Boeing's Model 314 First Flew 75 Years ago

The Boeing Company of Seattle secured a contract with Pan Am to produce a flying boat of unprecedented size and luxury. At an initial cost of $550,000 each, Boeing would produce 12 B-314 models, the largest commercial aircraft of its day. Pan Am ordered all of them. However, three of the giant ships the press called "flying hotels" were sold to the British before delivery, to satisfy their transatlantic needs. Upon delivery of the first batch to Pan Am in 1939, the B 314 went into service on the Pacific and opened the North Atlantic route the same year. The spacious cabins, which included a bridal suite in the tail, set the new standard in the quality of the passenger experience.

The B-314 used the wings and engine nacelles of the giant Boeing XB-15 bomber. New Wright 1,500-hp Double Cyclone engines eliminated the lack of power that handicapped the XB-15. With a nose similar to that of the modern 747, the Clipper was the "jumbo" airplane of its time.

The B-314 also took up the wartime role of what would now be considered Air Force One. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, the first commander-in-chief to fly while in office, traveled aboard the Dixie Clipper with additional staff trailing in the Atlantic Clipper, on a top secret flight to confer with British Prime Minister Winston Churchill in Casablanca, Morocco. Churchill, also a frequent B-314 passenger and an enthusiastic fan of the giant flying boat, even took a turn at the controls.

The aeronautical design genius Igor Sikorsky, who had fled his native Russia in 1917, had long envisioned large, multi-engine aircraft. In partnering with Trippe and Lindbergh, now the airline's technical consultant, Sikorsky's dreams were fulfilled. His earlier S-38 had been hugely successful in early establishment of Pan Am's routes throughout the Caribbean and Central and South America. The launching of the much larger, four-engine S-40 model in 1931 led to immediate planning among the three for a flying boat capable of spanning the oceans. The Sikorsky Aircraft Corporation of Stratford, Conn. answered with the S-42 model. Considered a true airliner, it was put into service on the Miami to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil route and gave Pan Am superiority over all competitors. When it came time to prepare the Pacific route, the S-42 was chosen and modified for the rigorous survey flights. It became a workhorse of the Pacific and Atlantic for both survey and regularly scheduled duty.

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