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Pan American Clippers: The Golden Age of Flying Boats
Recapturing the fabulous era of flying boats. For a world coming out of economic depression in the 1930s, the Pan American Airways Clipper "flying boats" symbolized elegance and luxury, adventure and romance. Illustrated with rare period photographs, vintage travel posters, magazine ads and colorful company brochures, this fascinating book covers every aspect of the fabulous era of Pan American's graceful clippers. Like their maritime namesakes, the Clippers used the oceans to form a vast global network of travel routes. Pan Am founder Juan Trippe was a visionary who saw the importance of international travel to a changing world. His Clippers would play a key role in the evolution of transoceanic flight, setting time and distance records over the Atlantic and Pacific, providing airmail delivery between countries, and eventually serving the Allies as troop and cargo transports during World War II. Pan Am Clippers permanently changed the world's concept of time and space by dramatically reducing travel time and opening up international air travel to the general public. This fascinating, informative and richly illustrated book brings back another time and way of life.
272 pages, Hardcover
First published November 5, 2007
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About the author
James Trautman
4 books1 followerJames Trautman is a regular contributor to North American magazines and newspapers, including Antique Week, and has been featured on CBC TV shows on the history of sports cards, games and other collectibles.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
April 26, 2014
Those Opulent Men and Their Splendid Flying Machines
"Let me tell you about the very rich. They are different from you and me. They possess and enjoy early, and it does something to them, makes them soft where we are hard, and cynical where we are trustful, in a way that, unless you born rich, it is difficult to understand." Thus opens this historic saga of the Pan American Clippers with a quote from F. Scott Fizgerald, through the narrator of "The Great Gatsby," Nick Carraway. The Roaring Twenties started what was the Golden Age of Aviation, which continued through the 1930s up to World War II. It was a time when flying was indeed for the very rich, and Juan Trippe, himself a product of elite Old Money, was there to to take it and build an airline unlike no other, one that would span the globe like the clipper ships of the last gilded age.
James Trautman opens with a historic overview of the Pan American Clipper flying boats, which started with landplanes, such as the Fairchild FC-2 and Model 71, Ford Trimotor, and Douglas DC-3. Seaplanes arrived on the scene when Juan Trippe's fledgling airlines sought to expand service to South America and Asia; because these faraway destinations lacked airfields and required crossing huge expanses of ocean, Pan American needed aircraft that could take off and land from water. Furthermore, because aircraft piston engines were so complex and operated under great stress, in-flight shutdowns were commonplace and the water was the only surface these long-distance airliners could land on in an emergency. (Grover Loening stressed the importance an aircraft being able to land on water safely as the reason he developed his amphibians, though this important point is not mentioned in the book.) He goes into further detail into the evolution of the flying boat, which culminated in the magnificent Boeing 314 Clipper, in describing each type from Fairchild, Consolidated, Sikorsky, Martin, and Boeing. Here, the book's strongest point are the lovely photographs showing the cabins and flight decks, each fully worthy of the impressiveness of these superb airliners. This book ends with the role of the Boeing Clippers during World War II. However, it is with land-based aircraft that Pan American made the greatest contribution to the War Effort, though the airline's pilots gained valuable knowledge in navigating large air routes, a very valuable contribution. After the War, Pan American and Juan Trippe would continue to make ground-breaking contributions to commercial airline travel, setting the stage for the Jet Age with the Boeing 707 and Boeing 747. That, however, would be the subject for other books.
Tables cover performance data on each flying boat type, accidents, Pan American "firsts," and airports - a critical addition to any book of this type. However, the bibliography is meager. As I have not read other books on the Pan American Clippers, I cannot give a comparison of this volume vis-a-vis others of its type. All seem to be highly popular with their readers; one could take a "test drive" of the offerings by examining library copies and purchasing those that suit one's taste. I can say that I found this book to be an enjoyable experience.
"Let me tell you about the very rich. They are different from you and me. They possess and enjoy early, and it does something to them, makes them soft where we are hard, and cynical where we are trustful, in a way that, unless you born rich, it is difficult to understand." Thus opens this historic saga of the Pan American Clippers with a quote from F. Scott Fizgerald, through the narrator of "The Great Gatsby," Nick Carraway. The Roaring Twenties started what was the Golden Age of Aviation, which continued through the 1930s up to World War II. It was a time when flying was indeed for the very rich, and Juan Trippe, himself a product of elite Old Money, was there to to take it and build an airline unlike no other, one that would span the globe like the clipper ships of the last gilded age.
James Trautman opens with a historic overview of the Pan American Clipper flying boats, which started with landplanes, such as the Fairchild FC-2 and Model 71, Ford Trimotor, and Douglas DC-3. Seaplanes arrived on the scene when Juan Trippe's fledgling airlines sought to expand service to South America and Asia; because these faraway destinations lacked airfields and required crossing huge expanses of ocean, Pan American needed aircraft that could take off and land from water. Furthermore, because aircraft piston engines were so complex and operated under great stress, in-flight shutdowns were commonplace and the water was the only surface these long-distance airliners could land on in an emergency. (Grover Loening stressed the importance an aircraft being able to land on water safely as the reason he developed his amphibians, though this important point is not mentioned in the book.) He goes into further detail into the evolution of the flying boat, which culminated in the magnificent Boeing 314 Clipper, in describing each type from Fairchild, Consolidated, Sikorsky, Martin, and Boeing. Here, the book's strongest point are the lovely photographs showing the cabins and flight decks, each fully worthy of the impressiveness of these superb airliners. This book ends with the role of the Boeing Clippers during World War II. However, it is with land-based aircraft that Pan American made the greatest contribution to the War Effort, though the airline's pilots gained valuable knowledge in navigating large air routes, a very valuable contribution. After the War, Pan American and Juan Trippe would continue to make ground-breaking contributions to commercial airline travel, setting the stage for the Jet Age with the Boeing 707 and Boeing 747. That, however, would be the subject for other books.
Tables cover performance data on each flying boat type, accidents, Pan American "firsts," and airports - a critical addition to any book of this type. However, the bibliography is meager. As I have not read other books on the Pan American Clippers, I cannot give a comparison of this volume vis-a-vis others of its type. All seem to be highly popular with their readers; one could take a "test drive" of the offerings by examining library copies and purchasing those that suit one's taste. I can say that I found this book to be an enjoyable experience.
August 12, 2014
This is an excellent depiction of the time with airlines, whether flying boats or 'airplanes', treated passengers like royalty. Anyone who has an appreciation for nostalgic travel will enjoy Trautman's book. Barbara H. Schultz
April 27, 2013
This is a wonderfully illustrated book about a truly golden age of commercial aviation, one in which mankind was just beginning to stretch his technological wings across the oceans. The Pan Am Clippers were iconic figures of the 1930s, and this book pays homage to them in words and pictures. My primary complaint about the book is that the writing is rather disorganized in many spots; a better job of editing could have reduced the repetition and meandering topical threads. A couple of the chapters seem like a grab bag of assorted information. Nonetheless, I found it well worth the time to read. Recommended.
July 30, 2010
Having no prior knowledge about the Pan Am Clippers, this book was both very informative and an entertaining read. A coffee table sized book, it's full of amazing photographs and illustrations from those days. The author does a great job of using each chapter to explain things from, the prehistory of aviation, the creation of Pan Am, the people that made up the business, the planes, and so on. A great book for anyone interested in the golden age of flight.
December 13, 2007
one good book
February 14, 2013
Just got this. Those old flying boats have always captured my imagination, and this book is a great introduction to their actual use and how they helped global aviation on its way.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews