Pan American Down Under

There is still no way to get from California to China on a scheduled airline, but after three years of exploration and exploitation, Pan American Airways promises there will be April 21 when regular service is started on its 690-1111. hop from Manila to Hongkong. Meantime, last week the ship that is going to make this run was 9,000 mi. away in the Antipodes making the first test flight over Pan American's second great transpacific venture, the 7,000 mi. airway from California to New Zealand.

Three years ago, when Pan American started to lay out the China line, a small cutter steamed quietly out of Honolulu, headed for the South Seas with a crew of aviation experts. Months later they were back with reams of preliminary data about weather, harbors, landing bases. Still no mention was made of any airline project, for in New Zealand Pan American's representative, Harold Gatty, the quiet Australian who flew around the world with Wiley Post (TIME, July 6, 1931), was engaged in the ticklish job of persuading that British Dominion to give landing rights to Pan American. New Zealand did not see why the U. S. should not grant her reciprocal rights. These have not been granted, but three weeks ago New Zealand capitulated, gave Pan American exclusive permission to fly into New Zealand from the U. S. Immediately the world's No. i airline swung its efficient organization into action.

Up from San Francisco climbed a brand new Sikorsky S-42B flying boat named the Pan American Clipper after the sister ship which made the tests on the central Pacific service. In command as always when Pan American starts a new project was its taciturn senior pilot, Captain Edwin C. Musick. With a six-man crew he buzzed uneventfully to Honolulu, slowing down to let Amelia Earhart pass undisturbed. From Honolulu, few days after Miss Earhart crashed (TIME. March 29), Capt. Musick again soared into the sky. this time turned southwest and faced the world's most ticklish navigation problem-- that of finding a speck of land 120 ft. long, 90 ft. wide, and only three feet high, which no plane had ever seen. This tiny spot is Kingman Reef, discovered some 80 years ago by Captain John Kingman of the U. S. schooner Shooting Star. Other ships occasionally spotted it afar, but not until 1921 was it officially recorded by the U. S. S. Eagle.

In 1925 one W. G. Anderson planted three cocoanut palms there and the U. S. Geographical Survey finally put it on charts, but not until transoceanic aviation suddenly zoomed into commercial and military importance in 1935 did the U. S. formally claim jurisdiction over Kingman Reef. Some 1,100 miles from Honolulu, this coral atoll is part of the Territory of Hawaii, is in the exact geographical centre of the Pacific. Its five-mile horseshoe is awash at high-tide except for one patch of sand. But the barrier breaks the combers, provides a quiet lagoon which is a mid-ocean lake, perfect for a plane base. There Pan American's six-man shore-crew has set up a cottage under the three palms. In the lagoon lies the 6,000-ton S. S. Northwind, with a radio direction finder and a 35-man airport staff which laid out a runway channel with green and red buoys. Last week, eight hours after leaving Honolulu, having flown some 500 ft. over the sea at 140 m.p.h., the Pan American Clipper hit Kingman Reef right on the nose, lit on the light green waters of the lagoon, which, reported Capt. Musick, "stood out in sharp contrast to the dark indigo of the surrounding sea."

Next day the Clipper again buzzed southwest. This time Capt. Musick chose to fly at 8,000 ft., crossed the Equator and swept down after ten hours in the air to the "South Pacific's finest harbor," the boot-shaped bay of Pago-Pago (pronounced pango-pango) on the island of Tutuila in American Samoa. Some 1,600 miles from Kingman, American Samoa is a cluster of six islands, inhabited by 300 whites and 10,000 Polynesians who used to eat each other. Tutuila is the largest island, 16 miles long, crowned with the lush, 2,000-ft. peak of a mountain called "The Rainmaker." There three months ago a Pan American airport crew set up a base, installed a direction finder in an abandoned mission. Ever since, the natives have been in a dither. Last week, as the Clipper creased the smooth waters of the bay, outrigger canoes and praus by the score shot from the beach, full of kanakas in loin cloths and laughing, broad-faced vahinis in red Mother Hubbards. They clustered so thickly as to impede the big flying boat to the exasperation of Edwin Musick, for whom savage breasts have little charm and who hates anything out of routine.

Delayed by a sudden storm, the Clipper's, crew spent three days making surveys of Samoa, finally got away for the test leg of the trip, the 1,800-mi. hop to Auckland, New Zealand, where the new line will tie up with a service Imperial Airways is soon to start from Australia across the 1,360 mi. Tasman Sea. This week the Clipper starts back to Honolulu and thence to Manila. Other planes will take up the testing of the new route, which thorough Pan American will probably fly for at least six months before beginning scheduled four-day service to the fourth best U. S. customer. New Zealand-Australia trade with the U. S. now amounts to $10,000,000 a month. Quickest steamship passage is 19 days.

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