My favorite thing: Boeing 314

Hungary Bill said:

Looks like I'll be buying "The Long Way Home".  That was a darn good read!

Thanks to this thread, I bought this book and read it during a brief trip to South Florida recently. Amazing story! The flight crew were civilians, but they performed like well-trained Army Air Corps air crew during the entire journey. They were in enemy territory and did encounter some hostility while flying an unarmed aircraft in difficult circumstances. It's an excellent story about true patriots with big cojones.  This book is highly recommended.

(And I agree with pinchvalve that the B314 is an amazing aircraft. I was born too late. I would love to have flown on one of the "exotic" routes in this aircraft.)

Re the Mars I have seen it fly by, it doesn't go very fast and you hear it before it arrives. Due to its speed it flew low through Vancouver Harbour control zone. I live high up enough that I was looking at its profile as it flew by.

mad_machine said:

The Pan Am Clipper that accidentally flew around the world

This is a great article

In reply to Mr_Asa :

Read the book

My copy of the  book arrived Monday. I’m saving it for a 6 hour flight in a couple of weeks - It should make the suck of sitting in a coach seat for that long seem comfy in comparison!

https://www.autobooks-aerobooks.com/product/china-clipper-the-age-of-the-great-flying-boats/
https://www.autobooks-aerobooks.com/product/the-china-clipper-pan-american-airways-and-popular-culture/

https://www.autobooks-aerobooks.com/product/the-pan-am-clipper-the-history-of-pan-americans-flying-boats-1935-1945/

Good general clipper Boeing 314 stuff there.  We're also ordering The Long Way Home based on the discussion here.

Sadly, there is one Mars sitting on a lake somewhere, which means it's still seaworthy but currently not flying.

Yes, the second Flight of the Phoenix wasn't as good as the first but let's remember Paul Mantz died flying that cobbled-together plane in the 1965 version.  Sometimes CGI is the better part of valor.

As much as I would have loved to fly on one of these, they were tremendously expensive when they were flying. Air flight in general was very expensive back then, but according to Wikipedia ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_314_Clipper ) a ticket from San Francisco to Hong Kong cost the equivalent of $14,000 nowadays. ($760 in 1939.) A nonstop United flight is available right now for $544 for the same trip. Wow.

In reply to dculberson :

Yessir. Good point. I wish I could have done it back in the day and afforded it! 

In reply to dculberson :

Wow, that’s a cool point. Crazy that a first class flight from SF to HK with lie flat seats and basically a private little apartment, almost as comfy as the Clipper, you get to around $7-10,000, but the trip takes 15 hours instead of 6 days. 

It's a testament to the golden age of flying. And at the time the Boeing 314 was the epitome of cool travel ... international travel. Those who could afford it did it. It took a hearty and adventurous individual to make a trip on these flights. But compared to today, it was brutal. Slow. Primitive conditions. Dangerous. But for the adventurous, it was ... well, an adventure. In 1939, if I had the means, I'd love to have flown from Key West to Rio on this bird. (I've seen the old ticketing office for the Pan Am Clipper flights in Key West. Not much to see today, but I think they should make it a historical site with historical pictures and documentation).

In reply to Jerry From LA :

Sprout Lake Port Alberni, conjure up Rushcanuck  he used to live in the Nanaimo, Parksville area and the highway to Uclulet and Tofino runs through Port Alberni.