Ocean Airway

Spray foamed from the silver hull as it gathered speed under the surge of its four Hornet motors. After a half-minute run, the 21-ton Pan American Clipper lifted easily from the waters of San Francisco Bay. headed out through the Golden Gate under a brilliant mid-afternoon sun. The world's first transport plane designed specifically for transocean service was finally on its way over the Pacific to Hawaii on the first stage of Pan American Airways' projected 8,000-mi. ocean airway to China. Four years of intensive work had prepared this ship and this crew for this flight.

Inside the huge cabin the six stalwart young men in blue uniforms and white caps were too busy to do anything but their jobs. With the ship guided by a robot pilot and directional radio beam, Captain Edwin C. Musick and Chief Pilot Sullivan checked the course with blind-flying instruments. Engineering Officer Wright had 71 other instruments to read. Weather reports were received every 20 minutes, position reports transmitted every half-hour. The ship flew steadily at 6,000 ft. above a heavy layer of clouds, blotting out the ocean. As night fell Navi gation Officer Noonan made a dozen trips to the aft observation hatch to ''shoot the stars." At midnight the men shared a supper of special self-heating foods. No one slept in the comfortable after-cabin berths. All night the four Hornets droned on.

For twelve hours the ocean was not sighted once beneath the moonlight-flooded clouds. At dawn the Clipper broke through the grey mists overhanging Oahu Island, sped onward in the bright sunlight of a Hawaiian morning, to make a 150-mi. survey of landing areas. Then, within one minute of its schedule, it landed smoothly in Pearl Harbor, having clipped seven hours from the previous record made by six Navy planes in mass flight in January 1934. Nearly eight years before, two Army flyers (Maitland & Hegenberger) had made the first crossing in a landplane in 25 hr. 50 min. The Clipper covered the 2,410 mi. in 17 hr. 45 min. with a payload of 8,000 letters which cost senders $1.09 each, and still had enough of its 3,000 gal. of gasoline left to fly another 1,000 mi. without difficulty.

Capt. Musick and his men stepped from the ship as jaunty and fresh as if they had just had an overnight ride in a Pullman. With even less ceremony they refueled the Clipper and flew safely back to Alameda in 20 hrs. and 59 min. Later the big Sikorsky will make experimental flights over the other stages of the far-flung air-way--to Midway and Wake Islands, Guam, Manila and China. When the pioneer work is done--possibly by late sum-mer--Glenn Martin's huge Clipper No. 7 will inaugurate regular scheduled commercial service over the airway, first with mail only, eventually with passengers.

While thousands in Honolulu were cheering the Sikorsky's arrival last week, 23 men on Midway Island, a tiny tuft of green in the Pacific, were cheering the arrival of Pan American's air base construction ship North Haven, advance agent in the establishment of Pacific air service. An isolated cable relay station for 32 years, Midway is known to most mariners merely as a lighthouse. In charge of the small colony, which includes five Chinese and seven Japanese, is Acting Cable Superintendent G. B. Perry, who is also U. S. Naval custodian of the island.

The North Haven will remain at Midway 15 days, putting ashore supplies and construction material for an air base. When she moves on to Wake, 25 of her crew will be left behind to complete the building job. In addition to its construction material, the North Haven's 6,000-ton cargo includes every imaginable item needed to keep the men on the islands supplied with life's necessities during their lonely tenure. Some of the items: razor blades, soap, safety pins, flashlights, cigarets, chewing tobacco, shoelaces, candy, shoe polish, boxing gloves, chess sets, checkerboards, books, toothpicks, toothpaste, chewing gum, food.

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