at a time when runways capable of handling large aircraft were scarce.
The Pan Am Clippers
The most famous flying boat airliners were the Pan Am Clippers, and the era of the flying boat reached its height with the luxurious Boeing B-314 Clipper, with which Pan American Airways inaugurated the first scheduled transatlantic airline service between Europe and America in 1939.
Pan Am’s leader, Juan Trippe, decided to call his flying boats “clippers” as part of his effort to link his airliner with the maritime heritage of the ocean liners with which Pan Am was in competition, and with which the public were so comfortable.
Sikorsky S-40
Sikorsky S-40
The first Pan American plane to be called a “Clipper” was the Sikorsky S-40 flying boat, introduced in 1931. The S-40 helped Pan Am spread its wings in Latin American, but it was a relatively primitive machine which never fully satisfied the needs of the airline.
Sikorsky S-42
Sikorsky S-42
The streamlined Sikorsky S-42 was a giant leap forward in flying boat technology. The S-42 was used extensively on Pan Am’s Latin American network and made pioneering survey flights to develop Pan Am’s routes across the Pacific.
Martin M-130
Martin M-130
Pan American’s famous China Clipper, a Martin M-130 flying boat, inaugurated the first regularly scheduled passenger and mail across the Pacific in November, 1935.
Boeing B-314
Boeing B-314
The apex of flying boat design was the Boeing B-314, introduced in 1939. Sometimes known as the Yankee Clipper or Dixie Clipper type, the luxurious B-314 provided the first scheduled heavier-than-air passenger service across the Atlantic ocean.
{ 10 comments… read them below or add one }
Hey:
I really enjoyed this site. Sure would like to see more. Thse were flying just prior to when I started flying. I remember a Sikorsky S-44 in the Virgin Islands back in 1969.
Thanks,
Brad
[Reply]
My father-in-law flew as one of the aircrew for Pan Am, retiring after more than 40 years at age 61, in early 1981. He began his flying career on these flying boats, and finished flying the 707’s and 747’s for many years. He is 89 years old and his stories have kept his family in awe for most of their lives. He is very sharp and still very exacting in his conversations about airplanes. I took him for a visit to see the ‘Spruce Goose’ up close. He was only interested if he could sit in the pilot’s seat and we very fortunately got pictures of him getting a tour and putting his hands on the controls.
[Reply]
Pete Doherty Reply:
February 4th, 2010 at 5:11 pm
Please see my message of 2/4/10. Maybe your father-in-law could answer some of my questions.
thanks,
[Reply]
could the yankee clippers land on runways or were they only waterbound flying boats?
[Reply]
admin Reply:
October 4th, 2009 at 8:48 am
The Boeing 314 had no undercarriage for land operations; it could only takeoff or land on the water.
[Reply]
The Pan Am Flying Boats were marvelous. I have four 16mm films that were produced by Pan Am as promotional travelogues. Places visited: Mexico, Alaska, Bahamas, Hawaii. I would like to sell these films to someone who would appreciate – they are narrated films on 14″ reels. I’m not sure when they were made, but I am guessing late 40s or early 50s.
[Reply]
My only experience was in the 1960s flying from Los Angeles to Catalina and landing in the harbor. It was a small enough plane that I remember leaning forward and “urging” it to lift off the water as we surged and had a bow wave on takeoff.
[Reply]
Somebody, please bring those luxury one’s back.
[Reply]
I have the print of NC 18601 and a clipper ship that is shown in the upper left corner of these web pages. Can anybody tell me about its origin and title?
[Reply]
There is a flyable S-34 at the Air museum in Hartford, CT. one of the old Catalina boats that went to St. Croix with Maurine Ohara and her husband, was rescued before the huricane in Sr. Croix (Andrew?)…actually flown to Florida…dissassembled and barged to Sikorsky on the Housatonic River in CT and lovingly restored by retired Sikorsky Staff…it even has the original wicker bathroom fixtures!
It was to go to Hartford several years ago…bridge clearance on I-84 was a problem…
[Reply]
Ron Barrett, USAF Ret. Navigator January 24, 2010 at 10:42 am
The China Clipper was a great step into the future for international travel in 1935. To do this, it required a flight navigator.
Frederick Noonan was the lead for Pan AM. We are researching his work. Help is needed here: do you or any one you know have any pictures, letters, or articles on Navigator Fred Noonan that you can share with us all?
Fred Noonan had to be one of the best and brightest navs to have ever flown and we wish to establish this factually. He used the “Agiton” celestial computations for celestial (which required an exceptional understanding of spherical trigonometry) and established the R&D methods used by Pan Am on the then brand new, radio direction finder net work used on their routes. He had to have also been very good at Morse Code as he was prior to flying (20 years) a maritime sailor and rated Sea Captain which all extensively utilized CW Morse Code.
Side Note: Sorry to say much of which has been written about Noonan by non-aviation, non-navigator folks, who had never been, there or ever-done-that-authors is pure BS.
Ronald P Barrett, President Air Force Navigators Observers Association ( http://www.afnoa.org )
[Reply]
When I was a kid living in Miami my uncle would fly from NYC to MIA and then take a PanAm Clipper to Panama. I don’t remember that he came down on a Clipper.(?) I believe they flew over the Isthmus of Panama and landed at Balboa, but I’m not sure of this either. (?) Maybe someone knows about that route. He must have continued on to Lima, Peru in a different aircraft because I remember him telling a story about one particularly turbulant flight over the mountains in a thunder storm. He was with the FBI and was assigned to their office in Lima. He would never divulge what he did during those years, but he made several round trips and we would go down to meet him or see him off. Years later I flew PanAm 707’s and 747’s to many different cities in South America, and lived in Venezuela for several years. One other question. In the photographs of the interior of the Clipper it doesn’t appear that the crew or the passengers wore seat belts.(?)
[Reply]