AIRLINES

CONSTELLATION 612

I enjoyed the article "Constellation Survivors" in the April issue. In my 14 years in the USAF, flying as a radio operator, I had the good fortune to fly into Bangkok, Thailand, in February 1959. Parked on the ramp was an immaculate Constellation, USAF s/n 48-612, which was used hy the American Consulate in Bangkok. I have often wondered what happened to this classic.

Richard D. Engel

684 2nd St. South Carrington, ND 58421

EDITOR'S NOTE: Rather amazinly, this C-121A is still with us. After restoration at Avra Valley Airport in Arizona, the aircraft was flown, as N749NL, to Holland m September 2002 where it will be operated by the Aviodome Museum.

BYCLIPPERTO HAWAII

I was a Pan American Flight Engineer from 1943 until 1983. I am always pleased to see informative and factual information published about the airline and its history. I have a few comments about the article "Clipper To Hawaii" in the May issue:

Page 15. I have a mental picture of an elderly passenger struggling to board the Clipper behind the running engines. Even at idle power, those Wright Dowble Cyclone engines generated a lot of wind with those Hamilton Standard propellers with their forged aluminum blades.

Page 21. The Captain was called a Captain. The co-pilot was called a First Officer. Where they sat was the cockpit. The area behind them was the flight deck. No one called anything the bridge.

Page 59. I was stationed at Pearl City in 1943. The former Atkinson estate, which became the PAA base, had a rather large two-story "mansion" which was used as office space by the company. A few of the upstairs rooms were accommodations for employees and the downstairs rooms were maintenance, bookkeeping, and personnel offices. If there ever was a "Pan American Inn" it was well-hidden. I have checked with others who were there at the time and they never heard of it either. And I cannot imagine any transit passenger wanting to spend 24-hrs in the little village of Pearl City when they were only a half-hour ride from Waikiki. In 1940, the "old" Royal Hawaiian hotel must have been five or six years old. There was never a PAA policy to keep the passengers and crew separated.

Page 60. The Navy left Treasure Island several years ago. It is now administered by the City of San Francisco.

Thomas Kewin 69 Fairway Dr. Mill Valley, CA 94941

M.D. Klaas replies: My response to Mr. Kewin's comment concerning page 21: Yes, chief PAA pilots were called "Captains" and the co-pilots "First Officers." The forward section of the Clipper flight deck where these two men sat was most definitely called and/or referred to as being the "bridge!" Flying boats operated by Pan Am were run on a nautical style with sea-going vessel terms. The term "bridge" in place of saying, or using, "cockpit" can be found in many writings. I site two, the first in "This is the Clipper Ship that will fly Atlantic" in Life for 23 August 1937, p. 40. a The second is found in JF Charles McKew Parr's M Over And Above Our Pacific, Whole World and Co., New York City, 1942, p. 71. Based on a flight he made across the Pacific in 1940, Parr writes "This California Clipper is much larger and more luxurious than the Martin on which I flew to Honolulu... There are some ten passenger compartments, each about ten-ft wide and eight-ft long... The bridge and navigation and operating quarters are in the upper deck." Other exampks also abide.

On page 59: I acknowledge I was in error believing passengers stayed at the Pearl City base. My research led me to think the base was hoteled as the bases were at Midway and Wake Islands. I did read, however, that at one time incoming passengers, after a night's flight out of San Francisco, were served breakfast at the Pearl City base before being driven into town. This service, I assume, was eliminated after or before the bombing of Pearl Harbor and before Mr. Kewin joined Pan Am in 1943. I also never wrote that passengers spent their whole stay in Pearl City before continuing on (those that did go on) across the Pacific. Also, when writing "old Royal Hawaiian Hotel," I was using present tense. In 1940, the Royal Hawaiian was more than five or six years old as stated by Mr. Kewin. It was 13 years old in 1940, opening to the public in 1927.

Regarding PAA's policy to keep passengers and crew separated, I would like to refer to a letter written to me in July 1967 by former Pacific B-314 Clipper Capt. H. Lanier Turner. After contacting him and then writing to him for information on his Anzac Clipper flight into Honolulu the morning of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Capt. Turner not only told me about his dire plight but also included a tad of information on island base layovers. As to Honolulu, he stated "Honolulu, at that time, was very beautiful and uncrowded. Pan American put us up at the Moanna Hotel at Waikiki and did their best to house passengers elsewhere. This allowed the aew a break away from the passengers continuing on to the Far East and away from sometimes trying passengers..."