"The Boeing 314 was a long-range flying boat produced by the Boeing Airplane Company between 1938 and 1941. One of the largest aircraft of the time, it used the massive wing of Boeing's earlier XB-15 bomber prototype to achieve the range necessary for flights across the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. Twelve Clippers were built for Pan Am. Nine were transferred to the U.S. military. Three were sold to BOAC during the Battle of Britain (1940) and delivered in early 1941. The first flight was on June 7, 1938, piloted by Edmund T. "Eddie" Allen. Typically flights at maximum gross weight were carried out at 155 miles per hour (249 km/h). In 1940 Pan Am's schedule San Francisco to Honolulu was 19 hours. The 314s had a lounge and dining area, and the galleys were crewed by chefs from four-star hotels. Men and women were provided with separate dressing rooms, and white-coated stewards served five and six-course meals with gleaming silver service. The standard of luxury on Pan American's Boeing 314s has rarely been matched on heavier-than-air transport since then; they were a form of travel for the super-rich, at $675 return from New York to Southampton, comparable to a round trip aboard Concorde in 2006.[7] Most of the flights were transpacific with a one-way ticket from San Francisco to Hong Kong, via the "stepping-stone" islands posted at $760 (or $1,368 round-trip). The transatlantic flights continued to neutral Lisbon and Éire (Ireland) after war broke out in Europe in September 1939 (and until 1945) but military passengers and cargoes necessarily got priority and the service was more spartan." * * *

• published: 25 Jan 2014
• views: 8