Flying Atlantis

CCLI

Pan Am facilities, Bermuda, 1937. The eponymous Bermuda Clipper bobs in the harbor

The Yankee Clipper at Horta in the Azores, 1939

The Yankee Clipper lifting off on the first passenger flight from Baltimore

Pan Am built a flying boat terminal at Charleston, South Carolina as an alternate to Baltimore if that harbor was iced over. It, like Baltimore itself, saw very little use

After the signing of the Square Deal Agreement, both the British and the Americans were impatient to begin the conquest of the Atlantic. That conquest began, as all Pan American conquests did, with survey flights.

The Yankee Clipper at Shediac, 1939

The American Clipper at Lisbon, 1940

In 1937, Pan American did not have an aircraft that was capable of flying the distance of the agreed northern and southern routes laid out in the Agreement. Instead, Juan Trippe did as he had previously done: stripped an S-42B down to the bare metal walls, filled it with gas tanks and bladders, and began flying the newest “flying gas tank” named (unsurprisingly) the Pan American Clipper III from Port Washington to Shediac, N.B. and back without landing on June 25, 1937. The ship was under the command of Harold E. Gray, who would assume Juan Trippe’s job as Pan Am’s CEO after Trippe’s retirement in 1968. For the moment, he had taken Ed Musick’s place as Chief Pilot. Additional survey flights to Botwood and Gander followed, each successive step carrying the airline further across the Atlantic. 

The Imperial Airways flying boat Caledonia at Botwood, 1937

The Yankee Clipper at Southampton, 1939. Note the competing British and American Union Jacks flying from the cockpit

On July 3, 1937, the day after Fred Noonan and Amelia Earhart disappeared near Howland Island, Pan American and Imperial Airways executed the first reciprocal flight across the Atlantic The Pan American Clipper III flew from Port Washington to Shediac, to Botwood, to Gander, and on to Foynes on the west coast of Ireland. The British Caledonia passed the Pan American Clipper going the other way. The northern route had been proven.

The Dixie Clipper at Marseilles, 1939

Eamon DeValera, President of the Irish Free State, greets Captain Harold Gray, skipper of the Yankee Clipper, at Foynes on July 6, 1937, after his successful transatlantic flight

The Pan American Clipper III was also put to work surveying the southern route, which hopped from Port Washington to Bermuda, from Bermuda to the Azores, the Azores to Lisbon, and Lisbon to Marseilles. The Caledonia did not participate in the southern survey because she did not have the range to fly from Bermuda to Port Washington.

The Administration Building at Gander, 1940

Departing Port Washington