![]() ![]() Although each engine generated over 500 horsepower, the Do-X was so big and heavy that it could barely climb to 1,600 feet for trips across the Atlantic.įourteen crew members controlled the behemoth from an upper-deck bridge that included an engine room befitting a steamship of the day. The Dornier Do-X had a wingspan of over 157 feet, was more than 130 feet long, and powered by 12 engines arranged in six “push-me, pull-you” pods over the wing. Ten years before Pan Am’s Boeing 314s crossed the Pacific, a massive flying boat staggered into the air over Lake Constance, Switzerland. Photo: Wikicommons | German Federal Archives |Georg Pahl Downstairs, in the all-first-class accommodations, there were passenger seating and sleeping compartments, a dining room/lounge, and restrooms. Upstairs on the 314 you would have found the cockpit, baggage hold, crew quarters and galley. (That route is now a 15-hour nonstop flight in a Boeing 777, with less space per passenger, but also without the roar of prop engines in your ear and the turbulence from flying under the weather.) Those flying on to Hong Kong would arrive six days after leaving San Francisco, after island-hopping across the Pacific. The 17-hour trip was flown at a blistering cruise speed of 125 mph, while passengers tolerated the thunder of four 1,600-hp Wright Cyclone radial piston engines. The 25 passengers per flight headed from San Francisco to Honolulu were pampered by four pursers on the luxurious lower deck of the Clipper. (Want to bring back that idea of not stuffing planes to the gills, airlines? We’re all for it.) It could carry as many as 74 passengers, but was configured for 40 or fewer for overnight flights. In service from 1939 to 1948 - and drafted into the US military during the war - the 314 had a cabin almost as wide as a 747’s. Oh, the romance of the Pan American Clippers, captured in exotic settings on the gorgeous travel posters of the 1930s! They were the archetype of the seaplanes that dominated long-haul air travel before and immediately after World War II.īoeing’s Model 314 flying boat was the ultimate in pre-World War II intercontinental travel. TPG climbed into the dusty hangar of aviation history to find out about two-floor aircraft: Some that pioneered international air travel, some that were one-of-a-kind and some you still can fly today.īoeing 314 flying boat, just off the water. (After that, we’ll be limited to double-decker trains, buses and sandwiches.)ĭouble-decker aircraft aren’t limited to those two icons, however. Airplanes fly for decades, and we’re going to see 747s and A380s ferrying people around the world well into the 2030s, if not beyond. And with the Boeing 747 essentially over as a passenger airliner, too, double-deckers are facing extinction. The A380 was too big for the market, regardless of what its biggest (and seemingly only remaining) fan among airline CEOs, Tim Clark of Emirates, says about it. Decked out in special colors, the airplane looked stunning, but it also carried a clear message: The era of giant double-deckers is over. This week marked a bittersweet moment for that rare breed of airliner, the double-decker: Airbus delivered an A380 to a new customer for what will likely be the last time. Written for The Points Guy – March 23, 2019 Breguet Br.763 “Deux Ponts” flying for Air France.
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