#boeing 314

[gentlemensarts]

[vectors2final]

[crownedstoat]

LaGuardia Marine Terminal, Pan American Airways base. In NYC. Boeing 314 at the pier.

[guy60660]

Boeing 314

[redarmyscreaming]

Boeing 314 Clipper was an American long-range flying boat produced by Boeing from 1938 to 1941. One of the largest aircraft of its time, it had the range to cross the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. For its wing, Boeing re-used the design from the earlier XB-15 bomber prototype.

[anyskin]

Boeing Pan Am Honolulu Clipper Colorized by George Murphey

[historianatlarge]

What is the greatest aircraft ever designed?

You might not guess it, looking at the other questions I’ve answered, but this is the one that stumped me for a spell. Want to slow a historian down? Ask them absolute questions.

I started to debate what ‘greatest’ would mean for aviation, and got bogged down in what way I should take the questions. Should I go with the most literal definition, which would lead to a choice with the most whopping size? In that case, the Antonov An-225 holds the crown for sheer size, or I could go with the Hughes H-4 (I feel every time we say ‘Spruce Goose’, we do a disservice to Howard Hughes, so I try to avoid it) for being of that size in a far earlier era.

Do I go with military importance? There I could use anything from the Hawker Hurricane for being in the right place at the right time to save Britain, or either the Supermarine Spitfire or the Bf 109 for being such huge leaps forward with profound effects.

Or perhaps societal effect? In which case I could go with the Douglas DC-3 or the Lockheed Constellation, or the simply gorgeous Boeing 314 - aircraft that regularized and improved air travel, making the world a smaller, more accessible place in different ways.

Or perhaps just for sheer performance and its almost surreal beauty, the Lockheed SR-71? 

In other words, this is the sort of question that could keep a fellow up at night.

With everything taken into consideration, though, I’m going to have to go with the Wright Flyer that first took humanity into the skies via powered flight, in 1903. I do this for three reasons. First, this near-miracle was designed without any of the tools that designers would come to rely on, but with glimmerings of everything to come - the Wrights were meticulous and innovative, and their methods point the way to future successes. Secondly, and simply, it’s the first flight - it is genesis and thus their design is of special importance. It proves the concept, and paves the way for everything to come. Third, it still has lessons to teach us in modern times. The Wrights thought that control would be achieved in the future via wing-warping, where the wing itself physically changes. This has in recent years been investigated by bodies such as the US Air Force and NASA, and the idea of wings that physically adapt to different conditions to maximize performance may yet become something important to aviation. Putting everything else aside, I don’t think many designs can claim to be influential over a century later!

[dave-mech]

The Airplane That Shrank The World by markkarvon