"Honey, I'm going to be a little late
tonight. But hold dinner for me, please."
When John Poindexter, a PanAm employee,
said those words over the phone to his wife, he did not yet know that it would take him
a whole month to get home, and to make it, he would have to fly around the globe.
As a crewmember of the Boeing-314, he would complete the first commercial plane
flight in history to circumnavigate the world. An extraordinary achievement that neither he
nor anyone else even set out to accomplish. An accidental record, that was forced
by the outbreak of the big war.
LaGuardia Marine Terminal, New York.
Radio talks.
Pilot: LAGUARDIA TOWER LAGUARDIA TOWER. THIS IS
PAN AMERICAN CLIPPER NC18602 INBOUND FROM AUCKLAND NEW ZEALAND. DUE TO ARRIVE PAN AMERICAN MARINE
TERMINAL LAGUARDIA IN SEVEN MINUTES. OVER.
Controller: SORRY PAN AMERICAN CLIPPER 18602 BUT
SAY AGAIN, CONFIRM YOUR DEPARTURE POINT. OVER.
Pilot: I SAY AGAIN, INBOUND FROM
AUCKLAND, NEW ZEALAND. BY WAY OF THE LONG WAY ROUND. OVER.
The air controller had every reason to ask the pilot that question. The plane was requesting
to land at the airport in New York. Right here. And New Zealand is right there. Almost 15 thousand
kilometers apart. What's even more strange is that the pilot said they flew the long way round, which
means their route was even longer. No airline at the time had been flying such great distances.
But this was not an ordinary flight. The radio call at LaGuardia was the final moment of a
record flight with a total length of more than 50,000 kilometers. The details and events of this
journey are so incredible and fascinating that it may seem like the script of a Hollywood movie. But
they all truly happened. A story that would make the headlines of every newspaper and magazine all
over the world if it weren t for the terrible war, which pushed this story far
into the background.
In the early days of commercial aviation, the
sky belonged to flying boats. The concept of the flying boat appeared as a response to the state
of the air transportation industry at the time. In the 1920s, commercial aviation was still in
its infancy: first, commercial airplanes were fragile and unreliable but, more importantly, the
industry lacked the airfields that were required for landings and takeoffs. Meanwhile, there
were already numerous readymade seaports all over the world and vast areas of open water such
as lakes, rivers, and oceans. Why not develop a plane that would use water surfaces as runways?
And so, the age of flying boats had begun.
In a way, a flying boat was literally a boat
hull with attached wings and engines. With time and technology advancement, the design
of airplanes has been constantly improving, going from clumsy boats with wings
to huge cruise liners in the sky.
Not only did these planes inherit the shipshape
fuselage from the sea liners but also the decks, which featured spacious lounges, passenger
cabins, restaurants and bars. That was the time when air travel was a luxurious and unforgettable
experience. The romantic perception of air travel, although somewhat faded nowadays, owes much
of its image to that period of time.
The 1930s marked the emergence of a legendary
business empire - one of the largest and most famous airlines in history, Pan American.
The company first began to operate as an airmail carrier between the U.S. and Cuba, but then
also started to make passenger flights to the Caribbean, and later, to South America.
But the founder of the company, Juan Tripp, had way more ambitious plans - flights across
the Pacific to Hawaii, Asia, and New Zealand.
At the time, no aircraft was capable of making
nonstop flights on such great distances, so the air fleet on these
routes consisted only of flying boats. One of the first flying boats in the
Pan Am fleet became Sikorsky S-40. Juan Tripp, in homage to the elegant speed
sailing vessels from the 19th century, suggested to call all PanAm flying boats Clippers
. The first clipper was named "American" and this tradition - to give each aircraft its own name -
has since been preserved by the company and became one of the bright and distinguishing features of
Pan Am Airlines. As well as the pilots' white caps and black blazers that resembled the uniforms
of a naval officer. Juan Tripp believed that seeing a formally attired seafaring professional
in the pilot seat would allow passengers to feel safer and more confident about the trip. Pan
American was the first to introduce this type of pilot's uniform, which was later adopted by
many other airlines all around the world.
On December 1st, 1941, Captain Robert Ford
and his crew were getting ready to fly from San Francisco to Auckland, New Zealand. Robert, of
course, was aware of the war that raged in Europe, but it was somewhere far away from the
States. Also, like everyone else involved in the airline s pacific trade, Ford was aware
of the deteriorating [??????????????] relations between the United States and Japan, but in
general, for him and the rest of the crew, December the first was just a typical
workday. Except maybe for John Poindexter.
John was the Chief Flight Radio Officer for Pan Am
s Pacific division. Most of the time, he worked in the office, but Ford's airplane had new radio
equipment installed recently and John wanted to try it out himself during a flight. So, he asked
Robert Ford to take him on the plane as one of the radio operators, on the first and the shortest leg
of the trip: from San Francisco to Los Angeles.
Speaking of the plane, Robert Ford was the captain
of the California Clipper, Boeing 314, which is arguably the apex of the flying boat concept. More
than 30 meters long with a wingspan of 46 meters, it was the biggest civil airplane of its time. The
flight performance of the aircraft was tremendous: a maximum speed of 340 kilometers per hour and
an incredible range of almost 6,000 kilometers. The plane took up to 74 passengers on board
who could enjoy the air travel while relaxing in the lounge areas, having their meals in the
restaurant and sleeping in comfortable cabins. There was even a luxurious honeymoon suite
in the tail section of the aircraft.
Without having any problems, the California
Clipper had reached Los Angeles and John Poindexter had already called his wife saying
that he would soon be flying back home when, all of a sudden, he was told that the 2nd radioman
of the California Clipper had been taken to the hospital with appendicitis (????????????).
At the time, Pan Am regulations for long-haul routes strictly required two radio operators
on board the Clipper. Unable to quickly find a replacement, John was induced to remain in
the crew and stay in the radioman seat for their entire flight to New Zealand.
That same day, later in the afternoon, the Clipper took off as scheduled from Los
Angeles and set course for Pearl Harbor. Somewhere far away in the Pacific, the Japanese
battle fleet did the exact same thing.
December 7th, 1941. Three days had passed since
the clipper left Pearl Harbor and was already on its final stretch to New Zealand when the
radio operator told Captain Ford the news that he had just heard on the local radio station:
"Pearl Harbor has been attacked by Japan!"
No one wanted to believe that, but when
they switched to Pan Am radio frequency, the message dispelled all their doubts:
"Pearl Harbor attacked. Implement Plan A."
With war looming on the horizon, before
each flight, all captains of Pan Am Clippers received a sealed envelop, which they were to
open at the proper time. Inside the envelope, they found an order to proceed to the nearest
allied airbase. With Pearl Harbour being attacked, the way back for them was now cut off,
so this order meant that the California Clipper would continue the flight to Auckland.
At Auckland, the crew received a new order from Pan Am Headquarters: "Normal return route
canceled. Strip all company markings and identifiable insignia from exterior surfaces.
Proceed westbound soonest your discretion and deliver the plane to Marine Terminal
in LaGuardia New York. Good Luck!"
To say that the crew was shocked by the message is
an understatement. They were asked to do something that no commercial airplane had ever done before.
The final destination of LaGuardia meant flying back to the US westbound from New Zealand and
that they had to create a new route, which had never previously existed. They would have to fly
thousands of miles across oceans and territories none of them were familiar with, service their
aircraft somehow, get fuel and necessary supplies, and all of that amid the chaos of the
war outbreak when there was yet no clear understanding of which countries and territories
were hostile, and which were friendly.
Add to this the fact that they simply
had no money. As Ford later recalled, they were saved by an Australian banker who gave
them $500, after learning their situation.
The librarian was quite surprised when four
men in uniform entered the Auckland Public Library and asked her to bring all the maps,
navigation charts, and even geography textbooks they had available in the library. Those men
were the crew of the California Clipper.
After several hours of work with maps, the draft
route was ready. The first stage of the journey, flying to Australia, was relatively easy and safe.
But not the next stage. They decided that flying straight to Africa over the ocean on the very edge
of the plane's maximum range was too risky, so they decided to reach Africa by flying north-west
alongside the coast of Java and then India. This route would provide them with the chance of
getting fuel and necessary supplies from British and Dutch Forces that were stationed there but on
the other hand taking that route would also mean a high risk of entering into possible war zones.
Anyways, yet another couple of hours later, the plan had to be slightly changed since captain
Ford received an urgent message from Pan American asking to evacuate Pan Am employees and their
families from the station in New Caledonia and bring them to Australia. This simple order, as
it may have seemed at first, actually raised quite a difficult choice for captain Ford. They
had planned to load their plane with some spare parts and engines but now, since they would need
that space for passengers, they had to leave everything behind in New Zealand. Rescuing the
Pan Am employees at the same time meant seriously decreasing their own chances of getting home.
But Captain Ford made his decision, and the clipper, wasting no time, left Auckland and
headed to New Caledonia. There was still a part of the American flag left on the plane that
they didn't have time to finish painting over because of the rush. A small detail that, as it
turned out later, would save their lives.
The flight to Darwin in Australia went relatively
smoothly. Once they had landed, they immediately went to the seaport to find the fuel. But it
wasn t just regular fuel they were looking for. The Boeing 314 was an amazing machine, but the
airplane's high performance and long-range were provided by powerful engines that required 100
octane gas. Boeing was the first commercial airplane that was designed to use this type of
fuel to achieve a higher flight performance, something that only military aircrafts
had been using before. In peacetime, there weren't any issues with this fuel, but
now, there was no guarantee that they would be able to find it all along their route.
What they saw in Darwin was chaos caused by fear of the expected Japanese invasion. To make
matters worse, as the pilots then recalled, a freighter full of beer had just arrived in the
harbor and temporarily paralyzed the remainder of the order in the seaport. Fortunately for
them, the harbourmaster agreed to provide them with the 100-octane gas, but things were not that
easy. Since there were no fuel trucks available, the crew of the Clipper had to carry out
all the fuel in regular jerry cans.
The crew finished refueling the
plane late at night and then, early in the morning, the clipper
set the course for Indonesia.
When the chief officer of the Royal Dutch Naval
Air Station at Surabaya received a report about an unknown aircraft that was approaching the
airbase, he immediately sent his fighters to intercept it. The base had been attacked by
the Japanese bombers pretty much every day and all the Dutch pilots were on constant alert.
He was told by radio that the incoming plane doesn't have any identification marks, and
fighter pilots asked for permission to open fire. But for some reason, the commander hesitated.
The tension was growing dangerously and things could have ended tragically if not for one pilot
who, all of a sudden, reported that he saw part of an American flag on the unknown plane.
Captain Ford's rush to fly to New Caledonia to save the families of Pan Am employees,
eventually ended up saving them too.
The clipper landed safely outside the harbor, but
there was one strange thing: the patrol boat that had been sent to meet them, for some reason, did
not approach them and stayed in the inner harbor a couple of kilometers away from the Clipper.
Later, the commander of the airbase told captain Ford that it was very fortunate that their radio
communications worked today because they usually don't, otherwise the fighters would have
shot them down without even giving it a second thought. "And of course", he added,
they were very concerned watching them land outside the breakwater. Since that area is
heavily mined against enemy ships.
The Dutch welcomed the crew and provided them
with all the necessary supplies including spare parts for the plane, but there was bad news as
well, fuel. They could not give them 100 octane aviation gas, which they themselves had in limited
supplies and needed for their fighters. But they were more than willing to share regular 90 octane
automobile gas. It wasn't that the Boeing engines couldn't run on regular gas, it's just that no one
had ever tried that before and there was no clear understanding of what it could eventually cause.
The plane may fly normally, or the engines could overheat and explode right away, or the negative
effect could appear later and the engines could fail over the ocean. It wasn't even clear if the
engines on such fuel would be able to provide enough power for the plane to take off.
But there wasn't much choice left. They decided to take the risk and use their
remaining 100 octane aviation gas for takeoff and then later in the flight, switch to
fuel tanks filled with automobile gas.
The next morning, they left Surabaya. After
gaining the altitude, holding their breath and crossing their fingers, they switched the
engines to automobile fuel. As Ford then recalled, at the beginning, the backfires
and engine vibrations were so violent that it seemed the engines would simply
fall out of the nacelles. But fortunately, the flight engineer was able to adjust the
fuel mixture to the most optimal level, which decreased the severity of vibrations and
the clipper set the course for Ceylon.
When the dawn came, the clipper had been in the
air for 19 hours already. The navigator estimated that they would be approaching Ceylon soon.
The low clouds didn't help with the navigation, so they decided to go down below the edge of the
cloud cover. The plane was now flying at a mere 100 meters or so and the crew was searching
the horizon looking for the coastline.
Suddenly, the co-pilot noticed an object dead
ahead of them. At first, they thought it was a whale. But as they were coming closer and closer,
the silhouette of the whale became more and more distinct, as did the conning tower on its "back".
On which they now suddenly saw, with horror, the symbol of the rising sun and also sailors running
towards the deck gun. The Japanese submarine didn't seem to expect to encounter an airplane
either. The pilots pulled the yoke vigorously, but the heavy Boeing flying on the automobile gas was
very reluctant to gain the altitude. The seconds that ticked by while they were seeking cover
in the clouds, in those moments, probably felt like an eternity. It was right after the plane had
disappeared in the clouds when they heard several explosions in the air below and behind them.
Fortunately, no damage was done to the plane.
An hour later, the plane
safely landed in Ceylon.
In Ceylon, they had to stay a little longer than
they had planned to. In half an hour, after they took off and headed towards the next point
of their journey, one of the engines suddenly exploded. The consequence of bad fuel mixture
eventually revealed itself. Fortunately for them, it didn t happen while they were flying somewhere
far away over the ocean. Pilots were able to keep the wounded plane in the air long enough to make
it back to Ceylon, but the crew of the California Clipper had to celebrate Christmas while still
in Ceylon repairing the damaged plane.
The next landings were in Karachi,
Bahrain, Khartoum, and finally a landing in Leopoldville. The flight along this route
was relatively uneventful. Relatively, if we don`t take into account the Arabs shooting
at them as they flew over Mecca. And in general, flying in a Clipper over land always meant great
risk because any emergency landing on the ground would have meant serious damage to the plane since
the Clipper literally had no landing gear.
According to captain Ford, Leopoldville was
one of the most enjoyable parts of their trip. After landing, the staff at the local Pan Am
station treated them with a cold beer.
But the best part was that they could provide them
with enough 100-octane gas for the long flight across the Atlantic Ocean. Their next destination
was Natal, in Brazil. But since the distance to Natal was 5,600 kilometers and the maximum range
of the Clipper was 5800, that meant that even the slightest deviation in the course or just
a headwind would mean they wouldn't be able to reach the coast of Brazil. As a solution, Captain
Ford decided to load the plane with extra fuel. Sure, it would require a much longer take off run
to get the plane airborne, but more fuel would definitely help them cross the ocean safely.
But the decision that was supposed to give them more chances to survive instead
might have cost them their lives.
Knowing that the plane was overloaded but having
no other options, the crew began to prepare the Clipper for takeoff. They found a straight stretch
of the Congo River that was about 5 kilometers long. The river ended with multiple waterfalls
and rapids running through a maze of canyons but, based on their calculations, 5 kilometers should
be enough for the Clipper to get airborne.
When everyone was ready, Captain Ford put engines
on maximum power and the plane rushed down the river. But Ford quickly discovered that he couldn
t lift the overweight plane in hot and thin air. The maximum time that was allowed to keep
Clipper's engines on full power was only 90 seconds. If the time is exceeded, you face the
risk of the engines overheating and exploding. They were already running beyond that time, but
the plane simply refused to take off. But worse, they were getting closer and closer to
the waterfall. At the very last moment, somehow Ford managed to lift the heavy plane in
the air, but only a few feet above the water. Luckily for them, it was enough to fly
over the rim of the gorge. But now, the plane began to descend into the canyon and,
in just a few seconds, they were flying along narrow rock walls of the Congo valley. It may
seem that the situation couldn't get any worse but while approaching a shallow turn in the
canyon, Ford suddenly discovered that the plane wasn't responding to controls. What happened was
that the extra fuel in wing tanks bent the wings slightly but just enough so the aileron cables
got jammed. Captain Ford immediately pounded the rudder pedals and just in time to barely avoid
the crash. The Boeing's engines roared on the maximum throttle for 3 minutes already,
instead of 90 seconds that were allowed. Pilots pushed the rudder pedals vigorously,
making turns to evade the canyon rocks, and probably in that moment, it may have seemed
that the gorge would never end. Fortunately, the Boeing s engines didn't fail and finally,
they managed to break free from the canyon.
Slowly gaining altitude, the clipper
set the course for Brazil.
23 hours and 35 minutes in the air, a new record
for Boeing 314 and the long-awaited landing in the harbor of Natal. The local Brazilian authorities
asked the crew to leave the plane so they could sort out some formalities and also spray the
plane for yellow fever. Within a couple of hours, the Clipper was again in the air, heading for
Trinidad. But it was not until after takeoff that the crew discovered that the Brazilian
fumigators had sprayed for yellow fever, not just the interior of the plane, but also the
captain's safe and everything inside of it making all their documents and money disappear.
Fortunately, the next stop for the Clipper was at Pan Am station in Trinidad,
so it wasn't a big deal now.
On January 6th, 1942, at 5:54 a.m., John
Poindexter gave a signal to Capt. Ford that he got set on LaGuardia Terminal's radio channel.
"LaGuardia Tower. LaGuardia Tower. Over." ...
The funny irony was that, after making such
a long trip, they had to spend another hour circling over New York City, since the regulations
didn't allow landing at the terminal until after 7 a.m. For them, it may have been the
longest hour of their entire trip.
With landing in New York City, the California
Clipper became the first commercial airplane to circumnavigate the world. 209 hours
in the air, more than 50,000 kilometers, 18 landings in 12 countries
on five continents.
For this achievement, Clipper California was later
renamed to Pacific Clipper and, together with the other Pan Am Clippers, continued its service,
although now performing military missions.
But despite its meritorious service, the end
of the war was also the end of the age of flying boats. During the war, a large number of
military airfields were built around the world, which now began to be actively used by commercial
aviation. Complex and expensive flying boats were no longer needed. A short but incredibly
bright age of flying boats had come to an end. Now The golden age of high speeds and
sleek airliners was emerging. An age where Pan Am Airlines would long be one of the main
trendsetters in the air travel industry.
But that's another story altogether.
The journey of the California Clipper was so rich in various events that it's impossible to
cover them all in one video. If you want to know more about the adventures of captain Ford and his
crew, I highly suggest you check out the amazing article "The Plane Accidentally Flew Around the
World" by John Bull, which inspired me to create this video. Just make sure you set aside the time
for reading because you won't even notice how it flies by when you dive into the story.
But beyond that, the most definitive account of the California Clipper s journey would be the
fascinating book "The Long Way Home" by Ed Dover, a former Pan Am employee. Dover actually
spent time with captain Robert Ford himself, collecting the priceless details about
California Clipper's incredible journey, like crew conversations for instance, and he
then put them onto the pages of his book. I will leave the link below in the
description so you can check it out the perfect gift for either yourself or
a friend of yours who loves aviation.
That's all for now. Thanks for watching and
see you in the next video. Good-Bye!
Don’t you just hate it when you traverse the planet accidentally?