American Airlines timetables from 1936 and 1937 advertised “World-Wide Air Service” from 57 cities in the United States to destinations around the world, via American Airlines to Lakehurst, Hindenburg to Frankfurt, and connections on Deutsche Lufthansa, Imperial Airways, KLM, and Air France.

For the first time in history, the entire world could be reached from the United States entirely by air.

In 1936 a passenger could board an American Airlines “Flagship Club Plane” in Chicago and reach Frankfurt in less than 65 flying hours, and then catch a fast Lufthansa connection to Berlin, Paris, London, or almost any other European destination.

Passengers on the West Coast could depart Los Angeles, San Francisco, or Seattle for an overnight flight on a Douglas Sleeper Transport “Flagship Skysleeper” and arrive in Frankfurt after little more than 85 hours in the air, a trip that took more than a week in each direction by railroad and steamship.

Timetables for 1937 advertised even faster connections: Chicago to Frankfurt in 53 hours, and San Francisco to Frankfurt in just 67 hours.

American also offered service on the short flight between Lakehurst and Newark Airport. While it was primarily intended to connect Hindenburg passengers to the American Airlines route network, many New York passengers took advantage of the $6.00 flight to avoid a lengthy rail or road trip between New York and the Pine Barrens of central New Jersey.

American Airlines and the Hindenburg Disaster 

Herbert Morrison’s famous radio broadcast of the Hindenburg disaster — Oh the Humanity! — would never have happened without American Airlines: the airline had invited Morrison to cover Hindenburg’s first American landing of 1937 to help promote their connecting service with the zeppelin.

American Airlines flew Morrison and sound engineer Charlie Nehlsen from Chicago to Lakehurst the day before the landing and Morrison actually began his famous recording with a promotional mention of the airline:

We both flew down from Chicago yesterday afternoon aboard one of the giant new 21-passenger flagships of American Airlines. It took us only 3 hours, 55 minutes to fly nonstop from Chicago to New York. When we landed at Newark we found another flagship of American Airlines waiting to take us to Lakehurst with our equipment when we were ready to go.

And incidentally, American Airlines is the only airline in the United States which makes connections with the Hindenburg.

American Airlines and its personnel also played a role in rescue efforts after the disaster. American had an aircraft at Lakehurst when Hindenburg crashed; one of their airliners had flown to Lakehurst from Newark with passengers for the airship’s return voyage to Germany, and was scheduled to fly back to Newark with arriving passengers. American Airlines stewardesses — who were all registered nurses at the time — assisted with medical care for the survivors of the disaster and the American plane was used to transport badly injured passengers to New York for hospital treatment.

The post American Airlines and the Hindenburg appeared first on Airships.net.

On the anniversary of the sinking of Titanic — April 14-15, 1912 —  a brief comparison of the two ships.

• Titanic: Sank on Maiden Voyage

• Hindenburg: 62 Successful Flights

Titanic famously sank on her maiden voyage; the ship never once saw the port she was designed to visit, New York.

There is a common misconception that Hindenburg crashed on its maiden voyage as well, but in fact the airship was lost on its 63rd flight, having made many successful voyages between Europe and North and South America.

• Titanic Death Toll: 68% Died

• Hindenburg Death Toll: 36% Died

Titanic was a tragedy both in terms of the number of people who died — 1517 men, women, and children perished in the sinking — and also the tragically low rate of survival: Only 32% of the souls on board Titanic survived, and the death toll was even higher for certain groups; only 25% of third class passengers and 24% of the crew survived the sinking.

While Hindenburg’s fiery destruction may have looked unsurvivable to those on the ground, and to people watching films of the disaster, 64% of the passengers and crew survived the accident. Of the 97 persons on board the airship when it burned, only 35 died in the disaster (along with one civilian on the ground).

• Titanic: Built for Luxury, Not Speed

• Hindenburg: Built for Speed, Not Luxury

Titanic was built for size and luxury. The White Star ship was never going to win any speed records, but provided passengers with space and luxury never before seen on any ocean liner. Passengers looking for speed in 1912 would have chosen Cunard’s Mauretania or Lusitania rather than Titanic.

Titanic Cabin | Hindenburg Cabin

Hindenburg was built for one purpose: to cross the ocean faster than any other passenger vessel in the world. The airship’s passenger accommodations were certainly comfortable, and astounding when compared to a modern jetliner, but not luxurious when compared to an ocean liner; the ship’s windowless cabins were about the size of a small railway compartment and passengers shared public bathrooms one deck below. Passengers looking for luxury would have chosen Normandie or Queen Mary, but Hindenburg was more than twice as fast: while the fastest ocean liners of the era took about five days to cross the Atlantic, Hindenburg’s fastest crossing took less than 43 hours.

• Titanic: Conservative Design

• Hindenburg: Cutting Edge Innovation

Titanic was not a technologically innovative ship; she was basically a larger version of ships that had gone before. Titanic’s main power plant was a tried-and-true triple-expansion reciprocating steam engine (although she had a small turbine powering her center propeller) and most of the ship’s notable features and systems — such as her watertight subdivisions and Marconi radio installation — had been used on previous liners.

Hindenburg, in contrast, represented the cutting edge of airship technology, and was one of the most capable aircraft of any kind in its time. Hindenburg had advanced engines, an auto-pilot, and a sonar altimeter among other innovations, and the zeppelin could carry a greater payload a farther distance than any other aircraft of its day. Though the technology of the airship itself was rapidly becoming obsolete, Hindenburg was the summit of airship development.

• Titanic: 882 feet, 2500 passengers

• Hindenburg: 808 feet, 72 passengers

Titanic was a little more than 882 feet in length, with a beam of 92.5 feet, and could carry approximately 2,500 passengers.

Hindenburg was roughly the same size — the ship was approximately 808 feet in length, with a diameter of 135 feet — but had berths for only 72 passengers.

• Titanic: The Beginning of a Golden Age

• Hindenburg: The End of an Era

Titanic was the beginning of a golden age of transatlantic ocean liners. Titanic’s sister ship Olympic had a distinguished career that lasted until 1935, and the next decades saw a succession of larger and faster ships that included Bremen and Europa, Normandie, Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth, United States, Queen Elizabeth 2, and France.

Hindenburg was the last airship ever to carry passengers across an ocean. Hindenburg’s near-identical sister ship LZ-130 Graf Zeppelin never carried a paying passenger and was dismantled in 1940.

****

Illustration of Hindenburg courtesy of artist Max Pinucci, creator of the beautiful new book AIRSHIPS: Designed for Greatness.

The post Titanic and Hindenburg appeared first on Airships.net.

I recently sat down with maritime historian Brian Hawley to compare Cunard Line’s Queen Mary and Deutsche Zeppelin-Reederei’s Hindenburg and discuss the question:

Queen Mary or Hindenburg: Which would you choose?

Speed

Queen Mary: 5 days across the Atlantic (28.5 knots | 53 km/h | 33 mph)
Hindenburg: 2 days across the Atlantic (67.5 knots | 125 km/h | 78 mph)

Queen Mary’s speed was her signature feature but Hindenburg is the clear winner; a passenger traveling round-trip between the United States and Europe on Queen Mary would spend about two weeks just crossing the ocean; a passenger traveling round-trip on Hindenburg would spent just 4-1/2 days in transit.

Log Abstracts from Queen Mary and Hindenburg

Queen Mary had a maximum speed of 32 knots and made international headlines in 1936 when she captured the Blue Riband, awarded to the fastest ocean liner on the Atlantic: When Queen Mary’s captain, Commodore Sir Edgar Britten, was asked if he would try for the speed record, he replied, “What did we build her for?” But even at a cruising speed of 28.5 knots Queen Mary took five days to carry passengers between Europe and America.

While Queen Mary’s speed was measured in days, Hindenburg’s was measured in hours. Hindenburg’s fastest eastbound crossing took just under 43 hours, and even the westbound flight — against the prevailing headwinds — averaged just 65 hours.

Schedule

Queen Mary: Weekly service (in connection with running mates)
Hindenburg: Sporadic service (10 round-trip lyages to North America in 1936)

1936 Transatlantic Schedules

This may have been the biggest competitive difference between ocean liners and Hindenburg.

Queen Mary and her running mates — Berengaria and Aquitania — offered a weekly service: One of the liners left New York and Southampton every Wednesday, twelve months a year. Passengers wanting to travel or send mail across the Atlantic could count on a Cunard ship to do the job every week like clockwork.

Hindenburg was the prototype for a new service and did not have a running mate in 1936 (although several were under construction or on the drawing board). Hindenburg therefore operated a sporadic and irregular schedule, and while it was the fastest way to travel or send mail between Europe and the Americas, it was useful only if the airship’s timetable happened to coincide with a passenger’s needs.

Price

Queen Mary: $93 – $663 (per person, one way)
Hindenburg: $400 (per person, one way)

Hindenburg’s passengers paid a premium to cross the Atlantic twice as fast; while Queen Mary was one of the world’s most expensive ships, a comfortable First Class cabin on Queen Mary could still be booked for significantly less than passage on Hindenburg.

Cabin S10 on Queen Mary’s Sun Deck — a spacious First Class outside cabin with a private bathroom — was available for $295: 25% less than the $400 fare on Hindenburg.

Queen Mary Cabin S10: $295

For the same $400 price as a tiny cabin on Hindenburg, a passenger could book a truly grand suite on Queen Mary, such as M68/70 on Main Deck, which featured a bedroom, separate living room, and private bathroom.

For the same price ($400): Queen Mary’s Suite M68/70 and Hindenburg Cabin

The difference in size between similarly-priced cabins on Queen Mary and Hindenburg was astounding.

Similarly priced cabins on Queen Mary vs Hindenburg

Hindenburg cabin superimposed on similarly-priced Queen Mary cabin

And passengers who wanted Queen Mary’s speed without her First Class luxury could travel in Third Class for just $93, less that a quarter of the fare on Hindenburg.

Cabins

Queen Mary is the clear winner for cabin comfort: Even the ship’s humblest cabins were larger and more comfortable than the railroad-like compartments on Hindenburg.

Queen Mary Cabin | Hindenburg Cabin

First Class passengers on Queen Mary could choose from a variety of cabins — all of which were decorated with rare woods and comfortable furniture — ranging from inside staterooms to some of the largest suites at sea. Queen Mary’s best suites featured multiple bedrooms, bathrooms, a sitting room, a dining room, an entry vestibule, and a baggage closet that was, by itself, larger than a cabin on Hindenburg.

Hindenburg Cabin

Hindenburg’s cabins were tiny, and similar to the overnight sleeping compartments on railway trains of the 1930s. About 36 square feet (approximately 78″³ x 66″³), they had nothing but narrow upper and lower berths with thin mattresses, a wash basin of lightweight plastic with taps for hot and cold running water, a small fold-down desk, and a tiny “closet” covered with a curtain in which a few suits or dresses could be hung. There were no drawers or shelves and most clothes had to be kept in a suitcase stowed under the lower berth. The walls and doors were made of thin lightweight foam covered by fabric that offered no soundproofing and little privacy from neighbors, and the sleeping accommodations available in 1936 were all inside cabins, with no view outside the airship.

Bathrooms

Queen Mary is the clean winner here as well. Literally.

Almost all Queen Mary’s First Class cabins had a private bathroom with a tub or shower, although passengers in a few of the less expensive cabins used a bathroom down the corridor. Queen Mary offered both salt and fresh water bathing options and there was no limit about how much water a passenger could use; passengers could bathe or shower as often as desired.

Shared public toilet on Hindenburg | Private bathroom with tub and shower on Queen Mary

None of Hindenburg’s cabins had private bathroom facilities; toilets for men and women were located one deck below the cabins. Hindenburg did offer passengers a single shower, but it was more of a novelty; because water is so heavy it was in short supply on a lighter-than-air vessel, and the shower could be used for only a few minutes, and it provided a weak stream of water that was “œmore like that from a seltzer bottle” according to one passenger.

Even worse, stewards cleaned Hindenburg’s washrooms only once a day, and even in the words of the Zeppelin airline’s North American representative, F. W. von Meister: “The washrooms do not give the impression of cleanliness, particularly when 72 passengers are being carried.”

Baggage

Queen Mary passengers could bring unlimited baggage, and many people traveled with multiple suitcases and steamer trunks; the Duke and Duchess of Windsor famously travelled with 25 pieces of luggage. Items that passengers did not need during the voyage were carried in the hold free of charge.

Hindenburg passengers were limited to 20 kg (about 40 lbs) carried free aboard the airship, but an additional 100 kg (about 200 lbs) could be shipped on a German steamship such as Bremen or Europa at no extra charge.

Queen Mary Baggage Tag| Hindenburg Baggage Tag

Dress

Queen Mary passengers often changed clothes several times a day; different clothes were appropriate for morning strolls on the deck and afternoon tea in the lounge, and passengers were expected to dress for dinner in the evening; First Class passengers wore black tie every night of a crossing except the first and the last.

Travel on Hindenburg was much less formal, largely because of the very limited space for luggage. Hindenburg passengers rarely changed clothes during the day and did not dress for dinner.

Public Rooms

Queen Mary’s First Class passengers enjoyed thousands of feet of public space spread over eight decks. The luxurious accommodations included a dining room, lounge, library, smoking room, lecture room, music room, children’s playroom, drawing room, two writing rooms, bars, a barber shop, gymnasium, squash court, sauna, and something the lighter-than-air Hindenburg could never have provided: a swimming pool.

Queen Mary’s First Class Swimming Pool
(Colorized & courtesy Michael Davisson, facebook.com/rmsqueenmary)

Hindenburg was itself remarkably spacious for an aircraft, and featured impressive public rooms for passengers to enjoy during their two-day journey across the Atlantic. The airship’s passenger decks included a dining room, a lounge with a specially-built aluminum piano, a writing room, a bar, a smoking room, and two promenades with large windows that opened to the scenery passing below.

Queen Mary Dining Room | Hindenburg Dining Room

Queen Mary Main Lounge | Hindenburg Lounge

Queen Mary Writing Room | Hindenburg Writing Room

Queen Mary Observation Bar | Hindenburg Bar

Queen Mary Corridor | Hindenburg Corridor

Food

Cunard was famous for “Savoir Faire, Service, and Food,” according to travel writer Temple Fielding. A dizzying array of choices was available, from an hors d’oeuvre trolley with a rotating selection to the best quality meats and seafoods. Menus changed daily and featured dozens of choices. Favorites included crown rack of lamb, pressed duck, various preparations of lobster, and tableside service including cherries jubilees, crepes suzette, and other flambé specialities. Queen Mary’s chefs were also famous for trying to accommodate requests for items that were not on the menu. Rattlesnake, anyone?

R.M.S. Queen Mary Menu

Hindenburg’s fare was less elaborate, given the ship’s small galley and severe weight restrictions; menus offered one main course which was usually a traditional German dish.

L.S. Hindenburg Menu

Fellow Passengers

Queen Mary carried about 800 passengers in First Class, 600 in Second Class, and 550 in Third Class.

Hindenburg carried berths for 50 passengers in 1936, increased to 72 in 1937.

For those wanting to get lost in a crowd, Queen Mary was the best way to cross; for those who were willing to mix and mingle with a small group of people in relatively tight quarters, Hindenburg was ideal.

Queen Mary passengers Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. and Max Schmeling

Queen Mary’s First Class passengers also had the chance to mingle with some of the world’s most celebrated, powerful, and wealthy people. Regular passengers included movie stars like Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., Clark Gable, Fred Astaire, Marlene Dietrich, and Noel Coward, along with industrialists, politicians, diplomats, aristocrats, and wealthy socialites.

Hindenburg passengers Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. and Max Schmeling

Hindenburg passenger lists were more modest; the airship usually carried a mix of businessmen, a few socially prominent individuals, and ocassional members of the Nazi elite. Movie stars and real celebrities were rare, although actor Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. and boxer Max Schmeling were on the ship’s August 5, 1936 flight to North America. For the most part there was truth to the comment of fictional Hindenburg passenger Mildred Breslau who thought that ocean liners had “the best society.”

Hindenburg menu and fellow passengers

Politics

It would have been impossible for Hindenburg passengers to forget they were on a German ship during the time of National Socialism; from the giant swastikas on the tail to the portrait of Adolf Hitler in the lounge, passengers had constant reminders of the New Germany. Queen Mary was a much less political experience.

Queen Mary’s Jewish synagogue | Hindenburg’s Lounge with portrait of Adolf Hitler

Views

Crossing the Atlantic by Queen Mary was an indoor activity most of the year. The Atlantic was often grey, stormy, cold, and foggy, and there wasn’t much to see.

Hindenburg’s Promenade Windows

Hindenburg, in contrast, offered spectacular views from the large windows on the airship’s two promenades.

Hindenburg generally cruised just a few hundred feet above the ground and offered breathtaking sights over both land and water. Passengers commented on the cathedrals and castles on land and icebergs and ships on the ocean, and a highlight of North American crossings was the airship’s flight over the skyline of New York City at just a few hundred feet in the air.

Even at night the views were amazing; passenger Louis Lochner described Stuttgart in the dark: “We were simply overwhelmed by the beauty of the picture unfolded beneath us. Myriads of electric lights burning in this busy Württemberg capital gave an almost unreal picture. We could discern the main streets by their greater profusion of lights, and we realized that Stuttgart has a great white way with red and blue and green and white lights. We could almost pick out for ourselves where the movie houses must be, where the former royal palace was placed, where the airdrome was located. It was one of those sights that one cannot describe in words.”

Re-creation at Zeppelin-Museum Zeppelinheim (© Zeppelin-Museum Zeppelinheim)

Even the sky itself was a new and fascinating experience for passengers: “A carpet of white, fleecy clouds was spread out beneath us, looking at times like an immense stretch of glaciers, then again like a magnified collection of fluffy woolen tufts,” as Lochner wrote.

Five days staring at the ocean from the decks of Queen Mary could hardly compare.

Smoking

Almost every adult smoked in the 1930s and passengers could smoke virtually anywhere on Queen Mary.

While the First Class smoking room was an especially elegant place for a man to enjoy a cigar, pipe, or cigarette, passengers were free to smoke in their cabins, in the dining room, and almost everywhere else. One thing we tend to forget when looking at photos of the ship’s elegantly-dressed passengers is that they all smelled very much like an ashtray, but people of the 1930s would have experienced the same thing anywhere else, from office buildings to railroad trains.

Queen Mary Smoking Room | Hindenburg Smoking Room

Because Hindenburg was inflated with highly-flammable hydrogen, smoking was strictly limited, and passengers were required to hand all matches and lighters to a steward before being allowed to board. But Hindenburg’s designers knew that a smoke-free airship was not likely to appeal to the nicotine-addicted travelers of the day and came up with an ingenious way to allow passengers to satisfy their cravings without destroying the airship; a pressurized smoking room entered through an airlock. The air pressure in the smoking room was kept higher than ambient pressure, so that no leaking hydrogen could enter the room, and a steward carefully monitored the door to make sure that no passenger left with a lighted cigarette, cigar, or pipe.

Hindenburg Smoking Room

Keeping in Touch

Queen Mary’s First Class passengers could pick up the telephone in their cabin and make a phone call to any number in the world through the ship’s advanced radio room and telephone switchboard.

Being at sea for five days did not mean being out of touch, and every cabin telephone informed passengers: “You can telephone to any part of the world whilst at sea.”

Queen Mary radio room, telephone exchange, and cabin telephone

Hindenburg’s passengers were limited to communicating by telegram, but of course they were only in the air for a little more than two days.

Hindenburg radio room and telegram

Safety

This may seem an obvious tie-breaker, but only in hindsight. By 1936 German passenger zeppelins had carried tens of thousands of passengers over millions of miles without a single passenger fatality, while the Titanic disaster, just 24 years earlier, was still fresh in people’s minds.

German airships had begun carrying passengers in 1910 and had never lost a passenger. The world’s first airline was the Zeppelin company DELAG; the world’s first flight attendant worked on a German passenger airship; and in addition to safely carrying passengers around the world in 1929, the airship Graf Zeppelin began passenger service between Germany and South America in 1932, departing Germany for Brazil almost every other Saturday. Graf Zeppelin crossed the South Atlantic 136 times and provided the first regularly-scheduled intercontinental airline service in the world, and did it without a single passenger injury.

Ocean liners could not boast a similar safety record. There were numerous passenger ship tragedies between 1910, when the first zeppelin began carrying passengers, and 1936, including: Yongala (1911; 122 deaths), Titanic (1912; 1517 deaths), Koombana (1912; 150 deaths), Volturno (1913; approx 136 deaths), Empress of Ireland (1914; 1,012 deaths), Eastland (1915; 845 deaths), Afrique (1920; 568 deaths), Principessa Mafalda (1927; 314 deaths), Vestris (1928; approx. 111 deaths), Morro Castle (1934; 137 deaths).

Even great ocean liners were not exempt from accidents; R.M.S. Olympic collided with other ships twice between 1910 and 1936, and Queen Mary herself once collided with another ship.

Hindenburg, in contrast, made 62 safe, accident-free flights before the disaster at Lakehurst in 1937. Many of the world’s most knowledgeable aviation experts had no hesitation about flying on Hindenburg, including Juan Trippe of Pan American Airways, flying ace Eddie Rickenbacker of Eastern Airlines, Jack Frye of TWA, and Eugene Vidal, Director of Aeronautics of the U.S. Department of Commerce and a close personal friend of Amelia Earhart.

While safety seems like a deciding factor in hindsight, it was not obvious at the time.

Seasickness

If anything could “break the tie” between Queen Mary and Hindenburg it was probably this.

As Mark Twain famously described seasickness, “at first you are so sick you are afraid you will die, and then you are so sick you are afraid you won’t.” Even on ships the size of Queen Mary, seasickness was a fact of life; ships of the 1930s lacked stabilizers, and despite her 80,000 tons Queen Mary was known to “roll the milk out of tea.” Seasickness was something that just had to be endured to cross the ocean: Many people dreaded crossing the Atlantic and some refused to do so for any reason.

Freedom from seasickness was Hindenburg’s secret weapon. As one passenger noted, “The real glory of Zeppelin travel”¦is its freedom from seasickness. It is the smoothest form of motion I have ever known, just a continuous floating, with no rolling, no dipping, and almost no change of levels.”

No passenger ever reported getting seasick on Hindenburg, and if airship travel had developed as planned, this might have proved an unbeatable competitive advantage.

A Choice Between Luxury and Speed. Or was it?

People often think of Queen Mary as providing her passengers with luxury. And she did. In a way.

But Queen Mary’s luxurious surroundings were only to distract passengers from an experience that was inherently time-consuming and often unpleasant; two weeks away from business and family with a dose of seasickness thrown in for good measure. Most passengers of the 1930s viewed Queen Mary simply as a way to get to their destination, and the luxurious surroundings simply made a long and uncomfortable journey a little more palatable. In fact, most first class passengers lived more luxuriously at home than on Queen Mary.

Hindenburg was not “luxurious,” either, when compared to the private homes and hotels familiar to its passengers, but the airship crossed the Atlantic in half the time of Queen Mary. If a large fleet of airships had been built as planned, offering frequent service across the Atlantic on a weekly or daily basis, the airship would have given the ocean liner a run for its money, just as the fixed-wing airliner did in the 1950s.

But still, from a modern point of view, who wouldn’t want to spend five days as a First Class passenger on Queen Mary?

So”¦  Queen Mary or Hindenburg? Which would you choose?

Please share your thoughts in the comments below.

I would like to express my sincere thanks to Brian Hawley of LuxuryLinerRow for his collaboration on this post. Brian is an ocean liner researcher, author, and collector who takes frequent crossings and cruises and often lectures about ocean liner history at sea. In addition to his deep knowledge of R.M.S. Queen Mary, Brian also has a passion for R.M.S. Olympic and published a book about that ship. Brian’s other favorite ship is Cunard’s Caronia of 1949, about which he co-authored a book with well-known maritime writer and our mutual friend Bill Miller. Working with Brian on this project was a pleasure.

The post Queen Mary and Hindenburg: A Detailed Comparison appeared first on Airships.net.

Months before Hindenburg even left its construction hangar for the first time in March 1936, the Martin M-130 China Clipper left San Francisco for the first scheduled mail flight across the Pacific Ocean. 

Able to cross the ocean twice as fast as a zeppelin, with a fraction of the crew, Pan American’s flying boat made the airship obsolete.

Martin M-130

The First Mail Flight Across the Pacific

China Clipper being loaded with mail before leaving San Francisco on November 22, 1935

The China Clipper departed San Francisco with a ceremony broadcast nationally on the radio; Pan Am founder Juan Trippe, Postmaster General Jim Farley, and the governor of California were in San Francisco, and the Governor of Hawaii and Manuel Quezon, President of the Phillipines, participated via wireless hookups.

As the highlight of the ceremony, Juan Trippe’s voice came over the radio: “Captain Musick, you have your sailing orders. Cast off and depart for Manila in accordance therewith.”

Six days later — after five legs and 59 hours 48 minutes in the air, crossing the International Date Line between Midway and Wake — the China Clipper landed in Manila.

1. San Francisco – Honolulu (Depart 3:46 PM, November 22 – Arrive 10:19 AM, November 23)
2. Honolulu – Mdway (Depart 6:35 AM, November 24 -Arrive 2:0o PM, November 24)
3. Midway – Wake (Depart 6:12 AM, November 25 – Arrive 1:38 PM, November 26)
4. Wake – Guam (Depart 6:01 AM, November 27 – Arrive 3:05 PM, November 27)
5. Guam – Manila (Depart 6:12 AM, November 29 – Arrive 3:32 PM, , November 29)

Atlantic Ambitions and Pacific Reality

Crossing the Pacific was not Pan American’s first goal; the airline originally set its sights on the Atlantic, because the passage between America and Europe was the most prestigious and profitable passenger route in the world.

The Martin M-130 flying boat was built to cross the Atlantic and could have flown the route with ease; the longest leg of the Pacific flight (between San Francisco and Honolulu) was almost 2,400 miles, but the longest leg over the Atlantic (between Newfoundland and Ireland) was less than 2,000 miles.

What stopped Pan Am from flying the Atlantic, and from competing head-to-head with the German zeppelins, was not technology but the British. Britain did not want the United States to have a monopoly, or even a head-start, on a transatlantic airline service and refused to grant landing rights in Britain itself or in the British-controlled stepping stones (Atlantic Canada and Bermuda) across the Atlantic. The British refused to allow an American airline to begin transatlantic service until they had a plane capable of the same flight, but in 1935 and 1936 they were not even close.

The Future of Air Travel

While Pan Am’s clippers flew the Pacific rather than the Atlantic — leaving the German Hindenburg and Graf Zeppelin with no competition for transatlantic air passengers in 1936 or 1937 — the airplane was a sign of the future.

Although not as comfortable as Hindenburg, the M-130 was more than twice as fast as the zeppelin and offered its passengers greater luxury than any other fixed-wing airliner of its time.

Lounge of a Martin M-130 flying boat

Seating area and sleeping berths on Martin M-130 flying boat

And just a few years later Pan Am introduced an even larger, faster, and more luxurious clipper — the Boeing 314 — and was finally obtained permission to begin passenger service across the Atlantic.

Boeing 314 cutaway and seat map

The first Boeing clipper crossed the Atlantic on May 20, 1939, just two years after the crash of the Hindenburg. The clipper flew between the United States and Europe in half the time of the airship, at far lower cost to the airline, and with more passengers than could have been accommodated in a zeppelin inflated with helium.

Dining room of Boeing 314

The age of the airship did not end at Lakehurst, New Jersey; it ended in the board room of Pan American Airways and the drawing rooms of Martin and Boeing.

The post Pan Am’s China Clipper and the End of the Airship appeared first on Airships.net.

Hindenburg and United States Capitol

Hindenburg and R.M.S. Queen Mary:

Hindenburg and Boeing 747-400:

Hindenburg and Goodyear Blimp (GZ-20A):

But then again, Hindenburg needed room for interiors like this:

Hindenburg’s Dining Room

The post Hindenburg Size Comparisons appeared first on Airships.net.

I attended a wonderful lecture at the Royal Aeronautical Society in London about “Flying Boats of the Empire” given by Richard Knott.

As some of you may know I have a great interest in flying boats and have been working on a website about Pan American’s Clipper Flying Boats.

Pan Am had an aircraft capable of flying the Atlantic in 1935 (the Martin M-130) but was not allowed to begin airline service across the Atlantic until the British could develop an aircraft with similar range.  Richard Knott is an expert on the Short Empire flying boats that met this challenge and it was a great pleasure to attend his lecture.

Royal Aeronautical Society Lecture

The post British “Flying Boats of the Empire” appeared first on Airships.net.