Super Clippers for Pan Am (1938)

It seems to be the Boeing Model 326 from 1937. A "Super Cliper" design for Pan American

Contenders from:
Consolidated
Douglas
Seversky
Sikorsky


Boeing Model 326 data

100 passengers over 8000 Km
Lenght: 59,4 m
Span: 76,2 m
Max weight: 118 t
Vmax: 454 Km/h

The engines required (2300 hp) were inexistent when the design was conceived-

Source:

http://www.secretprojects.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,4619.msg36496.html#msg36496

Sentinel Chicken posted that links about the Seversky Super Cliper design

http://www.airlinebuzz.com/forums/blog.php?b=16

Cheers,

Antonio
 
Hesham,

following your path found that beauty from Martin:

http://www.flightglobal.com/pdfarchive/view/1942/1942%20-%201851.html
 
Thank you my dear Pometablava very much,

and about Martin project,we discused this before here;
http://www.secretprojects.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,2346.0/highlight,martin+project.html
 
About the same competition, there was an article in InterAvia 5/1952, showing
the Boeing and a competing Consolidated design :
 

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Hi!
Just have found some more info on Boeing Model 326 in "Air International" on July 1986
and an unspecified Consolidated flying boat submitted to meet the same PanAm's "Lindberg specification"
Note a different rear portion of the hull.
Does anybody know the correct model number of the Consolidated machine?
 

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These pages from flight global seem to fit in with this topic, hope they are of interest.

Regards Bailey
 

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pometablava said:
It seems to be the Boeing Model 326 from 1937. A "Super Cliper" design for Pan American

Contenders from:
Consolidated
Douglas
Seversky
Sikorsky


Boeing Model 326 data

100 passengers over 8000 Km
Lenght: 59,4 m
Span: 76,2 m
Max weight: 118 t
Vmax: 454 Km/h

The engines required (2300 hp) were inexistent when the design was conceived-

Source:

http://www.secretprojects.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,4619.msg36496.html#msg36496

Sentinel Chicken posted that links about the Seversky Super Cliper design

http://www.airlinebuzz.com/forums/blog.php?b=16

Cheers,

Antonio

I think the Sikorsky contender design was S-45;

http://www.secretprojects.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,3243.0/highlight,sikorsky+s-45.html
 
Yes it was. The S-45 was the most graceful of the lot, and if built, would have most certainly outclassed all other similar aircraft. But unfortunately the flying-boat's days were over...
 
Stargazer, can you give your source about 'S-45' please..
 
Alas... in 1998 I started my very first aviation website. It was devoted to Sikorsky (I only had time to do the flying-boats)... Somehow it is still online after I salvaged some of the files... http://sikorsky.online.fr/
Unfortunately, some files disappeared, and the S-45 (a different picture from the one on this forum) was one of them. And as some of you know already, I lost 3/4 of my original files a couple of years ago in a computer crashdown, so I can't even go back to the originals...
 
Weren't all of these unfeasible "Super Clippers" the result of Juan Trippe's (Pan American World Airways Inc) machinations to ensure his monopoly on US overseas passenger and mail rights for a longer period?

Wasn't the Latécoère 631 hexamotor flying boat considered the maximum a manufacturer could go to and the maximum an airline could operate without getting into ridiculous territory?

Terry (Caravellarella)
 
A couple of color arts of the Consolidated submission. BTW, in that time-period Consolidated had more than one 100-pax flying boats on the drawing board (one of the ther is the one whose transparency is pictured in the Jens' post). More on this in a while.
These come from SDAM.
 

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Second design for a 100-pax transoceanic liner from Consolidated, early 1938. The transparency view is the same posted by Jens (this is s clearer).
 

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Only during WWII there was engines of 2300 Hp class ( the Allison engines , i suppose it for conformation of wings ), as concept plane the Super Clipper was advanced in 1938 !
 
One liner concepts from Consolidated used two engine coupled to a single angled transmission. More on this later.
 
Internal arrangement of the official Consolidated proposal. Drawing date is 12th January 1938.
 

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Now things get really interesting. To my knowledge, no hints of this third Consolidated concept for the 100-pax transoceanic liner RFP by PanAm ever surfaced. Back then seems was classified by the military (the brochure cover has a "declasified" stamp, while the brochure of the other two has none of this). Don't know it is was classified because it was shelved for later or the reverse. Anyway, it marks a turn from the traditional Consolidated boatplane paradigm, in favour of a seaplane with floats. Engines are Allison 3420s. Relevant dimensions can be inferred from the 3-view. This come from SDAM, too. Drawings are from January 1938.
 

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Jemiba said:
About the same competition, there was an article in InterAvia 5/1952, showing
the Boeing and a competing Consolidated design :

Also from Flightglobal;

http://www.flightglobal.com/pdfarchive/view/1939/1939%20-%201253.html
 

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By coincidence, recently bought a copy of the November 1942 Air Aces on e-bay; pp. 42 et. seq. has an article titled "Modeling for Uncle Sam," and tells how to apply for federal employment as a wind tunnel model maker. P. 42 has an image of what appears to be the Consolidated design...
 

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Nice find! Little did the guy in the picture know that the days of the flying boat were just about over...
 
11/1/10 caravellaria: monopolist Trippe. He did establish the carrier as an "Instrument" of foreign policy; he did choose marine ops, in part due to the dearth of concrete, in part because the Anglo world-wide presence was on littorals (we had left dark Africa to the French, darkest to the Belgians). But...Trippe's+any others' business volume would be modest, fleet sizes small. Military R&D/Production Investment funding would be needed, from which a dozen or so airline deliveries might be sustainable at market. The reported price which UK paid (not Lend/Lease) for 3 Boeing 314A Clippers (XB-15 wing) for BOAC in 1941 was $1Mn. each - which was a lot! So all these magnificent schemes would have needed access to the funding that actually went to Consolidated PB2Y-3B Coronado, Martin PBM-3B Mariner and (XPB2M) JRM-1 Mars (in UK, Short/Saro S.35 Shetland). US duplicated its transport gigantosaurii from 1940 with landplanes Consolidated XC-99, Lockheed XRO-6 Constitution, and the original 6-pack Boeing 377 Stratocruiser and Douglas XC-74...but the concept was not to sink 'boats, but to haul military loads heedless of economics, in the absence of en route land or marine ports.

The game was changed by the landbase chains actually secured, and the cascades of C-54 (DC-4)/C-69 (L-049), superlative medium-range, evolving as (generally) reliable longer-range machines which could be operated at tolerable seat/freight rates. As late as 1948 British S American Airways was still planning to unload its interim landplane Avro Tudors for its bespoke, pseudo-Clipper Saro SR.45 Princess. That had been funded in May,1946 as joint civil, BSAAC, 3 ordered (4 more added early 1948 for BOAC)/military to an RAF Coastal Command MR Requirement, to be (R.2/48)R.112D, put out to tender in 1948 for 80 of them. Bids all paid homage, I submit, to schemes in this post: Blackburn B-78, Short P.D.2, Vickers-Supermarine T.524; the winner Saro P.162 was not cancelled until 1955. Flying boats were throttled not only by strips of concrete: enhanced landplane engine reliability/economy was a prime factor, and that was not evident much before 1954 (Stratocruisers shedding props, B-29 powerplant inflammability as Japan's Secret Weapon).
 
You analysis is true, but one may add the synergies (vicious cycles, you may define them) between the idea that transatlantic transports had to offer passenger luxurious settings, and included sleeping and dining accomodations due to low cruise speed, and plane size. Then airlines started to think of lowering the price per seat, and this meant more passenger per flight, which in turn meant gigantic aircrafts and seaplanes. In part that stemmed from the idea that post-war would bring a huge increase in traffic, that failed to materialise. When, after Korea, the traffic started actually to pick-up, it was jet-time and the synergies worked in reverse: more speedy transfers meant high-density seating, decreased cost-per-passenger/miles, etc. If you look at the interior arrangement of projected airliners before and after 1950, the transition is abrupt.
 
AGM-48: abrupt: exact. see: Brabazon Committee funding, 3/43 for a transatlantic Blue Riband Queen, 52 sleepers. T.167 Brabazon Mk.II rejected by BOAC, 14/3/51; prototype offered to BEAC free in 1952 to shuttle 180 pax London-Paris, rejected as revenue p.seat would not cover variable operating cost.
 
Hi,

a Sikorsky artist drawing for eight-engined Clipper flying
boat.

http://books.google.com.eg/books?id=FaGGXEfXTCYC&pg=PA5&dq=sikorsky+CLIPPER&hl=ar&ei=pWArTIHrF5n8sQa1jZG3Cw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4&ved=0CDQQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=sikorsky%20CLIPPER&f=true
 

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Very different from what I can remember of the S-45 model, which looked a lot more conventional.
 
Yes, well ..... the project watched on Boy's Lifew have 8 engines for 7000 Hp (then 825 Hp for engine)
 
In my humble opinion , this is only a good exercise in drawing
fantasy aircraft and in so doing the artist made a perfect illustration
for the purpose of firing the imagination of boys back in the mid 30's.

Only the front part of the 'boat' resembles a bit the S-42...
 

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Splendid pics, nowhere near as attractive as the Martin or Sikorsky designs, but very nice nonetheless.
 
Hi,


I can't ID those two projects,specially they spoke a bout Douglas 600-seat transocean
flying boat project in the article,and maybe they related to this contest,who can help ?.


http://alternathistory.org.ua/letayushchaya-lodka-budushchego
 

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hesham said:
I can't ID those two projects,specially they spoke a bout Douglas 600-seat transocean
flying boat project in the article,and maybe they related to this contest,who can help ?.

The first design is quite obviously Martin's Russian Clipper (with a couple of minor differences).
The second design is very possibly Douglas... Compare its shape and triple fin with that of the contemporary DC-4...
 
Thank you Skyblazer,


but was that a Douglas 600-seat project or they meant anther design ?.
 
The article says that the first aircraft is Martin M-130 "China Clipper" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_Clipper). The second one is credited as Douglas 600 passenger seaplane.
 
I'm really curious about the last plane in that picture. What kind of 6 engine land plane was Douglas dreaming up for Pan Am?
 

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