The Flying Boats (Documentary on aviation history)

YouTube ^ | 05-19-2017 | Spark

[NRx]

A documentary on the history of the great flying boats in the early years of passenger air travel including the famed Pan Am Clippers.

[NRx]

Travel in the land of long ago.

[Fai Mao]

I’ve seen that one.
It is really good

[Southside_Chicago_Republican]

Bookmark

[DUMBGRUNT]

Now, this is a ride on Boeing Clipper, from long ago!

This Plane Accidentally Flew Around the World
After Pearl Harbor, the crew of Pan Am flight 18602 was forced to do the impossible

https://medium.com/s/story/the-long-way-round-the-plane-that-accidentally-circumnavigated-the-world-c04ca734c6bb

[Roccus]

I used to go to a restaurant in Port Washington, NY (Louie’s?) that had many B/W glossy photos in the tap room of movie stars and dignitaries arriving and/or departing on flying boats. In the NYC area, Port Washington was the main base for these craft until NY Municipal Airport, now LaGuardia, was built with its Marine Air Terminal.

[fso301]

Never fully understood what it was that gave float planes such tremendous range.

[reg45]

The range of the flying boats wasn’t that great particularly when you compare them with the modern jetliners. The thing was that they could land and takeoff from water and there was a lot of water available.

[ProtectOurFreedom]

I just watched 3/4 of it — really good! I had almost zero knowledge of the flying boat era in the 30s. Living near San Francisco for the past 45 years, I’ve often seen exhibits of the Pan Am Clipper flying boats on the SF - Honolulu run in that era, but didn’t know how the business of machines developed. Great stuff!

Thanks for posting that link.

[mabarker1]

They were as economical as could be for the times, huge fuel tanks, miserly engines, huge wings providing great amounts of Lift and could land on the water vs crashing. Had food stores, Potable Water supply. Well prepared Crews (heck the Capitan had a .38 in His Flight Bag.) IIRC the engines could burn just about any type of Fuel. Kinda like a Tank did.

[Flick Lives]

That’s a great story.

[21twelve]

My uncle was a big shot at PanAm back in the day and lived in Port Washington. He was an airforce radio guy on Iwo Jima three days after the landing.

After the war worked for NASA doing weather balloons and rockets in Canada, then down to Cape Canaveral for awhile. Then went to work for Pan Am. I’m not sure if Pan Am still had operations in Port Washington or not - although I suppose they did, and why he lived there. When he retired he was in charge of internal operations for Pan Am at JFK. So sad that they went out of business after the Lockerbie Bombing.

He just passed away last year! He had a good run at life.

[Sergio]

YouTube bookmark.

[fso301]

"The range of the flying boats wasn’t that great particularly when you compare them with the modern jetliners. The thing was that they could land and takeoff from water and there was a lot of water available."

I meant relative to other mid-20th century aircraft.

The B-29 had a range of 2,820 nmi

Compare that against some seaplanes of that era:

Consolidated PBY Catalina Range = 2,520 mi
Martin PBM-Mariner Range = 3,000 mi
Kawanishi H8K2 Range = 4,440 mi
Saunders-Roe SR-45 "Princess" Range = 4,971 mi

[urtax$@work]

They had HUUUGGE....wings with big tanks, You could walk into a wing
for inflight maintenance on the engines if needed. I think that was the Boeing clipper that was possible to do that.

[paul in cape]

I toured Ireland last year, and the guide took us to the Foynes Flying Boat Museum. Fascinating! It was sponsored by Maureen O’Hara, whose husband was a pilot. It’s in Foynes, Killarney, on the river Shannon, which was the only place the planes could land.

If you’re interested in the flying boats’ history, and going to Ireland, I’d highly recommend it.

Www.flyingboatmuseum.com

[urtax$@work]

Ive read lots about them. Juan Trippe (Pan Am founder)had great vision. These global operations required far flung outposts. An excellent book is CANTON ISLAND Crossroads of the Pacific, Carl Oates. Talks about the construction of the facilities on Canton IS. (half way twix Hawaii and NZ ).

Another book is FIX ON THE RISING SUN, written by a former Pan Am and his theory of Japan downing a clipper in 1938. Not convincing to me , but the best parts were about Pan Am in- flight operations, mapping, and some sidebar info on Amelia Earharts’ last flight i had not heard before.

[Roccus]

Sounds like he might have known my uncle at JFK. Uncle Nelson was like a liaison from Pan Am to all the stars, VIPs, etc. that came into Idelwild/JFK. He called it an “Ambassador of Good Will.” He shared this job with another fellow who just happened to be the father of a boy I was in the Scouts with. Sadly, my uncle’s been gone for about two decades now. Don’t remember what he did in the war, but he gave me some German uniform insignia that he collected.

PS...Nelson wasn’t really my uncle, he was a lifelong friend of my Dad and we just called him that.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

Trippe overlooked the obvious—how do Americans connect Pan Am to North American interior cities.

[lurk]

I read an account of Wake Island in WW2, Alamo of the Pacific. It was a triangular sand formation with a harbor in the middle, and Catalinas would fuel up there.

As the Japanese navy closed in, the flying boats fueled up and got out out of dodge.

[Sans-Culotte]

I !ove those planes.