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00:03I
00:37In the 1930s, giant flying boats, glorious aircraft that could land on water, spanned
00:44the globe in wondrous style.
00:48Two great airlines dominated the flying boat era.
00:53Britain's Imperial Airways served the empire, while America's Pan Am spread across the
00:59Caribbean, South America and into the Pacific.
01:05Between them lay the mighty Atlantic, the greatest challenge of all.
01:12Using previously unseen archive footage, this film reveals how Imperial Airways and Pan Am
01:18struggled to launch a commercial transatlantic service, which would be the first to fly passengers
01:25between Europe and America.
01:38The vast Atlantic.
01:41The ultimate challenge for the pioneer aviator.
01:47Over 3,000 miles of open ocean.
01:53Only the reckless would even consider trying to fly over it.
01:59And yet in 1919, two foolhardy British aviators left Newfoundland, Canada in a converted bomber.
02:07Meanwhile, pilot John Alcock and navigator Arthur Wittenbrown sat in an open cockpit, battling
02:14iced wings, thick fog and a stalled engine.
02:23After 16 hours, they crash-landed into an Irish bog.
02:32They were the first to fly across the Atlantic in a single flight.
02:37Despite their inglorious arrival, Alcock and Brown were immediately knighted and presented
02:42with a £10,000 fortune in prize money.
02:51For all pioneer aviators, the Atlantic remained the next frontier.
02:57You did it because of the romance, the challenge, the glory that was going to come of it, and
03:01because you were committed to seeing something like that happen in terms of the advancement
03:05in aviation.
03:07Over 50 attempts to follow Alcock and Brown failed fatally by the mid-1930s.
03:21The most famous crossing came in 1927.
03:26Flying solo, a young American endured the hazards of sleep exhaustion and freezing weather for
03:32over 33 hours before arriving in Paris to mass public adulation.
03:41His name was Charles Lindbergh.
03:46The 20s was a time of heroes, and Lindbergh was probably the greatest of all heroes.
03:52His achievement of flying across the North Atlantic romanticized air travel, romanticized the future
03:58of aviation that brought public focus on it.
04:03One man who quickly caught Lindbergh's attention was American aviation entrepreneur Juan Tripp.
04:11In 1927, Tripp acquired Pan American Airways, and with Lindbergh's help, set about turning
04:17Pan Am into America's first international airline.
04:24The squalid competition between airlines within America was not for him.
04:29Tripp had bigger ambitions and looked to the world.
04:33He built Pan Am on a unique global vision.
04:37He was absolutely confident that he could make aviation a business, and it hadn't been
04:42a business until that point.
04:45Still only 28, Tripp quickly established the first air mail service outside the United States,
04:51flying from Florida to Cuba.
04:56Because it was post, rather than passengers, that built the world's airlines.
05:02Air mail was the basis on which all early aviation was developed.
05:07It was the subsidy in effect that made it possible to develop air routes.
05:12The air mail contracts meant that Pan Am would be paid by the pound, and for each mile it delivered
05:18the mail over, vital revenue if you're after profit as well as places.
05:24Air mail played a big part.
05:26As a matter of fact, I think we couldn't have done it without the air mail subsidy.
05:32That was a big part of our income.
05:36Up to 1939, air mail would supply three-quarters of Pan Am's revenue.
05:43Pan Am's rival in the growing international airline business would be Britain's Imperial Airwaves.
05:51The British tackled the airline building business rather differently.
05:55In 1924, the government created this state airline, run purely for the national interest and
06:00publicly funded by subsidies and air mail contracts.
06:05Imperial Airways was born out of a collection, a motley collection really, of four main carriers,
06:12all of which were receiving massive subsidies from the British government.
06:16The British government thought that this was not really a very satisfactory arrangement,
06:20and something better could be done, especially as we were trying to do a flag-waving job around
06:26the world.
06:28Imperial Airways' mission was to go global and connect the empire.
06:34To fly east and south to India, South Africa and Australia, and westwards to Canada, which
06:41would mean crossing the Atlantic.
06:48The only problem was, these pioneering international airlines lacked planes that could cross the oceans and the runways
06:56to land them on.
06:59But everywhere the airlines looked, there were oceans, rivers and lakes with ready-made ports
07:05and docks.
07:08Why not develop a long-range plane, a flying boat, that could land on the water?
07:14Wherever you had water, there was a landing spot.
07:17Even going across the country, you probably had more places where you could sit down on
07:23the water than on land.
07:26The age of the flying boat was born.
07:44The story of air transport really is the story of the flying boat.
07:48It grew to the point where there were main docks, proper airline terminals, most suitable
07:56for water-based aircraft.
07:59And designers were the busy designing flying boats.
08:04By the early 1930s, flying boats came in many shapes and sizes, but the basic idea remained
08:10the same.
08:11A ship-shaped fuselage that could land on water and carry the mail over a long distance.
08:18Some worked, others didn't, but they all came to symbolize national pride.
08:25The Germans had the biggest one, apart from the Italians, whose couldn't even take off.
08:32Then Mussolini sent 24 to the US as a symbol of his resurgent fascist power.
08:39There were both biplanes and monoplanes.
08:41But all flying boats had to have enough power to lift their huge weight off the water and
08:47enough range to fly long distances.
08:52Flying boats were, in their day, the most important element of long range international air transport.
08:59In 1929, Imperial Airways started using flying boats to cross the Mediterranean as part of
09:05their pioneering air service to India.
09:09Pan Am quickly acquired several flying boats and nearly 40 amphibians, a plane that could
09:14take off from the land or water.
09:18Armed with his new fleet, Tripp planned to launch his dream of a global airline with expansion
09:23into the Caribbean and South America.
09:28But before he could start any services, Tripp had to win permission to land and operate in
09:33the countries he wanted to serve.
09:34This would not be easy, as all governments jealously guarded these valued landing rights.
09:42In order to get them, Tripp led the way personally.
09:45And taking along the superstar of the age couldn't hurt.
09:50Mr. and Mrs. Lindbergh and Mum and Dad together flying, and obviously Lindbergh in those days
09:54was a national global hero.
09:57The two of them were 28 or 29 years old, and you think of the awfully heady experience
10:03for two young guys like that.
10:10Along the way, Mrs. Betty Tripp kept a journal.
10:159,000 miles in three short weeks.
10:18What a trip.
10:20Flying over jungles, charting new routes, meeting colonial governors and Latin American officials.
10:28Lindbergh was the hero of the world, and everyone was wildly eager to see him.
10:35On this and other visits, Tripp succeeded in opening doors closed to others.
10:41Tripp managed to get the route rights to places where others never quite made it, for some
10:46political reason or some other reason.
10:51Most important and exciting of all has been to see Pan-American set the stage for the show
10:55that is just getting underway.
11:06By the mid-1930s, Pan-Am ran over half the flights in Latin America and had delivered tons
11:12of mail.
11:15For Tripp, good business meant never limiting your ambitions.
11:20I think he always had the vision to go well beyond Latin America.
11:25The vision of Europe, the vision of the Pacific was there.
11:27I know it was there even as early as 1928.
11:32On the other side of the world, Imperial Airways had begun to serve India and South Africa.
11:38But the great oceans still lay between and ahead of the airlines.
11:44Which will be the first to carry people over the most challenging ocean of them all?
11:49The Atlantic beckoned.
12:05In the early 1930s, Juan Tripp was determined that his airline, Pan-Am, would fly across the
12:11Atlantic.
12:13But before he could start any services, he had to secure landing rights.
12:22He found that he could not make deals with the Europeans as he had with the South Americans.
12:29And so he was forced to turn his attention to flying in the other direction, across the
12:34Pacific.
12:38Starting service across the Pacific was clearly not easy.
12:42Many people, including people on Dad's board, thought he was a lunatic to undertake something
12:47of this magnitude, to try to fly from San Francisco 20-odd hours out across into the Central Pacific
12:53to try and find Honolulu.
12:55It was an extraordinary undertaking.
12:57Equipped with a new generation of long-range flying boats, in 1935, Tripp personally dispatched
13:03the first airmail flight right across the Pacific.
13:07Are you ready?
13:08Pan-American Airways, China Clipper, Captain Music.
13:10Standing by for orders, sir.
13:12Captain Music, you have your sailing orders.
13:15Passed off and depart from the north.
13:18Tripp gasped as Captain Music had to fly the overloaded China Clipper under the Oakland Bay
13:24Bridge, and then over San Francisco's unfinished Golden Gate Bridge.
13:3660 flying hours, 8,200 miles and four stops later, he landed in the Philippines.
13:46Now, US-posted mail would reach Hawaii in less than a day, and Manila in a week instead
13:52of a month, and Pan Am had the contract to deliver it.
13:59And as flying boats got bigger and more powerful, it became easier for them to carry people as
14:05well as post on long-haul trips.
14:09The flying boat in the mid-30s was one of the most romantic experiences anybody could
14:15have.
14:18They were clipper ships, but they flew.
14:21Those planes were absolutely a fantastic experience.
14:27Pan Am's flying boats would all be named clippers in homage to the great 19th century sailing ships
14:33ships that preceded them in conquering the world's oceans.
14:39And by 1937, Pan Am spanned the whole Pacific, reaching Hong Kong in Asia.
14:47Pan Am used to recite all the firsts it had, and it was certainly the first to cross the
14:52oceans, first to have heated meals.
14:56Pan Am always felt it was the leader into creating new services, new levels of luxury.
15:04And the passengers certainly would have felt they had paid for every trouble Pan Am took
15:08to amuse them.
15:09Tickets for the Pacific flights cost the equivalent of well over £10,000 in today's terms.
15:15It really was a Rolls-Royce service for society's elite.
15:21We carried a lot of Hollywood people between San Francisco and Honolulu.
15:28And I remember one flight where we had six berths in the back, and they were $2,200 for each
15:38birth.
15:39Please do it, even educated fleas, do it, let's do it, let's fall in love.
15:55The presser came running up and said, there's a lady's bare legs sticking out between the
16:02curtains in that upper bunk.
16:03Look, somebody better do something.
16:08It seemed not all of Hollywood's leading ladies vaunted to be alone.
16:12So needless to say, something was done, but we always regarded that as a kind of a wild
16:18incident in the upper bunks.
16:27Seeing the greatly increased capabilities of Pan Am's new Pacific flying boats, and facing
16:32new competition into the Far East, Imperial Airways decided in 1935 it was time to invest
16:38in some new technology of their own.
16:41It commissioned Short Brothers, Britain's leading flying boat manufacturer, to design
16:46a new class of flying boat that could carry 24 passengers in luxury, as well as a ton and
16:51a half of the profitable air mail.
16:56Imperial was so impressed with this magnificent design, and in such a hurry to compete, that
17:01they ordered 28 straight off the drawing board.
17:08The order had quite an impact on the Short's workforce.
17:13You know, it was very difficult to believe, 20-odd something flying boats, because Short's existed
17:20on orders of one and two, but to have an order of 20-odd flying boats can't be true.
17:30Hugh Gordon joined Short Brothers as an apprentice in 1929, working in their Rochester plant on
17:36the Medway River in Kent.
17:41He went on to test fly and troubleshoot for the new fleet of aircraft that would become
17:46famous around the world as the Empire flying boat.
17:50Another of Britain's giant new Empire flying boats is undergoing her final trials before
17:54being put into service.
17:56Like her previous sister ships, the Centaurus has cost over £40,000 and will carry 24 passengers,
18:01sleeping and waking, over the Empire's air routes.
18:04And as she takes off, yet another is brought out of the hangars for the first time.
18:08Winged monsters, maintaining Britain's supremacy in the air.
18:13And the crews of these great winged ships had to learn how to be sailors as well as pilots.
18:19A number of the captains, of course, were very experienced pilots, but they were not used
18:24to flying boats.
18:26And manoeuvring on the water, for instance, something quite new to them.
18:33The crews had to be taught how to cast a line and moor at the bow.
18:37To navigate with the sextant and the stars, and to master all the rules of the sea.
18:45By 1937, the Empire flying boats delivered the mail to all the British Imperial territories,
18:51except Canada and the Americas.
18:54For the tiny elite of very wealthy passengers, or high-ranking officials who were able to
18:59afford the ride, it was a journey they would never forget.
19:02The short C-class Empire flying boat.
19:06Many passengers still believe they were the most comfortable aircraft ever built.
19:10And many still look back nostalgically to that moment of anticipation before takeoff, when
19:16you looked ahead to a leisured flight.
19:18To the night stops at Luxor.
19:29When we were told that we were flying back to India, and that we were going on a flying
19:34boat, we were very, very excited.
19:37Had we really known what lay ahead with the trip, we would have been even more excited.
19:43In the late 1930s, thirteen-year-old Pepita and her eleven-year-old brother Desmond were
19:49about to have the adventure of their young lives.
19:53When we saw the aircraft floating on the water, it was like a huge bird.
19:58And we didn't have much time to sort of look at it before being taken into the aircraft.
20:08And then settled down at our seats.
20:12Their journey would take them halfway around the world, to India, where their parents lived.
20:20The earlier flying boats had fixed seats.
20:23Many of them made by the people who made the aeroplanes, you know, in other words, very
20:27good at making aeroplanes, not so good at making seats.
20:29But the adjustable seats on the Empire flying boats were very spacious, very comfortable.
20:36One could fall asleep in them without any difficulty at all.
20:48The take-offs were very, very exciting because the spray just shot past the windows.
21:00And then up and away.
21:02They almost took themselves off the water.
21:05They really did.
21:13They were quite easy to fly.
21:16Contrary to what a lot of people thought, the controls were nicely harmonised and one got
21:22used to them very, very quickly.
21:28Wish I could do one now.
21:34Delightful.
21:35They really were.
21:42Imperial Airways became a byword for luxurious service.
21:46The passengers had cocktails mixed by barmen, recruited from the smartest London clubs.
21:54The staff, Imperial Airways staff, the ground staff and the cabin crew, they were very, very
21:59courteous to everybody.
22:00We were all treated like VIPs.
22:04The food that was served was served more like, almost like in a restaurant.
22:18The promenade deck was a part of the aircraft.
22:21The seats were only on one side.
22:24So people could get up and stretch their legs and look out of the window.
22:29That was a great advance on any aeroplane flying at the time.
22:34And better than most flying today.
22:38The route to India went in stages.
22:42Over France and then to Rome.
22:48And because each stage ended with a stopover, the passengers would disembark and stay overnight
22:54in luxury hotels.
23:06Their second stopover would be in Egypt.
23:16The flying boats always landed on the water at about five o'clock in the evening.
23:34And the passengers were taken ashore by launch.
23:40At Alexandria, some of the passengers left us because they were travelling now on a different
23:46route down to East Africa and South Africa.
23:57For Pepita, the journey continued across the Middle East to Basra, Iraq.
24:11Going over Iraq, that was very bumpy, very hot.
24:15Heat rising from the desert and everybody felt rather sick.
24:20But it was about the only time anybody ever did feel sick, if I remember.
24:25And on to Karachi, then in India.
24:29We were very, very sad when our journey came to an end because it had been so unusual, so extraordinary.
24:38It was an epic journey.
24:41It took four days, four nights.
24:44Every night was in a different country.
24:45And we were just very sorry when it was all over.
24:48It was a wonderful, magical dream which suddenly came to an end.
24:55And aboard this 60,000-pound flying hotel, life is smooth and comfortable.
25:00The hours pass luxuriously in almost silent safety.
25:04By the late 1930s, it was possible to reach India in four days.
25:09South Africa in five, Hong Kong in six, and Australia in an extraordinary nine days.
25:18By sea, it took over four weeks.
25:22But this progress and luxury only came as a result of a constant struggle between the crew and the elements.
25:31In March 1937, the Capricornus, a brand-new Empire boat, set out with the first direct airmail for Australia.
25:41Just over two hours out from Southampton, she flew into a wooded French hillside.
25:48All six on board were killed, except the radio operator.
25:55Hugh Gordon was immediately dispatched to France and ordered to find out what had happened.
26:02While investigating the crash site, Hugh filmed these unique and previously unseen images of the Capricornus' demise.
26:10You can imagine what a large flying boat is like when it flies into a mountain at about 150, 160
26:18miles an hour.
26:20It's a bit of a mess. I had to go out there.
26:26Hugh could do little more than break up the wreckage for scrap.
26:33The crash had been caused by a frozen altimeter and a confused navigator.
26:38Thinking they were a thousand feet higher than they actually were, the Capricornus flew into a mountain the pilot never
26:45saw in the mist.
26:48This was not an isolated incident.
26:52Of the first 28 Empire boats built, nine crashed or were damaged in accidents.
26:59Despite the setbacks, each new aircraft and every flight was another step towards the greatest challenge of all, the Atlantic.
27:22In 1936, a flying boat could take you from San Francisco to Hawaii or from Rome to Alexandria, but not
27:30across the Atlantic.
27:34The only thing that could was the giant German airship, the Hindenburg.
27:40And so when they were in Europe, Mr. and Mrs. Tripp had no choice if they were determined to fly
27:46home to America.
27:51The head of Pan Am became a passenger on the Hindenburg.
27:56My mother's descriptions of that trip were really quite interesting.
28:01It was an austere type of environment, but she was fascinated in retrospect sitting there at the picture of Hitler
28:07down at the end of the dining room and the very German service.
28:11It was a claustrophobic experience and she was quite happy to get off.
28:16Some thought the Hindenburg offered the viable future for air services across the Atlantic.
28:21Until one evening in May 1937.
28:26But as the passengers crowded the windows to watch, a roar and a burst of flame near the big tail
28:32fins turned the ship into a flaming inferno.
28:36The airship service ended in tragedy, killing 36 people.
28:46It will be two years before any other fair paying passengers could fly across the Atlantic.
28:56During that time, Pan Am and Imperial struggled to cross the Atlantic, the biggest commercial prize of all, with a
29:03viable passenger service.
29:06There was a lot of competition for the North Atlantic.
29:10That was the money route around in different places of the world, but that was the really lucrative place to
29:16go.
29:16And everybody wanted in on it.
29:19The determination of the two great airlines to cross the Atlantic finally overcame the political obstacles and led to a
29:26negotiated settlement.
29:28The British, Irish, Canadian and US governments agreed to a treaty where all would mutually benefit from any airline service
29:36across the Atlantic.
29:39The agreement they finally came to was that Pan Am would not start service across the North Atlantic before Imperial
29:45Airways would start.
29:47And in exchange for that, there would be an exclusivity. Pan Am had the exclusive right to fly the North
29:53Atlantic.
29:54Obviously, Imperial Airways had it from the British point of view.
29:58The initial result of these agreements was that both airlines could attempt their first limited service across part of the
30:04Atlantic,
30:05between New York and Bermuda, the mid-Atlantic British colony.
30:14From Britain, Bermuda was too far to fly, and so Imperial had to ship the Cavalier flying boat in pieces
30:21and then reassemble her.
30:29The Imperial Airways flying boat Cavalier arrives in New York at the end of the first survey flight from Bermuda,
30:35the southern holiday resort where thousands of wealthy Americans spend the winter.
30:39And New York gets a glimpse of the superb lines of Britain's new flying boats, the Air Armada that will
30:45soon be spanning the world.
30:47The Cavalier started operating successfully from June 1937, as did Pan Am's Bermuda Clipper.
30:59Even on this modest 700-mile journey, the Atlantic was able to remind travellers of its power.
31:07Betty Tripp made the six-hour Bermuda run many times.
31:12The air was often very rough. The aircraft would be tossed around and with no warning would drop hundreds of
31:17feet.
31:19Mails were often flung in the air, landing on passengers, on the ceilings or in the aisle.
31:24On one occasion we had to return to Bermuda, as we'd used up so much gas in fighting the winds.
31:33Crossing the whole Atlantic would require a series of test or survey flights to explore the severity of the conditions.
31:41To go to the North Atlantic, we had a problem of weather. Weather was pretty mean.
31:49The survey flights commenced in the summer of 1937, when the weather was at its calmest.
31:56Imperial's Caledonia had to be stripped bare and filled with four times its usual load of fuel.
32:04It would depart from Ireland and head for Newfoundland, the shortest distance across the Atlantic.
32:11The Imperial flying boat Caledonia prepares to leave Foynes in Ireland for her transatlantic flight to Newfoundland.
32:20Simultaneously, Pan Am's Clipper 3 left New York for Newfoundland and then Ireland.
32:28They had to face bad visibility, the possibility of fuel leaks, engine failures.
32:35All of these things gave a problem of immense proportions.
32:40While the Caledonia is roaring westwards, the US Pan American Clipper is coming east, and the two giants actually pass
32:46in mid-ocean.
32:47Both flights are superbly successful, and now the American Clipper glides down to the smooth waters of Poynes Bay.
32:54Not all the test flights went so well.
32:59Imperial's Cambria got lost in fog, the radio broke, and then the autopilot failed.
33:04After 18 hours battling the conditions, the exhausted crew landed in Newfoundland, almost out of fuel.
33:12The survey flights proved the Empire flying boats could only cross the Atlantic in good conditions and without passengers or
33:19the mail.
33:21So until both airlines had the physical capability with the aircraft that could do it, they really had to postpone
33:27it.
33:28And I think Pan Am used to say, well, we're frustrated because we can't start.
33:31But in fact, they really didn't have the aircraft at the time to start service as soon as they might
33:35have liked to.
33:38As carrying passengers proved impossible in 1937, Imperial remained determined to explore every option in their attempt to carry letters
33:46across the Atlantic.
33:52First up, Shortz created the extraordinary Mercury Meyer composite aircraft.
34:00The idea was to save on the huge amount of fuel used in take-off by using the Meyer to
34:05lift the mail-carrying mercury into the air.
34:12The smaller mercury would then be released to fly on with the mail.
34:22In July 1938, one of Imperial's most legendary pioneering captains, Don Bennett, later an Air Vice Marshal in the RAF,
34:31flew the Mercury almost 3,000 miles to Montreal, Canada.
34:39Bennett and his radio operator then flew on to New York and into the record books as the first commercial
34:45aircraft to fly across the North Atlantic and the first crossing to Montreal.
34:54The Mercury Meyer was just one of many experiments.
35:02The late 1930s witnessed a host of exploratory crossings as various nations tried everything they could think of to carry
35:09the mail to America.
35:14The Germans experimented with a series of giant catapult ships that flung seaplanes into the air with enough fuel to
35:21then make it over the Atlantic.
35:25Others suggested building some kind of moored landing area in mid-Atlantic, while the French proposed building an island and
35:32resurrected an ancient flying boat that barely staggered across.
35:37The Germans shocked the world again when the Focke-Wulf Condor land plane arrived in New York, having flown non
35:43-stop from Berlin.
35:45But the Condor could also not make the journey with an economic cargo, and the US denied her further landing
35:51rights.
35:53And finally, Imperial experimented with the revolutionary technique of in-flight refueling for their Empire flying boats.
36:05Despite all this endeavor, by the end of 1938, Imperial had only one flying boat operating over any part of
36:12the Atlantic Ocean, the Cavalier that linked Bermuda with New York.
36:20In January 1939, the Cavalier left New York on her 290th scheduled flight.
36:2710.30 on a lowering, foreboding morning, the Imperial Airways Cavalier takes off from New York, heads out through troubled
36:33skies over the Atlantic.
36:35Little do her eight passengers and five crew realize that tragedy rides at the controls.
36:39Then, shore radio stations hear of trouble. Bad weather, all engines failing through ice.
36:44Finally, the fatal message sinking. American Coast Guard and Army planes speed to the search with just one chance in
36:50a million of finding the survivors bobbing on the icy, lashing Atlantic.
36:54And now our American commentator brings the end of the tragic story.
36:56Then the Esso Baytown did the impossible. Its gallant captain and crew found and rescued the ten survivors and rushed
37:02them to New York.
37:04Anxious relatives waited to welcome their loved ones. But three did not come back. Injured, they let go precious life
37:11preservers and were lost.
37:12As the Baytown comes alongside the dock, it brings a weary cargo of refugees from the sky and sea.
37:20The Cavalier's engines had frozen up and brought her down.
37:24Imperial had nothing to replace her with. Yet again, the Atlantic had defeated the aviator and airlines.
37:33The culmination of all this trial and error would be a wholly new flying boat that would take on the
37:38Atlantic in 1939.
37:41The product of a corporation that would remain synonymous with global travel to this day.
37:47The first Boeing airliner was about to take off.
37:52But would it rise to the airline's ultimate challenge and make crossing the Atlantic commercially viable?
38:13June 1938. And on the lake beside the Boeing plant in Seattle, the largest commercial flying boat ever built was
38:20launched.
38:26This footage of it has never been seen before.
38:31The new Leviathan, christened the Boeing B314, would be Pan Am's contender for the challenge of running a passenger airline
38:38service across the Atlantic.
38:44Britain's Imperial Airways, on the other hand, pinned their Atlantic hopes on the Golden Hind,
38:49a greatly enhanced version of its classic Empire flying boat that operated throughout the British territories.
38:58More than a match for the 314 on paper, but in early 1939, still unfinished.
39:09The race was now on.
39:11The earlier agreement that said both airlines had to operate simultaneously was ripped up.
39:20Pan Am now had permission to fly to Britain after June 1939, even if Imperial was not able to fly
39:26the route.
39:29National Pride demanded Imperial Airways offer a rival service.
39:40Racing ahead, in March 1939, Eleanor Roosevelt launched another B314.
39:49The plane will lead to the transatlantic trade, flying the flag of the United States.
39:52With a roar of 6,000 horsepower, some 40 tons of winged metal lifts off the water and heads into
39:58the skyway.
40:00Finally, Imperial's Golden Hind was launched in June.
40:06Well named is Britain's new airliner, the largest we have ever built.
40:09Today she's launched at the Short Works at Rochester, Britain's answer to the Pan American Clipper.
40:14Soon this great new flying boat will be roaring across the Empire's skyways.
40:18Insecting the globe in a hundredth part of the time, it took Drake's famous ship to sail the Seven Seas.
40:22The new Skyliner rides the water for the first time and George, in his little rowing boat, takes over.
40:27Keep going George, you're doing fine.
40:31The Golden Hind will have a non-stop cruising range of 6,000 miles.
40:34And to our competitors, that's some answer.
40:39A few days later, on the 28th of June, 18 passengers boarded the Pan Am Dixie Clipper in New York.
40:46One of them was Mrs. Betty Tripp.
40:50This was such a dramatic moment for me.
40:52I had lived so closely with the various problems involved in establishing the service across the Atlantic,
40:56I could hardly believe it was finally happening.
40:59I was excited and thrilled beyond words and not one bit nervous or apprehensive.
41:04I counted 49 seconds before I saw the last sign of spray leave the keel.
41:09The great winged ship took to the air, ready to tackle the Atlantic.
41:18The Boeing 314 was an absolutely fantastic airplane.
41:22It was really the queen of the sky and the model of luxury.
41:28The passengers had paid about 5,000 pounds in today's terms to board this high-flying hotel.
41:35Roughly, the fare for Concorde.
41:40The dinner was delicious and beautifully served.
41:43In 1939, the fastest luxury liner took four and a half days.
41:48Yet here we were, crossing in 24 hours.
41:53Everything seemed so routine and matter-of-fact that we almost lost sight of the fact that this was the
41:58first airplane flight to carry passengers to Europe.
42:02My mind kept racing, thinking of a million things I must remember to tell Juan.
42:06I was cold, the heat should be more...
42:08I remember my mother made notes to herself,
42:10I've got to tell Juan that we need more blankets on board.
42:13She was also very critical in the early days why you couldn't get a drink on board,
42:17although people would snake their drink on board, they'd bring their bottles on,
42:20and in some cases they got quite drunk.
42:23During the night, we seemed to hang suspended in the sky along with the stars,
42:27while the clouds floated slowly by beneath us.
42:32When the sun came up, it seemed as if we had returned to Earth.
42:37We hardly knew when we touched the water that the landing was so perfect.
42:42After refueling in the Azores, they arrived 24 hours after leaving New York.
42:50Excited with exultation at so fast a trip, and that we had landed in Europe.
42:56Pan Am then commenced weekly commercial services across the Atlantic.
43:01The American airline had won the race.
43:06There's no question that the preeminent feeling was, be the first,
43:10and the Boeing 314 just did it.
43:14And it made a lot of money, as well as prestige for Pan America.
43:18So this is the new luxury hotel of the skies.
43:21If they get much bigger, we shall have to put wings on the Queen Mary.
43:25The Atlantic had finally met its match.
43:32The Boeing 314 was an aviation marvel.
43:36The years of flights and tests had culminated in a technological revolution.
43:42With the longest wingspan then built,
43:45the 314 covered the 2,400 miles to the Azores at 160 miles per hour.
43:54Well, the BC 314 was a very easy airplane to fly.
44:02You were able to accelerate, get it up to flying speed, raise your flaps, and away you went.
44:11All metal, each one cost over a million dollars, and was almost half the size of a jumbo jet.
44:21By the start of the Second World War, Boeing had produced six of the first truly global airliners.
44:28The B314s had conquered the world's oceans.
44:34Imperial's great hope, the Golden Hind, would never fly commercially over the Atlantic.
44:39Following her test flights, she was taken into military service by the RAF.
44:48After Pearl Harbor, Pan Am quickly joined up, and also became part of the Allied war machine.
44:59As did a trio of B314s the British bought in 1941 to continue the service across the Atlantic.
45:09Even in war, the great flying boats continued to carry the most illustrious passengers.
45:17After his first wartime summit with President Roosevelt in 1942,
45:21Winston Churchill faced a choice about how to return home via Bermuda.
45:28Churchill was considering the time it would take him by sea,
45:32which meant, in fact, something of the order of ten days.
45:36This he hadn't got time to spare.
45:40So he took the flying boat and fell in love with it straight away.
45:50He arrived just 20 hours later, to the astonishment and acclaim of all his parliamentarian friends,
45:56and he never looked back. He travelled on the flying boat from thereafter.
46:04And Shorts played a critical role in winning a bigger battle of the Atlantic with its 700 Sunderlands.
46:11This military sister of the Empire boats served with great distinction in the RAF's coastal command,
46:17protecting convoys, rescuing downed pilots, and hunting U-boats.
46:33By the end of the war, the age of the great flying boats had ended.
46:38Times had moved on.
46:42The world was now covered with fixed runways,
46:45and bomber technology had proven the long-range capabilities of land planes.
46:49Cheaper to build and easier to pressurize,
46:52the future of long-haul civil aviation, which the flying boats had pioneered,
46:56now belonged to land-based aircraft.
47:02Today, none of the great pre-war flying boats survive.
47:07A brief but wonderful age, less than a decade long, and barely using 150 flying boats, had passed.
47:16But while those who flew in a flying boat still live, it will not be forgotten.
47:23Every day was a pleasant day in the flying boats.
47:26We had good food, and the airplanes flew well, and it was a luxury airplane.
47:31I enjoyed every minute of it.
47:36Going on a flying boat, yes, it was an honor.
47:40And I think people who went on flying boats perhaps made a journey they would never forget,
47:45a journey of a lifetime.
47:48The advent of the Clippers crossing the Atlantic shrank the world,
47:52and it was the beginning of the shrinking of the world, but it continued to shrink.
47:56Nothing quite compares with it.
48:00I've flown many types of airplanes before and since.
48:09Nothing compares with the flying boat. Nothing.
48:12All right.
48:12All right.
48:15And there was magic.
48:17It is the courage perhaps scan it.
48:19Absolutely.
48:20The magic of this boat.
48:21And so, as I went over the weaning boat,
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