![]() When the Clipper first appeared over Manila “like an enormous bird” that day in November, 1934, people ran out of their homes to watch it. (Manila time), the China Clipper came to a landing in Manila Harbor greeted by the cheering crowd of thousands-on schedule, 59 hours and 48 minutes of flying time since leaving California. They were pleased that America’s air service, American aircraft and American personnel should be the first to accomplish scheduled air transport service over the world’s greatest ocean.Īt 3:32 p.m. Somebody had completely overlooked the International Date Line ! The flight was detained in Guam to allow the arrival in time for the celebration.Īs the rugged hills of the Philippines came to view, the China Clipper’s crew, up to then, too preoccupied with the innumerable tasks of the job, began to realize the significance of this achievement in American aviation. If it continued the next day to Manila, it would arrive a day before all the festivities were planned. The inaugural flight went routinely as far as Guam, but then there was great consternation in Manila. Thus rested, the crew remained fresh as the long trip progressed.” Source: Time Magazine issue: Dec 2, 1935 Next day, the ship lost a day by crossing the International Date Line to Wake for another night’s layover before heading for Guam. Off at dawn, the Clipper, loaded almost to capacity, flew on to Midway, landed within one minute of schedule in time for fishing, baseball in the afternoon. More was added in the shape of mail, ice-cream, Thanksgiving dinners, odds & ends, and 14 Pan American employees to be carried to Midway and Wake. So full of philatelic mail was the huge plane that her fittings had to be stripped and two crew members left behind to make room for 115,000 letters.Īt Honolulu some of this cargo was distributed during the night’s halt. Biggest hop was the 2,400 miles to Honolulu, accomplished in the slow time of 21 hours because of head winds and the heavy load. ![]() “Cast Off!” Like a stone skipped by a giant hand, the China Clipper last week skittered in long hops across the Pacific. There were only water landings and take-offs. Passengers boarded from a large top hatch near the tail of the M-130. The flight engineer, who monitored the four Pratt & Whitney 14 cylinder radial engines, had a totally separate compartment back where the wings joined. Above them was a large hatch, which was open after landing.Īnother hatch was opened out on the nose where the mooring lines were tied. Behind the co-pilot is the radio operator position. Fred Noonan’s career would later end up tragically as Amelia Earhart’s navigator on their doomed world flight in June 1937.Ībove: Captain Ed Musick at the controls of the PAA M-130. Musick as Pilot and Fred Noonan as Navigator. The inauguration of ocean airmail service and commercial air flight across the Pacific was a significant event for both Manila and the world. The crew for this flight included Edwin C. Because runways were so rare and expensive in the 1930′s, many of Pan Am’s extensive routes operated from the biggest runway in the world: the ocean. Equipped with gigantic pontoons, the clippers were actually flying boats of a sort, in the loosest of terms. Martin Company in Baltimore, MD., it was delivered to Pan Am on October 9, 1935. Built at a cost of $417,000 by the Glenn L. The China Clipper (NC14716) was the first of three Martin M-130 four-engine flying boats built for Pan American Airways and was used to inaugurate the first commercial transpacific air service from San Francisco to Manila in November, 1935. These were the Clippers of lore that captured the imagination through radio shows and even movies of that era. But it was the more powerful, streamlined Martin 130’s and later, the Boeing 314’s that are most long remembered as the “Pan Am Clippers” of adventure and romance. But, another event that year would promote the Philippines onto the world platform with the inaugural transpacific flight of the Pan American Airways Clipper.ġ935 marked Pan Am’s inauguration of pan-Pacific flight operations and Sikorsky S-42b’s became their first “Clippers”, sporting spacious interiors and 4 powerful, ocean-crossing engines. The Philippines had been under Spanish rule for 400 years and then as an American colony for another 35 years and was now on the brink of getting its independence. President Manuel Quezon swearing in ceremony-1935.
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