Clipper Ship.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22444, 13 June 1936, Page 9 (Supplement)

Clipper Ship.

[An agreement was reached last year between tho New Zealand Government and Pan American Airways, for the establishment of an nir service between San Francisco and Auckland. Tho journey is to occupy 40 flying hours, epread over three days.] where he had parked the car, high on the slopes of a convenient hill, tho young man looked out over Auckland spread before him like a map. For more than 30 miles in each direction he could see from the lofty summit, and a pair of powerful binoculars brought the rugged West Const almost as near as the East Coast appeared to the naked eye. The day was remarkably clear, even for Auckland, and conditions were ideal for the arrival of the first air-liner from the United States.

As ho sat waiting for the longanticipated event that was to mark the beginning of New Zealand's real importance in the aviation world, the young man felt a thrill of admiration for the pioneers who had first dared the Pacific in an aeroplane, and whose trail the great flying-boat of Pan American Airways was even then following. Kingsford Smith and Charles Ulm, both since lost on long-distance ocean flights, had brought their gallant monoplane, Southern Cross, through storm and shine from the United States to Australia, blazing the trail for the commercial air service which neither, unfortunately, had lived to see. Struggling against apparently insuperable odds, with, equipment that by modern standards would bo judged hopelessly out of date, Smith and his companions had defeated the elements. They reached Australia as heroes, and each bad his place in the history of the world's achievements in aviation. Smith, and Ulm, too, found unknown graves with their aeroplanes beside them; the faithful old machine in which they flew together, the Southern Cross, was honoured in the Australian National Museum, at Canberra. It was no mere desire to attract attention by means of a fool-hardy flight that led Australia's two greatest fliers to take off on their Pacific adventure; Smith and Ulm, with their companions, Warner and Lyon, had a definite object in view, the establishment of a commercial air service across the Pacific. They had risked their lives to prove that such a seemingly impossible enterprise was actually possible, and they had succeeded. These were the thoughts that chased each other through the young man's mind as he sat waiting for the first glimpse of the 50,0001b. flying-boat that presently would come out of the slty, with passengers and a vast quantity of mail that had been in the United States only three days before. Below, on Auckland's airport, he knew there were a dozen or more machines af all types ready to take off and form an escort for the giant Martin craft, and on the harbour hundreds of yachts and launches gave a wide berth to the section of the smooth water which had been chosen by experts as an ideal runway for tho Southern Cross Clipper.

"By Aileron

Clipper Ship! A truly appropriate name for the multi-engined craft that slipped as surely through the air as the tall ships bound for Australia for wool and wheat, and for the East for tea and silk, did in their own element 70 years before. Stately names had been chosen for the ocean greyhounds —■ Thermopylae, Cutty Sark, Lightning, Taeping. Their modern counterparts ivero Brazilian Clipper, China Clipper, and now, Southern Cross Clipper, a graceful compliment to the ships of old and to New Zealand.

As he mused on the changes of the last half-century, the watcher's mind was irresistably drawn to one of the favourite books of his boyhood, "Clipper of the Clouds," by tho Frenchman whose imagination had proved 6o accurately prophetic. Jules Verne's story was proving real that day; the Clipper of the Clouds was coming nearer at a speed of more than 150 miles an hour. A dull roar from the westward caused the young man to glance quickly in that direction. Not tho Clipper, but three lean fighting machines, in V formation, on their way over from the military aerodrome to land .at the commercial airport. As they swept over at 3000 feet, comparatively silent for all the power of their big radial motors, he contrasted their grim purpose with that of the still invisible ftying-boat. The binoculars swept the horizon, and then checked suddenly. High in the northern sky was a slim shadow, yet not a shadow, for it grew more and more distinct with every passing second. The great wing that held aloft the 50,0001b. of the latest of the Pan American fleet, swiftly took shape, and the young man gazed in awe as the proud Clipper swept on. Faintly he could hear the roar of the powerful motors that tirelessly drove the ship toward her destination. Their song was as clear as when it had heralded the take-off from San Francisco, yet since then they had carried the Clipper, with her passengers and crew, across 6000 miles of treacherous ocean. The Southern Cross Clipper was nearer now. The binoculars were set aside, and with his eyes the young man followed the graceful flight. Floating as easily as a gull, and as startlingly white against the blue of the sky as is the flash of a seabird's wing against the ocean's colours, the great ship was gliding down to the surface of the Waitemata. The thunder of her exhausts had died, and the watcher imagined he could hear the thin whine of the slow-moving airscrews. Down in a long, flat glide, and no longer in need of the homing device that has made ocean flying safe for commercial services, the big ship seemed loath to leave the air. Skimming only a few feet above the surface, she merged gradually with her own flying shadow, and the blue of the harbour creamed under the curved hull as it brushed the water. Leaving an ever-widening wake, the Clipper rapidly lost speed, and at last she floated, like a mighty albatross, her long flight over.