From Manaus to Moscow

CXIV

Pan American Airways, having been denied access to U.S. domestic CAM routes, even while (ironically) being rewarded for that very rejection, had no choice but to look elsewhere to expand its reach. Although it had the largest air route system on earth, Juan Trippe was fixated on the idea that Pan Am could and would conquer the skies above not only the southern half of the New World but that it would do much the same in the Old World. 

Despite the fact that his airline was blocked from landing in Great Britain by the vagaries of the Imperial Air Ministry’s Provision H, Provision H did not preclude Trippe from surveying the North Atlantic air routes. 

 

Jean Mermoz in 1935, the year before he disappeared in flight

As of the early 1930s there were three potential routes. The southernmost ran across the “Atlantic narrows” between Natal on the hump of Brazil to Dakar on the corresponding hump of Africa. The route was a daunting 1,865 miles long, longer than any fully-equipped aircraft of the time could fly. But the route was feasible, and it was used weekly by the French airline Aeropostale whose ace pilot Jean Mermoz had pioneered the route in 1930. But he was flying a stripped-down Latecoere aircraft (usually just called “Late”) that carried only three crew and 300 pounds of mail.  

 

A Late 300. Mermoz had grown to dislike the planes he was flying, and in the months before his disappearance pressured the French government to buy new aircraft for their airmail service --- he was lost before any of the new planes were delivered

Trippe knew that the S-42 could fly the route, but it too would have to be stripped of all excess weight and fitted with extra fuel tanks. He figured that Panair do Brasil could do the job. But the French government, who controlled access to Dakar in French West Africa, refused to grant Pan Am landing rights. For the first time, but not for the last, Juan Trippe discovered that the handshake diplomacy he practiced so well in South America did not impress Europeans. Every European country of substance by now had an official, subsidized, national carrier. The European carriers, as agencies of their governments, could negotiate routes and fees with their government’s preapprovals.  Europeans wanted to deal with an equivalent United States “flag” carrier, not a self-proclaimed “national” airline. In short, Dakar was out.

 

Horta, in the Azores

Trippe then looked toward Portugal. Across the broad expanse of the North Atlantic from New York lay the Portuguese Azores, 2,400 miles away. The Azores could potentially be used as a stepping stone to Lisbon itself, 1,700 miles beyond. After some head-scratching the New York-to-Horta-to-Lisbon route was put back in the file cabinet for later. That 2,400 mile leg was just at the extreme limit of a stripped-down S-42’s range. The flight could be a stunt, but not a regular route --- not with the S-42 anyway. Trippe needed his next generation of planes in order to make the voyage worth the effort. 

 

The central North Atlantic, showing the location of the Azores

That left the northern route. In an ocean with few islands, the extreme North Atlantic was made for staged flying, a not-so-simple perhaps, but quite practicable flight from New York northward over the Canadian Maritimes to Baffin Bay, across to Godthaab, Greenland, on to Reykjavik, Iceland, and down to Edinburgh or Perth via the Faroe Islands, and then London. Trippe commissioned the Lindberghs to fly the route in 1933.  Charles and Anne lifted off from Bowery Bay, adjacent to New York’s North Bay Airport (now LaGuardia) in a Sirius floatplane. 

Lindbergh was greeted with the usual adulation even in remote Godthaab, but he was not favorably disposed to the route. Lindbergh wrote: 

 

Lindbergh in his floatplane

“Planes used on a northern transatlantic route must have reliability, plenty of range, and high speed. It is essential to eliminate the possibility of forced landings due to engine failure. A great deal of flying would have to be done over low fog covering rough ice and probably over storm areas. . . . I believe that a northern transatlantic regular service should not be contemplated with planes that are not capable of flying nonstop from the western side of the Greenland ice cap to Iceland if necessary.”    

     

Lindbergh, looking disgruntled, in Reykjavik, Iceland

He advised Trippe that weather conditions had been challenging and cold, a serious consideration in the unpressurized planes of the day. This was a disappointing assessment, and it became more disappointing still when the Dominion of Canada and the Dominion of Newfoundland both elected to respect Provision H.  

Juan Trippe had profoundly hoped that if the Dominions asserted their own independence then London might change its mind about allowing Pan Am to fly the North Atlantic route. 

The complete Lindbergh Survey Route of 1933. They went everywhere from Manaus, Brazil to Moscow, U.S.S.R.

Flummoxed, at least temporarily, Trippe turned his gaze to the South Seas far away.