On June 28, 1939, Pan American World Airways' luxurious 42-ton flying boat, the Dixie Clipper, lifted off from Long Island Sound at Port Washington, N.Y., bound for Europe with 22 paying passengers and a crew of 11.
The town's citizens, its high school's 85-piece marching band, and a police escort were on hand to cheer the first passengers on the first scheduled transatlantic airplane flight. Cruising at a speed of 184 miles an hour, the clipper made the flight to Marseille, France, in 29 hours, not including stops in the Azores and Lisbon.
Now, merely 12 years after Charles Lindbergh's solo transatlantic flight, a traveler could circle the globe on scheduled airplanes. It was this vision that had driven Juan Trippe, the founder of Pan Am, to commission the fabled flying boats that began service in the Pacific in 1931. He named them "clippers" after the fast, square-rigged sailing clippers of the 19th century.
The grandest and most powerful of the clippers—the Boeing 314—was introduced in 1939. Its 106-foot-long fuselage and 152-foot wingspan made it the largest commercial aircraft built before the 1960s. With its four 1,500 horsepower engines, it had a range of 3,500 miles, which gave it a comfortable margin on the long North Atlantic route.
The Pinnacle of Flying Luxury
Though huge, the airplane was configured for merely 74 passengers. The 74 seats could be converted into 40 bunks for overnight passengers. Other features included deluxe suites, a bar lounge, and a dining salon, where four-star hotels catered gourmet meals from its galley.
The atmosphere of the cabin was "much like a country club lounge," according to a New York Times reporter. Luxurious upholstery, thick carpeting, soothing colors, soft lighting, and heavy sound-proofing created a luxurious cocoon. Comfort came before speed.
"Luxury was the byword on the Atlantic routes, where the clippers competed with transatlantic liners that defined the elegance of that pre-war world—queens of the Atlantic that included the steamships Europa, Mauretania, Normandie, and Rex.
Sadly, the glory days of the clippers were numbered. Only two months after their introduction, passenger traffic with Europe was disrupted by the outbreak of war; it came to an end with the U.S. entry into the war, in December 1941. Three of the clippers were sold to BOAC for use as transports. The rest went to the U.S. Army Air Force and the U.S. Navy—whose Dixie Clipper would be reincarnated as the first "Air Force One."
The President Liked Drama
In January 1943, the Dixie Clipper flew President Franklin D. Roosevelt from Miami via South America to a secret meeting with Prime Minister Winston Churchill in Casablanca, Morocco. On the way home, the president celebrated his birthday in the flying boat's dining salon.
Roosevelt's adviser and confident, Harry Hopkins, noted in his diary that the president was "sick of people telling him that it was dangerous to ride in airplanes. He liked the drama of it." And he noted: "They serve cocktails on this flying boat; everyone [was] feeling pretty good so we had one before dinner last night."
Few airplanes have enjoyed as strong a hold on the popular imagination as the Dixie Clipper and her sister, including the Yankee Clipper. Their meticulously replicated passenger cabin is a major set in Alfred Hitchcock's Foreign Correspondent, while models of the plane were used for the movie's riveting climax.
By the end of the war, the clippers had become obsolete. New four-engine land planes had been developed, and airports were springing up all over the globe. By the early 1950s, all of the planes were gone. Yet, still, they epitomize the glamor of the golden age of air travel. They changed the world's concept of time and space.
Sources
- Robert E. Sherwood, Roosevelt and Hopkins: An Intimate History. New York, Harper & Brothers, 1948.
- "Clipper Off Today on Historic Flight," The New York Times, June 28, 1939.
- "History" The Boeing Company.
- "Pan American Clipper Flying Boats" Clipper Flying Boats.
Thomas Raynor - Tom Raynor has worked as a writer with a major news magazine and as an editor in the social sciences with a leading publisher.
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