STORY OF CLIPPER’S FLIGHT

Dominion, Volume 30, Issue 157, 31 March 1937, Page 6

STORY OF CLIPPER’S FLIGHT

Pago Pago to New Zealand

STREAM OF WIRELESS MESSAGES

Dominion Special Service.

Auckland, March 30.

As the Pan-American Airways Clipper, which arrived at Auckland this afternoon at the conclusion of her survey flight from the United States, flew steadily over the 1850 miles of ocean between Pago Pago and Auckland, she was in constant communication with the temporary headquarters of PanAmerican Airways near the city, and short wireless messages kept thousands of people informed of her progress as the hours passed by.

The story of the Clipper's flight as told in these messages was short and almost unexciting for each report gave only such essential details as altitude, distance covered, the course and the weather, but these, in turn, were sorted out from a mass of technical detail in the continuous stream of messages that flowed from the flying boat almost from the moment she took off. Before dawn Mr. A. Francis, operations manager and meteorologist, and Mr. IV. T. Jarboe. wireless operator, bad begun their task of guiding the Clipper on her long flight across the ocean. Although they had been working most of Monday night and part of this morning sending and receiving messages with scarcely a break, constant communication was maintained between the Clipper and the two stations between which she was flying and not until she had landed did the ground staff have any relief from their responsibilities. As the wireless reports came 'through in the Morse code they were decoded by the operations manager, who plotted the position of the Clipper from the details of latitude and longitude given by the navigator. Then brief messages were telephoned through to Mr. Harold Gatty’s room at the Grand Hotel. The least concerned among those actively connected with the Clippers progress was Mr. Gatty. He was a Hired man for he had been awake until early in the morning making the final arrangements for the flight, but he answered telephones which rang steadily nearly al! the morning, and once he sat down with navigation tables to work out the Clipper’s position and how far away she was from Auckland. He had little to say as the progress reports came through, but his attitude seemed to be one of quiet satisfaction. “She's making good time,” he said once, with a slow smile, when the clipper reported that she was half-way across, and that was all. First news of th e Clipper was received while most of Auckland was still asleep. It. was sent'out by the radio operator, Mr. R. Runnells, as the fly-ing-boat left Pago Pago. There came a brief message at 5.30 a.m.: “Plane took off from Pago Pago. Good takeoff?’ Then, after the clipper had been in the air for an hour and a half she reported that she was flying at 7300 feet and that conditions were good. An hour later she .was 310 miles out from Pago Pago and had met a southerly to south-easterly head wind blowing at 15 miles an hour. By 8.30 a.m. New Zealand time, the clipper had flown 462 miles of the 1850 miles to Auckland. She reported meeting further head winds, but anticipated no difficulty In making up the time lost by the reduction in speed. Half an hour later the clipper passed over the little island of Eua, in the Tongan Group, south of Tongatabu, which was discovered by Abel Tasman and visited by Captain James Cook. She was 710 miles out from Pago Pago. At 10 o’clock the clipper reported that she would be half-way to Auckland by 11.30 a.m., and that she was flying at a height of 9300 feet in good weather. Then, early in the afternoon, she gave her position as 30 miles north-west o£ Raoul Island, in the Kermadec Islands, and reported that she expected to arrive shortly after 5 p.m. A more detailed report came from the clipper at 2 o’clock, when she was 445 miles from Auckland, flying at 8400 feet and at a speed of 150 miles an hour. She expected then to arrive at 5 o’clock or possibly slightly earlier. Then, shortly before 3 o’clock, she sent out a message that she was flying at 8100 feet and her commander, Captain Musick, reported for the information of the port medical officer that the health'of the crew was excellent. The clipper did not report again until 4 o’clock, and a message came through from the wireless station at 4.30 p.m. that she had sighted Great Barrier Island, only 60 miles away from Auckland, and expected to arrive at -1.45 p.m.

Then those who had waited all day for news from the clipper which bad been read on newspaper bulletin boards by thousands of people in the city and heard over the wireless by many more in their homes, hastened to watch the clipper’s arrival, while the ground staff were still busy answering inquiries about the landing-area from the livingboat. By 4.55 p.m. the ground staff’s long and responsible task had ended, and the clipper’s wireless was silent as she floated on the waters of the harbour.