ORIGINAL: JohnnyS
Boeing 314?
Right on the money, JohnnyS; and you are now up. I figured you sharpsters wouldn't take long to figure it out, especially when the subject was such a famous aircraft; but the epic journey of Captain Robert Ford and the intrepid crew of the Pan Am Pacific Clipper deserves highlighting. 31,500 miles to get home, all of it through an unplanned route, much through seldon traveled airspace, and the wrong way around the world. The Clippers were among the largest aircraft of their day; and one flew over one million miles in its career. Quite a story. Over to you, JohnnyS; we're looking forward to your question. Thanks; Ernie P.
I have a hunch this will prove to be an easy question to answer; but I want to highlight one of the greatest military aviation feats of all time.
The question relates to a particular model of aircraft; but the model of aircraft is perhaps less well known than is a single aircraft of the type, its pilot and the epic feat they performed.
Question: What warbird do I describe?
Clues:
(1) This was originally a civilian aircraft; but it was a civilian aircraft largely based on a prototype military aircraft. And, a civilian aircraft always acknowledged as having important military value; one which was eventually pressed into military service.
(2) Low production numbers.
(3) The prototype military aircraft upon which this civilian aircraft was based never went into production; but it became the basis for yet another very well known and successful follow on military aircraft.
(4) The pilots for this aircraft were well noted as being among the most highly trained, skilled and competent of all pilots.
(5) For these aircraft, weight was almost always a very important factor; moreso than for almost any other aircraft.
(6) When war was declared, the pilot was ordered to proceed to a particular destination in secret.
(6) Monoplane.
(7) Four engine.
(8) Very long range.
ANSWER: The Boeing 314 Clipper flying boat, flown by Captain Robert Ford
The Pan Am Pacific Clipper, Captain Robert Ford
Following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on 7 December, 1941, a giant four-engined Pan American Airways Boeing flying boat, registered as NC18602, under the command of Captain Robert Ford, embarked on a remarkable journey. In one sense, it was the earthly 1940s equivalent of the first Apollo lunar missions in that it ventured into unknown territory and returned home safely in the face of overwhelming odds.
Caught en route over the South Pacific at the time of the Japanese attack, Captain Ford and his crew were forced into a flight plan that none of them had anticipated when they left San Francisco on 1st December for what was to have been a routine round trip commercial flight to Auckland, New Zealand. Faced with the threat of interception by Japanese forces, they were ordered to take their strategically valuable aircraft on a globe-girdling, 31,500 mile, six-week odyssey, heading westward mostly across territory that had never been flown over before by such a large commercial aircraft. With no suitable navigation charts, no certainty of obtaining fuel or servicing, and under a total veil of secrecy and radio blackout, they threaded their way across the war zones of the Far East, the Middle East, Africa, the South Atlantic, Brazil, and the Caribbean, to bring their aircraft home safely to New York.
The Pacific Clipper (civil registration NC18602) was a Boeing 314 Clipper flying boat famous for having completed Pan American World Airways' first around the world flight. The flight of the then-named California Clipper began December 2, 1941 at the Pan Am base on Treasure Island, California for its scheduled passenger service to Auckland, New Zealand. Renamed the Pacific Clipper, it landed at Pan American's LaGuardia Field seaplane base at 7:12 on the morning of January 6, 1942.
NC18602 made scheduled stops in San Pedro, California, Honolulu, Hawaii, Canton Island, Suva, Fiji and Nouméa, New Caledonia en route to Auckland when Pearl Harbor was attacked.
Cut off from the United States due the bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 and commanding a valuable military asset, Captain Robert Ford was directed to strip company markings, registration and insignia from the Clipper and proceed in secret to the Marine Terminal, LaGuardia Field, New York.
Ford and his crew successfully flew over 31,500 miles to home via
Gladstone, Australia
Darwin, Australia
Surabaya, Java
Trincomalee, Ceylon
Karachi, British India
Bahrain
Khartoum, Sudan
Leopoldville, Belgian Congo
Natal, Brazil
Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago
New York, arriving January 6, 1942.
The Boeing 314 Clipper was a long-range flying boat produced by the Boeing Airplane Company between 1938 and 1941. One of the largest aircraft of the time, it used the massive wing of Boeing’s earlier XB-15 bomber prototype to achieve the range necessary for flights across the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. Twelve Clippers were built for Pan Am. Three of them were sold to BOAC during the Battle of Britain (1940) and delivered in early 1941. (BOAC's 3 Short S.26 transoceanic flying-boats had been requisitioned by the RAF).
The 314 was a response to Pan American's request for a flying boat with unprecedented range capability that could augment the airline's trans-Pacific Martin M-130. Boeing's bid was successful and on July 21, 1936, Pan American signed a contract for six. Boeing engineers adapted the cancelled XB-15's 149 feet (45 m) wing, and replaced the original 850 horsepower (630 kW) Pratt & Whitney Twin Wasp radial engines with the more powerful 1,600 horsepower (1,200 kW) Wright Twin Cyclone. Pan Am ordered an additional six aircraft with increased engine power and a larger carrying capacity of 77 daytime passengers as the Boeing 314A.
The huge flying boat was assembled at Boeing's Plant 1 on the Duwamish River and then towed to Elliott Bay for taxi and flight tests. The first flight was on June 7, 1938, piloted by Edmund T. "Eddie" Allen. As originally built, the aircraft had a single vertical tail. Allen found that he was unable to keep the aircraft flying straight, due to inadequate directional control. The aircraft was returned to the factory and fitted with the endplates on the ends of the horizontal tail in place of the single vertical fin. This too was found to be lacking and finally the centerline vertical fin was restored. In this configuration, the aircraft was found to fly satisfactorily.
Internally, the 314 used a series of heavy ribs and spars to create a robust fuselage and cantilevered wing. This sturdy structure obviated the need for external drag-inducing struts to brace the wings. Boeing also incorporated Dornier-style sponsons into the hull structure. The sponsons, which were broad lateral extensions placed at the water line, on both the port and starboard sides of the hull, served several purposes: they provided a wide platform to stabilize the craft while floating on water, they acted as an entryway for passengers boarding the flying boat and they were shaped to contribute additional lift in flight. With weight an extremely sensitive concern, passengers and their baggage were weighed, with each passenger allowed up to 77 pounds (35 kg) free baggage allowance (in the later 314 series) but then charged $3.25 per lb ($7.15/kg) for exceeding the limit. To fly the long ranges needed for trans-Pacific service, the 314 carried 4,246 US gallons (16,070 l; 3,536 imp gal) of gasoline. The later 314A model carried a further 1,200 US gallons (4,500 l; 1,000 imp gal). To quench the radial engines’ thirst for oil, a capacity of 300 US gallons (1,100 l; 250 imp gal) was required.
Pan Am's "Clippers" were built for "one-class" luxury air travel, a necessity given the long duration of transoceanic flights. The seats could be converted into 36 bunks for overnight accommodation; with a cruise speed of only 188 miles per hour (303 km/h) (typically flights at maximum gross weight were carried out at 155 miles per hour (249 km/h)), many flights lasted over 12 hours. The 314s had a lounge and dining area, and the galleys were crewed by chefs from four-star hotels. Men and women were provided with separate dressing rooms, and white-coated stewards served five and six-course meals with gleaming silver service. The standard of luxury on Pan American's Boeing 314s has rarely been matched on heavier-than-air transport since then; they were a form of travel for the super-rich, at $675 return from New York to Southampton, comparable to a round trip aboard Concorde in 2006. Most of the flights were transpacific with a one-way ticket from San Francisco to Hong Kong, via the "stepping-stone" islands posted at $760 (or $1,368 round-trip). The transatlantic flights continued to neutral Lisbon and Eire after war broke out in Europe in September 1939 (and until 1945) but military passengers and cargoes necessarily got priority and the service was more spartan. Equally critical to the 314's success was the proficiency of its Pan Am flight crews, who were extremely skilled at long-distance, over-water flight operations and navigation. For training, many of the transpacific flights carried a second crew. Only the very best and most experienced flight crews were assigned Boeing 314 flying boat duty. Before coming aboard, all Pan Am captains as well as first and second officers had thousands of hours of flight time in other seaplanes and flying boats. Rigorous training in dead reckoning, timed turns, judging drift from sea current, astral navigation, and radio navigation were conducted. In conditions of poor or no visibility, pilots sometimes made successful landings at fogged-in harbors by landing out to sea, then taxiing the Clipper into port.
The first 314, Honolulu Clipper, entered regular service on the San Francisco-Hong Kong route in January 1939. A one-way trip on this route took over six days to complete. Commercial passenger service lasted less than three years, ending when the United States entered World War II in December 1941.
At the outbreak of the war in the Pacific, the Pacific Clipper was en-route to New Zealand. Rather than risk flying back to Honolulu and being shot down by Japanese fighters, it was decided to fly west to New York. Starting on December 8, 1941 at Auckland, New Zealand, the Pacific Clipper covered over 8,500 miles (13,700 km) via such exotic locales as Surabaya, Karachi, Bahrain, Khartoum and Leopoldville. The Pacific Clipper landed at Pan American's LaGuardia Field seaplane base at 7:12 on the morning of January 6, 1942.
The Yankee Clipper flew across the Atlantic on a route from Southampton to Port Washington, New York with intermediate stops at Foynes, Ireland, Botwood, Newfoundland, and Shediac, New Brunswick. The inaugural trip occurred on June 24, 1939.
The Clipper fleet was pressed into military service during World War II, and the flying boats were used for ferrying personnel and equipment to the European and Pacific fronts. Only the markings on the aircraft changed: the Clippers continued to be flown by their experienced Pan Am civilian crews. American military cargo was carried via Natal, Brazil to Liberia, to supply the British forces at Cairo and even the Russians, via Teheran. The Model 314 was then the only aircraft in the world that could make the 2,150-statute mile (3,460 km) crossing over water. and were given the military designation C-98. Since the Pan Am pilots and crews had extensive expertise in using flying boats for extreme long-distance, over-water flights, the company's pilots and navigators continued to serve as flight crew. In 1943, President Franklin D. Roosevelt traveled to the Casablanca Conference in a Pan-Am crewed Boeing 314. Winston Churchill also flew on them several times adding to the Clippers’ fame during the war.
After the war, several Clippers were returned to Pan American hands. However, even before hostilities had ended, the Clipper had become obsolete. The introduction of long-range airliners such as the Lockheed Constellation and Douglas DC-4, together with a prodigious wartime runway construction program, made the flying boat all but superfluous. The new landplanes were relatively easy to fly, and did not require the extensive pilot training programs mandated for seaplane operations. One of the 314's most experienced pilots said, "We were indeed glad to change to DC-4s, and I argued daily for eliminating all flying boats. The landplanes were much safer. No one in the operations department... had any idea of the hazards of flying boat operations. The main problem now was lack of the very high level of experience and competence required of seaplane pilots".
The last Pan Am 314 to be retired in 1946, the California Clipper NC18602, had accumulated more than a million flight miles. Of the 12 Boeing 314 Clippers built three were lost to accidents, although only one of those resulted in fatalities: 24 passengers and crew aboard the "Yankee Clipper" NC18603 lost their lives in a landing accident at Lisbon, Portugal on February 22, 1943.
Pan-Am's 314 was removed from scheduled service in 1946 and the seven serviceable B-314s were purchased by the start-up airline New World Airways. These sat at San Diego's Lindbergh Field for a long time before all were eventually sold for scrap in 1950. The last of the fleet, the Anzac Clipper NC18611(A), was resold and scrapped at Baltimore, Maryland in late 1951.
BOAC's 314As were withdrawn from the Baltimore-to-Bermuda route in January 1948, replaced by Lockheed Constellations flying from New York and Baltimore to Bermuda.