Clipper & Cavalier

Fling a necklace of rough-cut emeralds on a blue tablecloth and you have what Bermuda looks like from an airplane winging southeast from the U. S. 10,000 ft. above the Atlantic. Only 22 miles long, the looped chain of low coral isles seems a tiny target to hit from Manhattan 783 miles away. But at 10,000 ft. a pilot can see 50 miles on a clear day and so can still spot his goal even if he misses 'it by that great a navigational error. Last week, as a Pan American Airways plane soared casually down to Bermuda from the U. S. to make the first test flight for this long-touted airway, there was no such trouble.

The plane was the Bermuda Clipper, a new Sikorsky S-42B flying boat powered by four Hornet motors and flown by a crack crew of eight Pan American employes headed by Captain Harold E. Gray, veteran of the Pacific and South American runs. Trundling up from Pan American's temporary base at Port Washington, L. I. at 9:32 a. m., it skirted the coast to Atlantic City, then bored out over the ocean at 10,000 ft. above a fringe of clouds. With a 20-m.p.h. tail wind and guided by a direction finder at Bermuda, it hit its tiny target on the nose 4 hr. 45 min. later, slid to a landing in the azure waters of Hamilton Harbor beside the Imperial Airways base on Darrell's Island.

Meanwhile the Imperial Airways flying boat Cavalier, built by Short Brothers in England and powered by four Bristol .Pegasus motors, was reversing the route. Hampered by the winds which helped the Bermuda Clipper, it skimmed the waves at 1,000 ft., reached Port Washington in 5 hr. 49 min. after a brief detour to see the towers of Manhattan. The doggy blue uniform of the Cavalier's Captain William Neville Gumming, veteran of the trans-Mediterranean run, who stepped jauntily ashore carrying kid gloves at a rakish angle in his left hand (see cut, p. 52), brought quips from reporters, who asked if he had brought along a clean shirt. "Oh, I say," he replied, "I'm going back tomorrow."

Next day the Cavalier flew back to Bermuda and the Bermuda Clipper flew to Baltimore to test the transatlantic air base now abuilding there. Passenger service is promised this month. Round-trip fare will probably be about twice that of a steamer ticket ($70).

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