THE LAST OF THE LEVIATHANS

摘要

In the years before World War Ⅱ, transoceanic airline service steadily progressed from a mere idea in the minds of visionary pioneers to a practical, if somewhat expensive, means of high speed travel. Pan American Airways, under the skilful guidance of Juan Trippe, mastered the Pacific with island-hopping Sikorsky S-42 and Martin 130 flying boats. Pan Am was in the process of conquering the much less hospitable North Atlantic with its Boeing 314 flying boats, in concert with Imperial Airways and Short S.30 Empire Class flying boats. But the problems of weather and westerly winds, especially on the northern North Atlantic routings during winter, were only going to be overcome in Pan Am's view by the use of pressurised, long range, land based aircraft flying above the weather at 20,000 ft. So, even though the meagre payload possible on Atlantic flights would not be economical, orders were placed for three Boeing 307 Strato-liners. These were constructed, in essence, by attaching B-17 wings complete with engines and undercarriage, and tail units to a new circular cross section pressurised fuselage. Late in 1941, when the United States found itself embroiled in a war on two separate continents, each removed from its mainland by a great ocean, all available transports with true trans-oceanic capability not already in military hands - a mere 15 aircraft, comprising eight Boeing 314s, five Boeing 307s and two Martin 130s - were requisitioned. But it immediately became clear that these aircraft were completely inadequate in numbers to cope with demands. Orders already placed for every aircraft in production or development were massively increased, but only the Douglas C-54, alias the DC-4, was anywhere near production. Work was progressing on the Lockheed Constellation, although Lockheed was heavily engaged in P-38 Lightning production.