Great Wings

314 Clipper. Down the ways at the Boeing plant in Seattle fortnight ago the largest U. S. seaplane ever built slipped gently into the narrow Duwamish Waterway. The launching of the 41-ton, 4-motored Boeing 314 Clipper, destined one day to fly the oceans for Pan American Airways, relieved congestion at Boeing's, where there are under construction five more Clippers and the first Stratoliner, built like the Army's Flying Fortress, but equipped with a pressurized cabin.* Down the Duwamish tenders carefully nudged the great flying boat, nursed her sidewise through bridge spans narrower than her 152-foot wing spread, eventually moored her in Elliott Bay off Puget Sound.

Lightly ballasted, she wallowed tipsily in taxi tests, thrice dipped a wing in the water, twice had to be towed in. One glowering afternoon last week, her port mooring-ring snapped and the wind-tossed ship could not be held to her mooring. As far as Veteran P.A.A. Test Pilot Edmund Allen could see, there was only one thing to do. Starting his motors, he ordered the stern line off, and the Clipper started across the bay. She thundered for the open Sound off Duwamish Head, cleared the water once, settled back, rose anew, spindrift spuming from her hull step, wake boiling behind. At 80 miles she skimmed from the waves, into the air. Thirty-eight minutes later Pilot Allen brought her down in Seattle's sheltered Lake Washington. Said he, pleased as Punch: "She's a great ship . . . sweet as a peach."

DC-4. Same afternoon in Santa Monica, Calif., the biggest U. S. land plane ever built, Douglas Aircraft's 32 1/4-ton, 42-passenger DC-4 had its first trial flight. Day before it had been close to disaster, when one of its massive doughnut tires sprang a leak during ground tests.

This day all three tires of the new-fangled tricycle, or nosewheel, landing gear were firm./- DC-4 glistened in the sun, its four 1.400 horsepower motors thumping idly. In climbed Pilot Carl Cover. The great ship surged forward, took off in less than twelve seconds. On the ground, Douglas craftsmen threw their hats in the air, slapped each other on the back. In the air DC-4 stayed for an hour and a half, then landed gently where it had started.

For those who questioned whether DC-4 could, without radical changes in design, be equipped with a pressurized cabin like Boeing's Stratoliner, Douglas Engineer Arthur E. Raymond had the answer ready: "While it is possible to install a pressurized cabin on the DC-4, now being tested, there is nothing to be gained by doing so. ... All subsequent models will come out with that feature built in. Necessary additions ... do not change either the basic structure of the airplane or its interior arrangement.''

*Designed to maintain low altitude interior conditions in the substratosphere.

/- Designed to lessen landing hazards by allowing the plane to "fly right into the field" instead of settling in the ticklish "three-point" fashion of standard jobs.

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