Good Morning, Oppo

"ttyymmnn" (ttyymmnn) 05/12/2020 at 09:05 • Filed to: good morning oppo

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Have some Golden Age with your Golden Grahams.

Pan Am Boeing 314 Honolulu Clipper and some GMC Jimmys. Jimmies?

For a good sense of scale, check out the guy on top of the plane.

TheRealBicycleBuck > ttyymmnn 05/12/2020 at 09:28

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RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht > ttyymmnn 05/12/2020 at 09:45

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You sent me down a rabbit hole again.

The model of tractor that appeared on this postcard is a different type, but also with rubber-block tracks of a kind not too dissimilar to WWII tank production.

The one in your pic may be a Caterpillar of some kind - not sure about the one in mine, maybe Cletrac. The one thing that is clear: Pan Am used ordinary tracked tractors with road-capable tracks extensively as tugs for pulling out of the water. I guess wheeled tractors just didn’t have the traction needed, or occasional surface issues meant better safe than sorry.

Here’s another visible on the ramp, at Baltimore :

And here, in front of the hanger ( both from here ):

I believe both are Caterpillars of the type in your picture. Wouldn’t it be a find to stumble across one in Pan Am paint?

Then there’s this picture, included mostly just because:

I also spent some time looking at this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M2_High_Speed_Tractor

TheRealBicycleBuck > RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht 05/12/2020 at 09:50

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Those pictures really show how big that plane was. I’d love to have a chance to fly in one.

ttyymmnn > RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht 05/12/2020 at 09:50

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You’re welcome? I don’t know much about tractors, but I would imagine that in a wet environment that arrangement would work better than tires. You see, you look at the tractor in that postcard, and I look at the S-42. 

RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht > ttyymmnn 05/12/2020 at 10:14

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Apparently, this is a thing:

https://pan-american-clippers.fandom.com/wiki/Pan_American_Clippers_Wikia

And also this:

https://www.thepanammuseum.org/

ttyymmnn > RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht 05/12/2020 at 10:16

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Didn’t know that PA had a museum. Thanks!

RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht > ttyymmnn 05/12/2020 at 10:17

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It’s a contrarian thing, partly . “AHA! He mentioned the trucks and the 314, but he didn’t say a thing about... are those rubber block tracks?”

XJDano > ttyymmnn 05/12/2020 at 11:04

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That is one heck of a railroad bridge. 

SBA Thanks You For All The Fish > ttyymmnn 05/12/2020 at 11:09

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Yeah, I didn’t know either.  This collection used to be in a dank hallway in the basement of what USED to be the Pan Am Terminal at JFK.  Nice to see they got an upgrade and some more space.

ttyymmnn > XJDano 05/12/2020 at 11:11

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Pretty sure that’s the original Oakland Bay Bridge. It goes across Yerba Buena Island, and Pan Am’s seaplane base was on the manmade  Treasure Island to the north. 

ttyymmnn > SBA Thanks You For All The Fish 05/12/2020 at 11:12

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Funny how “dank” has come to mean something entirely different in the Internet age.

SBA Thanks You For All The Fish > ttyymmnn 05/12/2020 at 11:17

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Heh, since you are my Zen Master of Obscure Aviation tidbits... have you ever gone down the Rabbit Hole of The Weatherships?

I used to wonder about a one-off reference in Dr. Strangelove dialogue. The B-52 piloted by Major Kong (Slim Pickens) is hit and they are talking about their ditching options... The navigator mentions a “Weathership” as a possibility.

So, I recently wandered off into the neverland of our network of “weather ships” and their role in assisting aircraft that had to ditch at sea.  It turns out that long-distance aviation used to be so unreliable that aircraft ditched at sea.  A lot.  Apparently the were stationed along the routes of Pan Am flights.  Just in case.  And, “in case” happened more often that we’d ever be comfortable with these days.

ttyymmnn > SBA Thanks You For All The Fish 05/12/2020 at 11:34

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I’ve never written about them, but I know about them. Must have been a pretty boring station. Until something bad happened.

Pan Am Flight 6

SBA Thanks You For All The Fish > ttyymmnn 05/12/2020 at 11:36

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Speaking of which, I bought a copy of this image (excuse THEIR mark, but like most purveyors I don’t believe they own it either... they just sell prints) awhile back. and, I was certain this was a bona fide Pan Am Clipper flying the Pacific routes. EXCEPT, it’s a Sikorsky S-42 and although it was spec’d to fly the Pacific, it actually never was flown on Pacific revenue routes. So, I don’t know if this was a press photo or what. It was sold as being a “1931" era photo... but the S-42 didn’t fly until late in that year. And seems unlikely to have doing pressers in SF when it was being tested off Connecticut.

Other weird stuff, which would place the date better, include the partially finished Oakland-Bay Bridge. And, the oddity of the still intact Berkeley Pier far in the background. Which, for reasons unclear to me, stretches MILES out into the bay from the wharfside at the bottom of University Ave in Berkeley. It was a crazy long structure. It’s still there, abandoned, by far shorter in the modern era. I have no idea why it needed to be so long.

Oh, another oddity.  Treasure Island isn’t even dredged-and-built yet.  That work was started in 1936, so this is somewhere between late 1931 and early 1936.

SBA Thanks You For All The Fish > ttyymmnn 05/12/2020 at 11:39

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Yeah, it would be hard to contemplate a more boring sea assignment. I don’t even know if they patrolled segments of the air routes or what.

Even navigation would have been tricky in bad weather.  No GPS, no INS.

XJDano > ttyymmnn 05/12/2020 at 12:11

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Sure enough.

I read Honolulu and thought Hawaii. I’m not aware of anything in CA as I haven’t been there. This is the bridge that part of it collapsed in ‘89 and they built a new one.

https://news.asce.org/ocea-project-finalists-the-san-francisco-oakland-bay-bridge-new-east-span/

St. Louis has a similar bridge, with an 30° bend in the middle called the Chain of Rocks Bridge. Was part of Route 66.

https://www.nps.gov/nr/travel/route66/chain_of_rocks_bridge_illinois_missouri.html

ttyymmnn > SBA Thanks You For All The Fish 05/12/2020 at 13:15

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According to Wiki, the S-42 didn’t take its maiden flight until 1934. Construction on the Bay Bridge started in 1933, and again, according to Wiki, an S-42 did fly from CA to HI to work out Pacific routes in 1935. And this plane certainly looks factory fresh. So I would place this photo in 1935, possibly 1934. Wiki also has this photo of the Bay Bridge dated 1935, showing about the same amount of completion of the bridge as in your photo. 

fintail > ttyymmnn 05/12/2020 at 13:20

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The GMCs were sold as “Suburban” then I believe, this is the OG Suburban.

ttyymmnn > fintail 05/12/2020 at 13:24

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I did do a little digging, and was confused by GMC Suburban. 

SBA Thanks You For All The Fish > ttyymmnn 05/12/2020 at 13:58

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Interesting. yeah, read too much into this bit from the Wiki:

Pan American was the sole customer for the S-42. The S-42 Pan Am Clipper surveyed the route from the US West Coast to China, making the first survey flight from Alameda, California to Pearl Harbor, Hawaii in April 1935.[13] However, S-42 aircraft never flew revenue passenger service from California to Hawaii; trans-Pacific routes were served by the larger Martin M-130 and, later, Boeing 314 Clippers.

So, I’m wondering of this photo was taken during the Survey Flight?  That would be April 1935, then.

It’s fun to try to triangulate on the actual date, but I’d concur that 1935 seems likely. The Seller had it listed as “1931" but that’s clearly wrong.

f86sabre > ttyymmnn 05/12/2020 at 16:36

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The Clippers are high on my list of planes that I wish were still around. Lovely aircraft with so much history.