Category: Aviation History

Picture the scene: New York, 1938. A giant flying boat with four radial engines is being loaded not just with fuel, but with enough fuel to make the entire crossing to Europe — and then some. Because the plan isn’t simply to cross the Atlantic. The plan is to prove it can be done nonstop…

Picture the scene: November 1935, Alameda, California. A giant flying boat sits in the water, its four radial engines ticking over, its hull gleaming. A small crowd watches as the China Clipper lifts off and points its nose west. Nobody aboard knows for certain that they’ll make it. The Pacific Ocean had never been crossed…