Pan Am clippers 12-7-41

[Terry]

This is a photocopy from the Boeing News dated Jan. 1942 stating what happened to the clippers on Dec. 7 1941. Some of the info is withheld as it was still secret.

[CWOJackson]

Good find.

There's an excellent book called "The Long Way Home" that describes more of this and was written after the classified nature was lifted.

The book also details how Pan Am evacuated all of their people and their families from areas threatened by the Japanese. In one location they mated a DC-2 wing to a DC-3 to replace a severely damaged wing; it flew without problems.

Pan Am also evacuated engines and supplies to turn over to the military; besides turning over their clippers they also "gave" their personnel to the military to help the war effort.

[Railrunner130]

That's a good read. I made the mistake of reading Escape Of The Pacific Clipper first. Unfortunately, Escape turned out to be fictional, poorly written, unproofread and more interesting than the real event.

[PRB]

Cool. I'm currently reading "Escape of the Pacific Clipper" by George Flynn. I didn't know, when I bought it, that it was a fictionalized account of the story told in The "Long Way Home". It's fun - reads a bit like a Tom Clancy novel, but I have to say the editing is astonishingly bad. I will next get "The Long Way Home"...

[CWOJackson]

"Night Over Water" by Ken Follett is a fun (pure fiction) story about a Pan Am Boeing 314 flight over the Atlantic during the early days of the war. It's a typical Follett spy/action novel, however, it does a great job at describing the Model 314 and it's operation.




In regards to the long way home, here's a short video...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DHmwfgNkQLw

[Ken Stallings]

Another point of history should also be discussed. It wasn't only the aircraft that made very valuable early contributions to the American war effort. The people who flew the aircraft made far more lasting contributions.

One example are the navigators, who were without question the world's most talented and experienced aerial navigators at the time. They formed the cadre of instructors who taught navigational techniques and procedures to the USAAF's first wartime navigators. Principally, they taught the techniques of celestial navigation that they themselves had pioneered.

In one of the more whimsical, if not inaccurate, comments there was a sign hanging overhead one of the entrances that read, "Through these doors pass the greatest lieutenants and captains in the Army Air Force!" :icon_lol:

The implication was plain. The job was vital, but don't expect to make general!

But at a time when the United States had to produce thousands of young men capable of taking a bomber or a transport and navigate it across oceans and wastelands (sometimes leading a small section of single-seat fighters flown by men filled with trepidation and outright fear if they lost the lead bomber or transport with the navigator onboard), the skills these few Pan American Clipper navigators had was vital and unique, almost arcane. They trained the fleet of men required to get these aircraft from America to the war, flying a patch of air so repeatedly crossed that it's a wonder there isn't a permanent hole carved in the sky!

Use of pressure line of position (based upon temperature changes at the time), night and day celestial fixing, drift meters readings using whitecaps on the ocean surface, and the most vital art of dead reckoning (DR) using nothing but careful analysis of compass heading over time converted into a position estimate on the chart applying known compass deviation, mid-point magnetic variation, average true airspeed derived from indicated airspeed, and raw time. Plot the airspeed based estimated position as a "plus" symbol, and then compute an average wind using whatever method you had available and then apply it to the little plus symbol to plot the DR position.

Simple in theory, but always entirely dependent upon the accuracy of many different measurements.

A science so filled with areas of imprecision that it was more accurately termed an art form.

These few men created it, and they passed it on to help win a war. Few men so small in numbers had an effect in the war so profound.

Ken

[arrowmaker]

If you ask most people what their favourite flying boat is there's a good chance many will say either the B314 or the Catalina. I'd dearly love to see a 314 in FSX. I remember a while back I posed a question to Mathijs Kok of Aerosoft as to whether Aerosoft would consider producing a B314 in the same vein as their Catalina.

His response was that although the Clipper is one of his all time favourite aircraft, he could not see not see it happening. His reasoning was purely business based. People, he said, prefer to purchase models of aircraft that exist in real life and that they can physically go and see.

[CWOJackson]

If you ask most people what their favourite flying boat is there's a good chance many will say either the B314 or the Catalina. I'd dearly love to see a 314 in FSX. I remember a while back I posed a question to Mathijs Kok of Aerosoft as to whether Aerosoft would consider producing a B314 in the same vein as their Catalina.

His response was that although the Clipper is one of his all time favourite aircraft, he could not see not see it happening. His reasoning was purely business based. People, he said, prefer to purchase models of aircraft that exist in real life and that they can physically go and see.


That's a shame since many of the packages out there are of rare aircraft that not so accessible to the public. If the 314 was simply another airliner I might agree, but it's pretty much a unique aircraft and in an undeveloped genre. While I agree the Catalina is a nice package, it's not from the dawn of transcontinental passenger flight which is largely ignored.

Imagine the challenge of a good 314 of a "Accu-Sim" quality with a few Pan Am terminal scenery's.

[Terry]

The search continues...http://www.rbogash.com/B314.html

Some other good books not mentioned above,

Pan American's Ocean Clippers Barry Taylor
The Pan Am Clipper Roy Allen
Wings to the Orient Stan Cohen
Wings Over Water David Oliver
Pan American Clippers James Trautman
Last of the Flying Clippers (The Boeing 314 Story) M. D. Klaas (I think this is the best one)

Photo of the model built at Foynes, much of the interior and cockpit are accurately represented.

[NachtPiloten]

Growing up it was great to listen to my father; who worked on Clippers as they flew through Canada early in 1940. He tells me of one story of how DeGaul (sic) sat next to my mother and she had no idea who he was. Of all the planes my father worked on for Pan Am, he was most excited about the Clipper and his time working and flying in it. Mom, does speak about her time in the planes flying from NY to Canada and how luxurious it was as well as exciting.

He would share his stories of the adventures of the flying boats in a Pacific and how they were used by the military. Wish he was around to share his thoughts.....

[Railrunner130]

To sort of piggyback on what Ken mentioned- a book that I think is out of print is Crew Dog by John Matt. It's his autobiography of a WWII-Vietnam era Navigator. He did many things in his career, including being in the Hurricane Hunters. They became so good, that they'd use wind charts and watch gull caps to find their way to the Azores, Puerto Rico and Bermuda.

I too would very much appreciate a new Boeing 314 for flightsim.

[norab]

Older but not bad and comes with bases
Pacific Sector: Auckland, Canton Island, Guam, Manila, Noumea, Oahu/Pearl Harbor, Treasure Island (San Francisco Bay) and Wake Island
Atlantic Sector: Bermuda, Botwood, Foynes, Horta (Azores), Shediac and Southampton.

http://secure.simmarket.com/pilots-boeing-b314-the-clipper-online-v2.phtml

[CWOJackson]

The search continues...http://www.rbogash.com/B314.html

Some other good books not mentioned above,

Pan American's Ocean Clippers Barry Taylor
The Pan Am Clipper Roy Allen
Wings to the Orient Stan Cohen
Wings Over Water David Oliver
Pan American Clippers James Trautman
Last of the Flying Clippers (The Boeing 314 Story) M. D. Klaas (I think this is the best one)

Photo of the model built at Foynes, much of the interior and cockpit are accurately represented.

Now that IS SWEET and a definite destination.