BY CLIPPER TO HAWAII

Air Classics, May 2004 by Klaas, M D

RECALLING A GLAMOROUS ERA IN AMERICAN COMMERCIAL AVIATION

They were big, luxurious and extremely unique for their time - huge double-decked Boeing B-314 flying boats that spanned both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans from 1939-1946 for the now-defunct Pan American World Airways System.

Known to the public as "Flying Clipper Ships," the B-314s had become, in their short reign of fame, the most romantic and adventurous aircraft in which to travel abroad during the golden age of commercial flight. Constructed by the Boeing Aircraft Co. in Seattle, Washington, the Model B-314, last of Pan Am's seaplanes, had opulent interiors. The upper deck housed crew, mail, cargo and baggage. Lower stations were reserved for the passengers and divided into numerous staterooms that included a deluxe suite and a combo lounge/dining salon - the latter resembling a mini-French restaurant with tables formally set for elegantly served luncheons and dinners.

In order to recapture that once superb form of international air travel one must turn back the clock, let's say to an early spring day in 1940 for an air cruise from San Francisco to Honolulu. First, only the well-heeled could have afforded such a flight. A one-way ticket to Hawaii, first port-of-call across the Pacific, was listed at $278, nearly $4000 by today's US currency rate, and up to $564 to Hong Kong, the end of Pan Am's "blue ribbon" route line. A round-trip flight to and from Hawaii was posted at $500.40 with a $1015.20 fare to Hong Kong and return. Occupancy of a Clipper's tail suite was a half fare more depending on one's destination. Life in America in 1940 was basically low-key and easy going, a pre-war time when the US was still at peace with the world.

Transpacific passengers bound for Hawaii and beyond boarded afternoon-departing Clippers at the Port of the Trade Winds - the seaplane terminal situated at Treasure Island in the heart of San Francisco Bay. A circular, white-painted check-in facility marked the area.

Once inside, visas and passports were checked and baggage weighed, the limit being 55-lb per person. Passengers were required to hit the scales - everything that went aboard the Clipper had to be weighed, the total amount then evenly dispersed within the Clipper's hull for correct center of gravity. It was then off to an all-first-class waiting room where refreshments were served and where the press and radio services were allowed to interview the rich and famous for their media's society page stories. Male passengers were, without exception, wearing suits or sport jackets, their heads covered by bowlers, wide-brimmed felts or woven Panamas. Women were usually wearing tailored suits, print dresses or fine-material skirts and blouses. Some went so far as to swath themselves in mink coats or fur stoles, their heads adorned with high-fashioned hats having netted veils. Passengers were far more conscientious about their traveling attire than they are now. Back in the "old days" of flight, no one wore jeans or other such casual clothing worn by the majority of today's air-traveling public.

At the sound of two bells, passengers exited the Art Decostyle Administration Clipper Terminal and proceeded towards Port of the Trade Winds, a rectangular-shaped inlet separating Treasure Island from Yerba Buena Island and the Oakland Bay Bridge. To the left of the terminal's long esplanade stood a pier that angled downward towards a connected float, its port side mooring a B-314. The flying boat's four powerful Wright Cyclone air-cooled engines were already running, their allsteel, three-blade 14-ft-diameter Hamilton propellers spinning.

Crossing a gangplank not unlike the type used for boarding or disembarking surface-going vessels, passengers stepped onto the Clipper's starboard pontoon structure known as a "sea-wing" to pass through the Clipper's open hatchway and down into the flying boat's salon where two stewards wearing black slacks, white waist coats and ties directed them : to their assigned staterooms. ;

Departure time for the Pacific-based Clippers was usually scheduled between 3:00 and 5:00 pm. What followed after boarding and settling into divan seats was a rare experience for the fortunate who were able to travel by B-314 - a flight encompassing sheer adventure unequaled in the history of commercial aviation.

Flying to or from Hawaii - or for that matter anywhere by B-314 - had, by 1940, become the ultra-fashionable way to traverse oceans. In the days before the horrific events of Japan's sneak attack on Pearl Harbor in early December 1941, that forever changed the life style of not only Hawaii but the world at large, the Pacific's centrally located isles were still considered remote and one of the globe's most hidden and unique places to either live or visit - a natural paradise of unprecedented beauty locked in romance and dream-like adventure. just as the 19th century Wells Fargo stagecoach remains to this day synonymous with the history of America's old west, so too with Hawaii's 20th century heritage and the many tales of the Flying Clipper Ships remain a reminder of the days of luxurious air travel. To this day, many elderly Hawaiian recall when the Clipper's graceful comings and goings pierced the skies over Diamond Head and Waikiki Beach. The world seemed bigger then and the ports-of-call more distant - even plane!