Huge Seaplanes for Central Pacific: Pan-American Airways Plan Service to Australia in 1938
p. 54 · Read in the full issue
Box 1298 J, G.P.O.
Huge Seaplanes for Central Pacific Pan-American Airways Plan Service to Australia in 1938 /piANT flying clippers are likely to be used in 1938 on a trans-Pacific air service between America and Australia.
These will be the largest and fastest flying boats in the world.
Six of the new air giants are being built simultaneously for Pan-American Airways by the Boeing Aircraft Company.
They will be twice the size of Imperial Airways’ flying boats. It is understood that two of them are earmarked for the Australian run, which Pan-American Airways intends to operate on lines similar to its service from San Francisco to Manila.
The Boeing clippers will be all-metal high-wing flying boats with stub-wing stabilisers to ride rough seas. They will be 109 feet long and 28 feet high. Speed will be in excess of 200 miles an hour.
They will accommodate 60 passengers, and gross weight will be more than 37 tons.
The craft will comprise two full decks.
The upper deck will carry the control cabin, crew’s quarters and baggage compartment. Below this will be the passengers’ accommodation with dressing rooms, kitchen and luxurious lounges.
The wings, 152 feet in span, will be so large that walkways will be provided to the engines, which can b© inspected in flight.
It is expected that the first of the clippers will be ready for maiden flights late in 1937.
The rout© to b© followed by Pan- American Airways to Australia is still a matter of negotiation, over the latter stages, with the New Zealand Government. Whether or not N.Z. agrees to allow the American line to operate through Auckland will not materially affect Pan-American plans to run to Australia. Operating between San Francisco and Sydney, the first stage will be to Honolulu, thence to Jarvis or Howland