Seven-Hour Hop in Clipper RMA New Zealand
Jun 19, 2020 0:22:01 GMT 12
chinapilot, flyinkiwi, and 1 more like this
Post by Dave Homewood on Jun 19, 2020 0:22:01 GMT 12
Here's a first had account of flying across the Tasman Sea in a civilianised short Sunderland from the BAY OF PLENTY BEACON, dated 18 JULY 1947. Please overlook the racial language of the time, as the rest of the article is a great glimpse into the days of the flying boats.
SEVEN-HOUR HOP
FROM SYDNEY TO AUCKLAND
TRIP BY ‘CLIPPER’ PLANE
SPANNING THE TASMAN
Sydney on a cold, dark morning at 4.30 a.m., is scarcely vivid cosmopolitan centre which is so well known to visitors from all over the world. Her lights are dulled and her magnificent harbour glooms about her quays in great pools of eerie blackness. Passengers for the flying boat (a converted Sunderland) bound to New Zealand have been collected from all parts of the suburbs and wait about, yawning and muffled on the embarkation quay for the miracle which will whip them across the Tasman in the short space of seven hours.
All aboard! The tender launch has carried its last load to the clipper lolling lazily in Rose Bay waters. There are thirty all told, including five children and half a dozen Chinese who wear the proverbial inscrutability of the travelling celestial and gravely go exactly where they are pushed.
Juno Takes the Air
Now we are off! Tongues of pale blue flame leap from the four wing engines as R.M.A. New Zealand taxis stolidly up-harbour to the runway. Her full title is cumbersome and appeals not to the accommodating mind of the average Pig-Islander. Let us call her ‘Juno’ — not too bad for a modern queen of Acady! What do you think?
At any rate the ‘props’ roar in unison and Juno lumbering along at gathering momentum, flops lazily airward and we are airborne. We are in very truth modern travellers in a modern world, utilising the most modern of streamlined travelling.
The lights of Sydney recede in a fading galaxy of departing fairy land. We are bound for the velvet bank of the south head now just looming out of the darkness.
Routine of Flying
Passengers relax and the crew settle down to routine work. The bogey of ‘back-loading’ can no longer harass the mind of the traveller making for his homeland. He is actually on the way and it is just a little after 6 a.m. (Australian time) — or two hours earlier according to New Zealand standard. We have now time to take stock of our surroundings. Our ‘ship’ being of the ‘Clipper’ variety - sturdily built and her comfortably fitted cabin accommodation is spread snugly over two decks, where passengers recline at ease in roomy seats which simply invite relaxation. Moulded partitions give a privacy of cabin accommodation in which groups chat at their ease, smoke, read, or merely doze the languid hours away.
Break o’ Day
Dawn' breaks and the first level rays probe the darkness lighting the giant fuselage as the clipper dashes westward. The roomy ports glow with orange light and reveal a wilderness of cloud and leaden sea. In the growing day the waves appear as lilliputan ripples on a model lake—unreal and unmoving. Passengers stretch and yawn as though awakening from a normal sleep. Conversation flows, friendships are being made. The hostess, that charming young lassie in a neat blue uniform has already handed round copies of the ‘Sydney' Morning Herald’ and we have all digested the latest ‘tripe’ -on the ‘flying saucer’ bogey.
Breakfast in Air
From the pantry amidships steals the aroma of bacon and eggs, sizzling hot and appetising. Yes breakfast is served by the trayful, each passenger having an independent meal based on the English ideal of a ‘square’ repast.
Life belts! Yes, these are under the seats and mine hostess demonstrates their use smilingly, daintily, though we wonder how the ‘Chinks’ in the far cabin would get on if an emergency really developed. Never mind it is all a great experience and conversation buzzes happily as we take time by the forelock and stride across the sky homeward.
Sea of Putty
The sea is deep blue beneath a light curtain of lazy cloud. Fleckings like a litter of peanut shells dot its surface. White horses! What never!! And yet the skipper assures us that those crinkles on the putty surface below us are at least fifteen footers and that a nasty easterly is whipping their tops to foam. Nice to be above it all isn’t it!
Thoughts on the Past
Gazing down, one’s thoughts turn to the gallant little band of intrepid navigators who have braved the temperamental Pacific in order to investigate, to discover and to conquer. Abel Tasman, whose tiny bark tossed its stormy way across the Tasman from land to land in three weeks more than 400 years ago. The great circum-navigator Cook, whose humble birthplace is now to be seen in Melbourne’s Botanical Gardens moved brick by brick from his native Shropshire by the people of Australia’s second city as a gesture of love and admiration. Flinders, McQuarrie, Bass, La Perouse and a host of others leap into the mind as pioneers who battled with the tempests and made it possible for successive generations to ride stridently across the skies in a few hours, where their own hardy endeavours meant as many weeks of privation and anxiety. Gallant, gallant, little band of brave pioneer-mariners.
Captain and Crew
Juno is a well-mannered craft according to her skipper—six-footer ex Air Force, P. Le Conteur, who did the honours handsomely by initiating a lone journalist into the mysteries of navigation and control. Here in front of the wide glassed windscreen, in the nose of the flying boat, surrounded by a maze of gauges, discs, indicators and instruments the very pulse of Juno’s flying system is controlled and supervised. Pilot and co-pilot, watchful and alert, checking, cross-checking as the navigator continuously takes and plots the ship’s bearings.
What a difference from the dreamy atmosphere of the passengers cabins, where careless relaxation is the rule and where the youngsters are now proceeding to explore the craft and to worry weary old men whose only wish is to doze, and doze and doze.
One is minded of the verse:—
‘Behold the happy moron—
He doesn’t give a damn
I wish I were a moron
My God—Perhaps I am!’
A Tranquil Atmosphere
Everyone, apparently is happy nevertheless and the steward has a busy time of it attending to those who need a little liquid stimulant, cigarettes or perhaps plain orange juice.
The Chinese are fast asleep dreaming of the mythical dragon which appeared to their ancestors in the first oriental dawn. Even the best efforts of a small boy with a trumpet placed alarmingly close to their fleshly celestial ears fails completely to arouse them—the Orient sleeps peacefully on surrounded by an eternal atmosphere of fruit shops and vegetable gardens.
We are well past the halfway mark. The sea is shining silver and blue almost a perfect reflection of the sky. Juno roars her way forward with a hoarse laugh of triumph.
Appetising Menu
Dinner is served. Take your choice from the tempting menu, steak, ham salad, poultry, vegetables and for sweets —preserved fruits, jam tart and ice cream. Sufficient to tempt the most languid and to keep steward and stewardess busy for the next two hours. Even our friends from China appear to revel in the fare.
Weather Ahead
Weather thickening ahead. Must be those N.Z. blues the Sydneyites talk about so much. We are due to splash in the Waitemata at 3.30 p.m. crossing in 7½ hours — but don’t forget the two hour lag which must be deducted in this reckoning. A solid cloud wrack forms up ahead blotting out the sea and we leave the lazy white castles behind to fly steadily towards a darkening horizon. Somewhere behind that mass of black cloud lies New Zealand. Why must it be swallowed up in storm. Juno breaks her way through the leaden husks like an irresistible monster of the heavens brushing away like gossamer the tentacles of the sky-wraith.
Land Ho!
We are now bumping along happily through storm and rain. There is an occasional flash of lightning for variety. Suddenly on the port side a long dreary stretch of rain-soaked coast-line — can this be the beloved home land? Yes it is a section of the Kaipara coast, bleak dull, and forbidding. Only a partial glimpse, and then it is blotted out again in the snowy cloud mantle which envelops the plane. How will we make the Waitemata in this fog? That is the main question, but the seasoned hands smile reassuringly. It is impossible to tell where we are. But Juno is circling steadily, and losing height. Her props cease to pull, and whirl round restlessly as a break to her swift descent. Faintly ahead, a dull green headland appears, then the smudged outline of a ship at anchor. There is a splash and a simultaneous series of thuds as we come slowly to rest on the choppy waters. What surely this is not Mechanic’s Bay? Just as surely it is, and there ahead is the jetty, with a cluster of friends braving the elements to bid us welcome. Good old Juno. She’s done it again!
