Boeing Three-One-Four

CCLIII

The Boeing 314 Clipper was the largest production airplane in the world until the introduction of the Boeing 747 in 1970

"That slender riotous island"*

CCLII

Flying boats in Manhasset Bay, 1939. Note the hangars, the jetty, and the sailboats moored nearby

As soon as Juan Trippe knew his airline was going to be flying the Atlantic he ordered the construction of several flying boat terminals on the east coast of the United States. Other bases were built at Shediac, in New Brunswick and at Botwood in Newfoundland, at Foynes, on the River Shannon in Ireland, and in the Azores, in Lisbon, in Southampton, England, and at Marseilles. 

No-frills flying boat bases required little construction beyond a moor, a jetty, a hangar and a terminal of sorts. In short, Pan Am started its Atlantic service by cloning Alameda a handful of times.

As it transpired, the Pan Am facility at Baltimore, Maryland ultimately became an American version of Macao in that it was constructed, completed, and sat largely idle for the rest of its days.  It was meant to serve the nation’s capital, but essentially Pan Am had it built as a matter of personal pride in that the Trippe family hailed from the Old Line State.

Pan Am’s summary description of the Port Washington facility

Juan Trippe knew, if local Baltimore boosters did not, that most of Pan Am’s east coast business would come from not from Washington, D.C. but from New York. No sooner had the ink dried on the signature line of the Square Deal Agreement than he began negotiating with the City of New York for a permanent terminus at North Field in the Borough of Queens, a place that would be the equal of Treasure Island on the Pacific route and Dinner Key on the Caribbean route.

The North Field facility (soon to be named the Marine Air Terminal) would take at least a year to build, so Pan Am began its transatlantic operations from a small facility in Port Washington, New York, an affluent suburban town about ten miles from Midtown Manhattan and the company’s Chrysler Building headquarters.  

Enea Bossi, standing outside of one his hangars, probably 1929

The Port Washington facility (now known as the Sands Point Seaplane Base) was built in 1928 by the American Aeronautical Corporation. AAC was founded by an Italian immigrant named Enea Bossi, who intended to build Savoia-Marchetti seaplanes under license from Italy. Unfortunately, the Great Depression put an end to Bossi’s plans in 1933. The seaplane base was abandoned until Juan Trippe discovered it some years later while on a Sunday drive along Long Island’s North Shore. It had a mooring, a jetty, two hangars, a factory building that could be converted into a serviceable terminal, and ample parking. Trippe picked it up for a song, presuming he could make some use of it sometime, and indeed he did, Between 1934 and 1937, Sands Point acted as Pan American’s Executive Airport; although the airline was forbidden by law to operate commercial flights within the contiguous United States it was allowed to transfer aircraft from place to place, and to fly its officers, directors, and employees where they needed to go. The seaplane base wasn’t in daily use, but if Juan Trippe needed to hop down to Miami or out to Alameda and chose to fly, there would be a clipper waiting for him in Manhasset Bay.

The westernmost North Shore of Long Island. City Island and Hart Island both belong to New York City. Port Washington is the likely “East Egg” of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. King’s Point lies in “West Egg”. In the novel, Jay Gatsby invites Nick Carraway out on Long Island Sound to test his new “hydroplane.”

 

After 1937, Port Washington became the origination point for a number of Atlantic survey flights, including reciprocal flights between Pan Am and Imperial Airways.

The first transatlantic passenger flight did not depart from Port Washington; that honor was reserved for Pan Am’s otherwise little-used Baltimore facility. On March 30, 1939, one of the newly-delivered Boeing 314s, the Yankee Clipper lifted off from Baltimore, flying the southern route (Baltimore to the Azores, the Azores to Lisbon, and then on to Marseilles). The first leg to Horta in the Azores took 17 hours and 7 minutes, and the second leg from Horta to Lisbon took 7 hours and 7 minutes. 

The first regularly-scheduled American transatlantic mail service by a heavier-than-air-craft was inaugurated on May 20, 1939 --- just twelve years to the day that Lindbergh had crossed the Atlantic --- when the Yankee Clipper lifted off again, this time from Port Washington to Marseilles.

Port Washington, 1939

Unlike Dinner Key and Treasure Island, Port Washington served Imperial Airways as well as Pan American per the Square Deal Agreement. That meant that on any given day of the week an aviation-minded Long Islander could watch S-42s, and later Short Empire S.23s and Boeing 314s coming and going from Port Washington. How many flights arrived and departed from the modest airport on Manhasset Bay no one has ever calculated, but for a year Port Washington was the place to be if you wanted to be on the cutting edge of aviation.

*The title of this post is lifted from the opening lines of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Jazz Age classic The Great Gatsby. This post is for Sandi Daum