RECALLING A GLAMOROUS ERA IN AMERICAN COMMERCIAL AVIATION They were big.

RECALLING A GLAMOROUS ERA IN AMERICAN COMMERCIAL AVIATION

They were big, luxurious and extremely unique for their time - vast double-decked Boeing B-314 flying boats that spanned the couple 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-314 had become, in their short reign of fame, the greatest in quantity romantic and adventurous aircraft in which to travel abroad during the of a gold color age of commercial flight. organizeed by the Boeing Aircraft Co in Seattle, Washington, the type B-314, last of Pan Am's seaplanes, had wealthy interiors. The upper deck housed band mail, cargo and baggage. Lower stations were reserv 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 appoint for elegantly served luncheons and dinners.

In order to recapture that formerly superb form of international air travel single 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, and nothing else the well-heeled could have afforded similar a flight. A one-way ticket to Hawaii, first port-of-call across the Pacific, was listed at $278 nearly $4000 through today's US currency rate, and up to $564 to Hong Kong the last of Pan Am's "blue ribbon" way line. A round-trip flight to and from Hawaii was placeed at $500.40 with a $101520 fare to Hong Kong and get back Occupancy of a Clipper's tail suite was a half fare more depending forward 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 terminate 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 by 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 strip the hull from for correct center of gravity. It was then opposite to an all-first-class waiting scope where refreshments were served and where the pres 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 screened by bowlers, wide-brimmed felts or woven Panamas. Women were usually wearing tailored suits, print dresse or fine-material skirts and blouses. an went so far as to swath themselves in mink coats or fur stoles, their heads adorned with high-fashioned hats having nett veils. Passengers were far more conscientious about their traveling attire than they are now. Back in the "old days" of flight, no united wore jeans or other as it is casual clothing worn by the majority of today's air-traveling public.

At the vigorous of two bells, passengers exited the Art Decostyle Administration Clipper Terminal and act by methoded 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 protracted esplanade stood a pier that angled downward towards a be joineded 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 screws spinning.

Crossing a gangplank not unlike the shadow used for boarding or disembarking surface-going tubes passengers stepped onto the Clipper's starboard pontoon pile known as a "sea-wing" to pass by the and of the Clipper's open hatchway and down into the flying boat's salon where couple 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 dint of 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 way of B-314 - had, by 1940 become the ultra-fashionable way to traverse oceans. In the days before the horrific facts of Japan's sneak attack onward Pearl Harbor in early December 1941 that forever changed the life mode of not only Hawaii however the world at large, the Pacific's centrally located isles were still considered foreign and one of the globe's greatest in quantity hidden and unique places to either live or visit - a natural paradise of unprecedent beauty fasteninged in romance and dream-like adventure. just as the 19th centenary Wells Fargo stagecoach remains to this day synonymous with the history of America's advanced in years west, so too with Hawaii's 20th hundred heritage and the many tales of the Flying Clipper Ships remain a reminder of the days of luxurious air travel. To this day, many somewhat old Hawaiian recall when the Clipper's graceful comings and goings pierced the skies athwart Diamond Head and Waikiki Beach. The world assumeed bigger then and the ports-of-call more distant - equal plane!