11–20 of 52 posts
There seems to be a healthy number of other pilots / aviation enthusiasts here, so I'll ask - did they really use the OVER & OUT in aviation phraseology back then? Modern aviation RT omits these, so I wonder if it is a journalistic addition.
Have the movie rights been sold yet? I can totally see this movie in my head already.
Wonderful story! There seems to be a healthy number of other pilots / aviation enthusiasts here, so I'll ask - did they really use the OVER & OUT in aviation phraseology back then? Modern aviation RT omits these, so I wonder if it is a journalistic addition.
I made a map that shows all the stops: https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?mid=1v33AaNDltEQmHGiP29...
Thank you! I'm always amazed at stories that lack the proper illustration, usually a map. Quite an omission for a story all about flying over land and water. I suppose they're harder for the authors to make than just using stock photos. PS: you are missing the stop in Karachi, now in Pakistan. I only saw this because I looked at your map repeatedly while reading the story, to get a feel for each leg of the flight.
I made a map that shows all the stops: https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?mid=1v33AaNDltEQmHGiP29...
Similar articles have been posted before. All of them are based on the book "The Long Way Home". I bought it for my 88 year old grandfather last Christmas. He power read through the thing in a couple of hours and handed it back to me, telling me to read it too. Certainly an interesting read. But with a little more historical context, you will find that even as early as the 1930's, the US was worried about dominance i…
Guano Islands Act, Cal Perry, Great White Fleet, Span-Am War.
"...with a wingspan of over 150ft, the Boeing 314 was (and remains) one of the largest aircraft ever to take to the sky" "Remains" is stretching the point. The original 747 (1975) was 195ft wingspan. Modern 787s are also around 195ft. The 767-200 (1981) is comparable at 156ft. By weight, the 314 was small by modern standards: 84000 lbs MTOW, less than a 737-200 at 128000 lbs MTOW.
It was a big bird for its time. It is a shame that none were preserved, though that isn't much of a surprise because even just one of them would be expensive to store and maintain in a non-flyable state.
Whatever happened to large sea planes? I imagine they were phased out because they were too expensive, unsafe, or for some other logistical reason, but it seems like they would still be practical for some purposes.