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A Plane That Accidentally Circumnavigated the World (2014)
- Twirrim 8y agoThat was a fascinating read. Thanks for sharing!
- toss1 8y agoCame to say exactly that
- lisper 8y agoThe way to do this on HN is simply to upvote the story. Comments should be substantive. Otherwise we'd be overrun by "me to" comments.
- rocqua 8y agoI agree /s
- toss1 8y agoIt was so good I thought I'd make an exception and do both Most downvotes I've ever gotten on any comment, iirc. Thank you for the explanation, tho. It's sure be nicer here if people would do that instead of just drive-by downvoting someone for being a bit over-enthusiastic
- lisper 8y agoOh, it's definitely OK to explain a downvote. In fact, it's little bit rude to downvote without giving an explanation. But a comment that says nothing but "What a great article!" just invites an endless chain of "Yeah, I thought so too", "Me too", "Me three" comments. Soon HN would become indistinguishable from Reddit.
- ocdtrekkie 8y agoHave the movie rights been sold yet? I can totally see this movie in my head already.
- corywright 8y agoPerfect for Tom Hanks.
- princekolt 8y agoHis character gets stuck by bad luck while trying to go somewhere and has to perform heroic acts to reach back home? Checks out!
- dahauns 8y agoWith Ron Howard directing. And Ed Harris as Jack Poindexter, the veteran radio officer, already retired from field service, volunteering for one last trip (and telling his wife on the phone he'll be late for dinner).
- Grangar 8y agoThat's what I was thinking after the first post. This is a movie I'd watch.
- 8_hours_ago 8y agoPrevious discussions: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10804868 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10804868 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15537891 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15537891
- alexhutcheson 8y agoI made a map that shows all the stops: https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?mid=1v33AaNDltEQmHGiP29YHB74qDMw&ll=2.5211563821917347%2C83.94117359999996&z=2 https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?mid=1v33AaNDltEQmHGiP29...
- 205guy 8y agoThank 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.
- alexhutcheson 8y agoThanks for pointing that out - fixed!
- isostatic 8y agoI think you missed that they went to New Caledonia on the way back?
- alexhutcheson 8y agoNew Caledonia is the "Nouméa" stop in the "Outbound" direction.
- hermitdev 8y agoSeems to not be rendering correctly, then. I although I see "Nouméa" in the return trip, it renders as going directly from Auckland to Gladstone.
- alexhutcheson 8y agoAh, I missed that in the article. Fixed.
- esaym 8y agoSimilar 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 in the Pacific. They used the consumer travel market and Pan Am as an excuse to built bases and refueling networks all across the Pacific. Quite good foresight that certainly helped out once WWII broke out. (there's another book with these details but I can't remember the name of it)
- rb808 8y ago>They used the consumer travel market and Pan Am as an excuse to built bases and refueling networks all across the Pacific Lol that's funny when you read about China building a cruise ship wharf in Vanuatu a few weeks back. No its not for military use at all. :) https://www.cnn.com/2018/04/10/asia/vanuatu-china-australia-intl/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2018/04/10/asia/vanuatu-china-australia-...
- dredmorbius 8y agoConcern over the Pacific predates the 1930s. Guano Islands Act, Cal Perry, Great White Fleet, Span-Am War.
- protomyth 8y agoFor an early history of Pan Am and the Pacific check "China Clipper: The Age of the Great Flying Boats" by Robert Gandt. It’s second half is pretty much Pan Am only.
- ghaff 8y agoAlso An American Saga: Juan Trippe and his PanAm empire. Talks a lot about building Pacific refueling stops like at Wake.
- baud147258 8y agoI'm sure this exact article has already been posted.
- tlb 8y ago"...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.
- ansible 8y agoTrue. 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.
- NegativeLatency 8y agoThere is a full size mockup though: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_314_Clipper#Surviving_aircraft https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_314_Clipper#Surviving_a...
- gambiting 8y ago"full size" doesn't include the wings, sadly - just the interior and main hull.
- perl4ever 8y agoI had the general impression B-52s were some of the largest airplanes as well, but when I looked up the stats on Wikipedia it turned out they are quite a bit smaller than large passenger/cargo jets today.
- dexen 8y agoAnd then there's the Convair B-36 Peacemaker, with 230ft (~70m) wingspan. The last major piston-engind heavy bomber, design was started in 1941, put in service in 1949, and retired in 1959. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convair_B-36_Peacemaker https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convair_B-36_Peacemaker The plane's also notable for having been one of very few operational flying aircraft carrier types - able to carry https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonnell_XF-85_Goblin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonnell_XF-85_Goblin
- clon 8y agoWonderful 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.
- sehugg 8y agoFWIW, Apollo astronauts used "over" and "out" independently (never in conjunction) which is still the protocol for maritime radio: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Procedure_word https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Procedure_word
- elihu 8y agoWhatever 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.
- hudibras 8y agoThe Japanese navy operates the US-2 for search and rescue. Its wingspan is smaller and its maximum range is less than the Pan Am Clippers, but can carry more weight and is much faster. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ShinMaywa_US-2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ShinMaywa_US-2
- sjm-lbm 8y agoThere's probabally other limitations, but as I understand it one of the limiting factors is takeoff and landing speed. Even on a good day and in a still harbor, water is pretty bumpy, which means you need to be out of it at a pretty low speed. This leads to all sorts of tradeoffs elsewhere in the airplane design (mostly, again - as I understand it, in wing design) that hamper the airplane in other ways. In the end, it's more practical to deal with the problem of finding an airport (after all, there are a lot of airports) than to solve the other problems of making a large sea plane.
- Gibbon1 8y agoLow take off speed means you need a lower wing loading and that limits your max speed and ultimate range. Perversely higher landing speeds are safer to boot. Also read an interview with a pilot that flew Clippers. He said maintence was nightmarish due to salt water. And also being able to land in water sounds good until you factor in weather and the need to eventually dock.
- Asooka 8y agoHas anyone experimented with hydrofoils to take the plane out of the water and have a higher take-off speed? Edit: answering my own question https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/24526/has-anyone-considered-putting-a-hydrofoil-on-a-sea-plane?utm_medium=organic&utm_source=google_rich_qa&utm_campaign=google_rich_qa https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/24526/has-anyon...
- WellMeaning 8y agohttps://m.imgur.com/gallery/YYHjrdR https://m.imgur.com/gallery/YYHjrdR
- peterburkimsher 8y agoIt's a long, but exhilarating read. My grandpa told stories of his wartime flying experience, including stealing a plane to go to a party at another RAF base where Clark Gable was attending. Some things sound exaggerated, but it's an impressive story nonetheless. I'd really like to see it turned into a film. Wikipedia says the registration was NC-18609(A), not NC18602 as in the article. I also noticed that the photo of the first ever Boeing 314 shows registration NC18601, which would make 18602 the second model ever built. Can anyone confirm which registration number is correct? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Clipper https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Clipper
- thedrbrian 8y agoThere’s also a plane tales by Captain Nick from the APG that talks about the same trip http://airlinepilotguy.com/no-distant-lands/ http://airlinepilotguy.com/no-distant-lands/
- overcast 8y agoFun fact, also the same plane(China Clipper) that Indiana Jones took in Raiders of the Lost Ark from San Francisco to the Philippines.
- imglorp 8y agoI'll also link my favorite podcast who just did a piece on this. They probably have some different details and anecdotes than OP article. https://www.futilitycloset.com/2018/04/16/podcast-episode-196-the-long-way-home/ https://www.futilitycloset.com/2018/04/16/podcast-episode-19...