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China Clipper's flight made history 75 years ago
Carl Nolte, Chronicle Staff Writer
Monday, November 22, 2010
Seventy-five years ago today, a silvery four-engined seaplane took off from Alameda and headed west across San Francisco Bay and out to sea for a flight into history.
It was the famous China Clipper, bound for a 59-hour flight to Manila.
The Pan American Airways flight that took off on Nov. 22, 1935, was the first regularly scheduled flight across the oceans of the world. It was hailed in The Chronicle as the beginning of "a giant new age," and the Martin 130 seaplane named China Clipper was called "the greatest airplane ever built in America."
It is hard now to imagine the excitement that accompanied the first commercial air service across the Pacific.
Twenty-five thousand people saw the Clipper take off, "spreading proudly her silver wings against the setting sun, flashing proudly 150 years of Yankee tradition," as the paper called it.
The first flight was rich in symbolism: The plane was so heavily loaded that the pilot, Capt. Edwin Musick, was forced to fly under the cables of the unfinished Bay Bridge, then gained altitude along the San Francisco waterfront and over the Golden Gate.
One week and four stops later, the China Clipper was in Manila. It was the beginning of a new era: The voyage would have taken 15 to 16 days by fast steamship. It was a pioneering flight - for various reasons, mostly political, it was four years before a commercial flight crossed the Atlantic.
"It was an audacious gamble and a great leap forward," said John Hill, an assistant director at San Francisco International Airport and curator of a new China Clipper exhibit at SFO. "Every airplane that crosses the ocean even now is flying in the wake of the China Clipper."
The China Clipper and its intrepid crew became instant heroes after the first flight, in the Depression year of 1935. "Clippermania" swept the land - there were China Clipper postage stamps, toys, gifts and souvenirs, Clipper labels on farm produce, a brew called Clipper beer. Not long after the first flight, Musick, the skipper of the China Clipper, made the cover of Time magazine.
The next year, the movie "China Clipper" came out, starring Pat O'Brien as an airline executive and Humphrey Bogart as a steely-eyed pilot. Although there were two other identical Martin flying boats, the China Clipper was first and the one to remember
Pan American had started flying big seaplanes in the Caribbean between Key West and Havana and then to South America. This was in the 1920s, before good runways were commonplace around the world. "What the flying boats did was to bring the runways with them," Hill said.
When transatlantic flights were mired in disputes over landing rights, the Pacific became the target. Pan Am had experience with seaplanes, had rigorous training standards for crews and got an air mail contract. It ran survey flights, ordered three identical Martin M-130 four-engined flying boats and began preparations.
The main problem was the first leg: 2,400 miles from San Francisco Bay to Honolulu. The planes had to have sufficient range to make Hawaii, and the crews had to have the navigation skills to make the trip and find the islands. Pan Am crews were trained in celestial navigation, dead reckoning and in radio direction finding systems.
The first flight carried no passengers-only the mail, more than 110,000 letters. There was a radio broadcast message from President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who proclaimed himself "an air-minded sailor" and wished the flight good luck.
At 3:20 p.m., Postmaster General James Farley told the pilot: "Captain Musick, you have your sailing orders. Cast off and depart for Manila forthwith."
The plane taxied down the bay, turned into the wind and took off. It was 3:47 p.m.
The first stop was Honolulu, 21 hours later. The plane stayed overnight in Honolulu, then made other overnight stops at Midway, then Wake Island, then Guam. The China Clipper finally landed in Manila on Nov. 29 as thousands cheered.
After picking up the U.S.-bound mail, the China Clipper returned to Alameda on Dec. 6.
In 1936, the Clipper began carrying passengers. The service was first class and legendary, with fine food served on fine china. A one-way ticket to Manila, including overnight stays at Pan Am hotels in Honolulu, Midway, Wake and Guam, cost $950 -the equivalent of $14,650 in current dollars.
In 1939, the planes began flying out of Clipper Lagoon between Treasure Island and Yerba Buena Island on San Francisco Bay.
The original Martin seaplanes ultimately were replaced with much larger and luxurious Boeing B319 flying boats, which could carry 74 passengers, compared with only 18 for the Martins.
The seaplanes flew until World War II, logged 2.4 million miles, and carried 3,500 passengers and 750,000 pounds of mail and air freight. When postwar service resumed, aviation advances had ended the era of flying boats.
China Clipper memories
The San Francisco International Airport Aviation Museum is holding an exhibition of artifacts from the China Clipper era, including menus, uniforms worn by the flight crews and historic airmail envelopes.
The museum is in the departure hall of the International Terminal and is open from 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. every day but Saturday. Admission is free.
The Alameda post office will provide a special cancellation to commemorate the first flight of the China Clipper today at the post office, 2201 Shoreline Drive, Alameda.
E-mail Carl Nolte at cnolte@sfchronicle.com
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cg...BATS1GDJ3I.DTL
China Clipper's flight made history 75 years ago
Carl Nolte, Chronicle Staff Writer
Monday, November 22, 2010
 |  |
Seventy-five years ago today, a silvery four-engined seaplane took off from Alameda and headed west across San Francisco Bay and out to sea for a flight into history.
It was the famous China Clipper, bound for a 59-hour flight to Manila.
The Pan American Airways flight that took off on Nov. 22, 1935, was the first regularly scheduled flight across the oceans of the world. It was hailed in The Chronicle as the beginning of "a giant new age," and the Martin 130 seaplane named China Clipper was called "the greatest airplane ever built in America."
It is hard now to imagine the excitement that accompanied the first commercial air service across the Pacific.
Twenty-five thousand people saw the Clipper take off, "spreading proudly her silver wings against the setting sun, flashing proudly 150 years of Yankee tradition," as the paper called it.
The first flight was rich in symbolism: The plane was so heavily loaded that the pilot, Capt. Edwin Musick, was forced to fly under the cables of the unfinished Bay Bridge, then gained altitude along the San Francisco waterfront and over the Golden Gate.
One week and four stops later, the China Clipper was in Manila. It was the beginning of a new era: The voyage would have taken 15 to 16 days by fast steamship. It was a pioneering flight - for various reasons, mostly political, it was four years before a commercial flight crossed the Atlantic.
"It was an audacious gamble and a great leap forward," said John Hill, an assistant director at San Francisco International Airport and curator of a new China Clipper exhibit at SFO. "Every airplane that crosses the ocean even now is flying in the wake of the China Clipper."
The China Clipper and its intrepid crew became instant heroes after the first flight, in the Depression year of 1935. "Clippermania" swept the land - there were China Clipper postage stamps, toys, gifts and souvenirs, Clipper labels on farm produce, a brew called Clipper beer. Not long after the first flight, Musick, the skipper of the China Clipper, made the cover of Time magazine.
The next year, the movie "China Clipper" came out, starring Pat O'Brien as an airline executive and Humphrey Bogart as a steely-eyed pilot. Although there were two other identical Martin flying boats, the China Clipper was first and the one to remember
Pan American had started flying big seaplanes in the Caribbean between Key West and Havana and then to South America. This was in the 1920s, before good runways were commonplace around the world. "What the flying boats did was to bring the runways with them," Hill said.
When transatlantic flights were mired in disputes over landing rights, the Pacific became the target. Pan Am had experience with seaplanes, had rigorous training standards for crews and got an air mail contract. It ran survey flights, ordered three identical Martin M-130 four-engined flying boats and began preparations.
The main problem was the first leg: 2,400 miles from San Francisco Bay to Honolulu. The planes had to have sufficient range to make Hawaii, and the crews had to have the navigation skills to make the trip and find the islands. Pan Am crews were trained in celestial navigation, dead reckoning and in radio direction finding systems.
The first flight carried no passengers-only the mail, more than 110,000 letters. There was a radio broadcast message from President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who proclaimed himself "an air-minded sailor" and wished the flight good luck.
At 3:20 p.m., Postmaster General James Farley told the pilot: "Captain Musick, you have your sailing orders. Cast off and depart for Manila forthwith."
The plane taxied down the bay, turned into the wind and took off. It was 3:47 p.m.
The first stop was Honolulu, 21 hours later. The plane stayed overnight in Honolulu, then made other overnight stops at Midway, then Wake Island, then Guam. The China Clipper finally landed in Manila on Nov. 29 as thousands cheered.
After picking up the U.S.-bound mail, the China Clipper returned to Alameda on Dec. 6.
In 1936, the Clipper began carrying passengers. The service was first class and legendary, with fine food served on fine china. A one-way ticket to Manila, including overnight stays at Pan Am hotels in Honolulu, Midway, Wake and Guam, cost $950 -the equivalent of $14,650 in current dollars.
|  |
The original Martin seaplanes ultimately were replaced with much larger and luxurious Boeing B319 flying boats, which could carry 74 passengers, compared with only 18 for the Martins.
The seaplanes flew until World War II, logged 2.4 million miles, and carried 3,500 passengers and 750,000 pounds of mail and air freight. When postwar service resumed, aviation advances had ended the era of flying boats.
China Clipper memories
The San Francisco International Airport Aviation Museum is holding an exhibition of artifacts from the China Clipper era, including menus, uniforms worn by the flight crews and historic airmail envelopes.
The museum is in the departure hall of the International Terminal and is open from 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. every day but Saturday. Admission is free.
The Alameda post office will provide a special cancellation to commemorate the first flight of the China Clipper today at the post office, 2201 Shoreline Drive, Alameda.
E-mail Carl Nolte at cnolte@sfchronicle.com
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cg...BATS1GDJ3I.DTL
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