A Plane That Accidentally Circumnavigated the World (2014) | Hacker News Reader

A Plane That Accidentally Circumnavigated the World (2014)

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325 pointskenneth50 comments

I made a map that shows all the stops: https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?mid=1v33AaNDltEQmHGiP29...

Thank 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.

Thanks for pointing that out - fixed!

I think you missed that they went to New Caledonia on the way back?

New Caledonia is the "Nouméa" stop in the "Outbound" direction.

Seems to not be rendering correctly, then. I although I see "Nouméa" in the return trip, it renders as going directly from Auckland to Gladstone.

Ah, I missed that in the article. Fixed.

Give this man a cigar!

Similar 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)

>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-...

For 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.

Also An American Saga: Juan Trippe and his PanAm empire. Talks a lot about building Pacific refueling stops like at Wake.

Concern over the Pacific predates the 1930s.

Guano Islands Act, Cal Perry, Great White Fleet, Span-Am War.

I'm sure this exact article has already been posted.

"...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.

And 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

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

True.

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.

There is a full size mockup though: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_314_Clipper#Surviving_a...

"full size" doesn't include the wings, sadly - just the interior and main hull.

I 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.

Might be a missing qualifier. For sea planes, that appears to still be an impressive span.

Previous discussions: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10804868 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15537891

Have the movie rights been sold yet? I can totally see this movie in my head already.

Perfect for Tom Hanks.

With 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).

His character gets stuck by bad luck while trying to go somewhere and has to perform heroic acts to reach back home? Checks out!

That's what I was thinking after the first post. This is a movie I'd watch.

It'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

Wonderful 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.

FWIW, 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

Whatever 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.

The question isn't why they were phased out; it's why they existed in the first place.

They enabled aircraft to make fuel stops at undeveloped supply caches that happened to have a functioning seaport, but no long runway. This was necessary both because of the scarcity of paved runways at the time, and because the short ranges of the time necessitated multiple fuel stops in order to make long-haul journeys.

Once those necessities faded, both because of the build-out of airstrips worldwide (e.g. paved runways in Sri Lanka) and because of improving aircraft technology (no need to stop in Sumatra on the way from Java to Sri Lanka), there was no reason to go with an aircraft that couldn't land inland and had its aerodynamic properties constrained by the need for seaworthiness.

There'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.

Low 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.

Has 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-anyon...

I think passenger sea planes faded as airports were built and faster piston, later jet aircraft became available.

There are still some large sea planes used for fire fighting service and a few airworthy PBY Catalina's.

See

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadair_CL-415

and

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consolidated_PBY_Catalina

Catalina's were heavily used in WWII for scouting and rescue in the Pacific. There is a partial documentary of some guys flying a Catalina around the world which was cut short when they were forced to abandon it in Saudi Arabia.

Catalinas were also used during the war as part of the Australia-England air link, cross the Indian Ocean from Perth to Ceylon.

https://www.qantas.com/travel/airlines/history-catalinas/glo...

I had never heard of that route.

> The flying boats, travelling at about 200km/h, would take an average of 28 hours to complete the journey, but up to 32 hours nine minutes when winds were unfavorable.

Description of flying those was, they were docile but didn't have power assisted controls. Flying one for 30 hours in shifts even must have been brutal.

The 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

During ww2 thousands of new airports were built all over the world, including in very remote areas such as various pacific atolls where flying boats had been the only alternative pre-war. Once the war ended many of these became available for refueling stops, and as land-based aircraft often had a lower seat cost/distance as well as higher cruising speed they took over from flying boats.

> or for some other logistical reason

The development of a system of airports (+ new planes that could fly trans-oceanic flights without stop-overs in far-flung locations).

Fun fact, also the same plane(China Clipper) that Indiana Jones took in Raiders of the Lost Ark from San Francisco to the Philippines.

I'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-19...

There’s also a plane tales by Captain Nick from the APG that talks about the same trip http://airlinepilotguy.com/no-distant-lands/

That was a fascinating read. Thanks for sharing!

Came to say exactly that

The 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.

It 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

Oh, 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.

I agree

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