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[[Newspaper Clipping]] POST New York City JUN 28 1939 Ocean Clipper Hops With 22 Passangers [[Line]] Port Washington Makes Departure a Holiday Event-Trip Realizes Dream of Many Years [[Line]] By a Staff Correspondent PORT WASHINGTON, L. I., June 28. -A roar of motors, a long whip of water, and the Dixie Clipper was off at 3:12 P. M. with twenty-two passengers on the world's first scheduled passenger flight across the North Atlantic. This Sound community had declared a holiday and half the population was at the waterfront to see the flying boat sweep 3,000 feet down Manhasset Bay and then lift swiftly into the air. The historic take-off marked culmination of a dream which aviation men have dreamed ever since Lindbergh hopped the Atlantic in his flimsy Spirit of St. Louis. It also marked victory for American aviation in its race to get ahead of England, France and Germany in a regular trans-Atlantic service. Got Reservation in 1931- Each of today's passengers had paid $375 to make the flight and most of them had reservations in for years. W. J. Eck, with reservation No. 1, had applied as far back as 1931. "And," said he just before he climbed into the 41-ton Pan American pane, "I've been calling them up every few months ever since- just to hurry them up." The passengers, arriving in Pan American buses, were escorted through the flag-draped village by motorcycle police and as they stepped out at the pier the men were presented with gardenias and the women with red roses, compliments of the local Chamber of Commerce. There are six women on the flight, including Mrs. Clara Adams of Maspeth, Queens, who proposes to go right on at the end of this trip and fly around the world. "I'm carrying woolen underwear with me," she confided. "That's just in case of any accident." The prize eighty-five-piece band of the Port Washington High School played as the passengers went on board. The voices of hundreds rose as the plane taxied out among the harbor craft for its power run. Many of the passengers were surprized at the last moment to learn that their cameras must be sealed throughout the trip to meet government requirements in the Azores and Portugal. [[Image]] Mr. Eck, who has made a number of other long-distance flights and who plans to come right back on the Dixie's return trip, explained his enthusiasm: "I like to go a long distance when I go and I can't get away from work very long." Mrs. Sherman Haight, 64 East Fifty-Fourth Street, was worried about the fifty-five-pound baggage limit. Crammed With Dresses "I plan to stay all summer in Europe and I'd hate to tell you how many dresses I've crammed into that bag." John M. Franklin, member of the Pan-American board, revealed that his wife and three children had sailed at noon on the liner Manhattan, adding: "I figure I'll pass them somewhere south of Fire Island." Port Washington, proud of its new importance as an international airport, sent official scrolls to the Mayors of Horta, Lisbon and Marseilles extending "cordial greeting on this momentous occasion." Carries 408 Pounds of Mail In addition to the passengers, the Dixie carried 408 pounds of mail. The embarkation introduced an entire new sort of travel formality. A bell sounded on the pier, signal for the eleven-man crew to march on board two abreast in rigid formation. Ten minutes later at 2:55 P. M., there were two strokes on the bell, and the passengers piled on. The Dixie took 3,400 gallons of gasoline in Baltimore, her maintenance port. She is powered with four engines, a total of 6,000 horsepower, and can reach 190 miles an hour. The flight will inaugurate regular transatlantic service and will link American, European and Asiatic air routes so that air travelers can henceforth circle the earth on scheduled planes in nineteen or less days. The four-engined Clipper will fly the southern route by way of Horta, in the Azores, and Lisbon, Portugal. It is scheduled to complete the ocean hop in twenty-two hours. The pioneer passengers are provided with all the comforts of home and club. Could Carry 74 Persons The Dixie, with its forty-one tons, is smaller by nearly half than the Santa Maria in which Columbus sailed in 1492 to discover America. The Santa Maria weighed 100 tons and carried fifty-two men. The Nina, forty tons, Columbus' smallest ship, carried only eighteen men. The Dixie, fully loaded is capable of carrying seventy-four. It took the Columbus caravel seventy days to cross the Atlantic. The Dixie is scheduled to reach Horta at 5 A. M. tomorrow and Lisbon at 1 P. M. It will stay overnight at Lisbon then on at 7 A. M. to Marseilles, where it is due eight hours later. Thus, though it will take forty-eight hours to reach Marseilles, it will actually cross the Atlantic in twenty-two hours. Today's pioneer passengers found it almost as cheap to go to Europe by air as if they had booked on a super ocean liner. The Dixie's flat $375 rate compares with a minimum first-class rate of $316 on the Queen Mary and the Normandie and $300 on the Conte de Savoia. Passenger No. 1 Dead The first perso nto make a reservation for the flight will not be on board. He was Will Rogers, the cowboy humorist, who was killed with Wiley Post in an Alaskan air crash in 1935, four years after he had made the reservation. His No. 1 place was given to W. J. Eck, assistant vice-president of the Southern Railway, Washington. Most of the other passengers today were air veterans. Several were aboard other Pan-Americal clippers which blazed trails over the Atlantic and Pacific. Two, Clara Adams of Maspeth, Queens, and Julius Rapoport of Allentown, Pa., planned to go on 23,000 miles around the world on regular passenger planes. Mrs. Adams, widow of a Pennsylvania tanning millionaire, has figured out her own routes and hopes "to break all records" by getting back in sixteen days. Public's First Flight Today's trip is historic only in the fact that it is the first time the public has been able to step up, plunk down the necessary cash and fly to Europe. They will travel a route already traversed fourteen times by her sister ships, the Yankee Clipper and Atlantic Clipper, in test flights. One passenger was on hand almost as soon as the sun was up. He refused to give his name, but was inquiring about train connections between Marseilles and Paris. The majority of the pioneers chose to arrive in the regular Pan-American bus, leaving the Chrysler Building at 12:45 P. M. The airboat will leave Marseilles for the return trip at 7 A. M. Sunday and is scheduled to arrive at Port Washington at 7 A. M. Tuesday. The Dixie is one of six Boeing ships purchased by Pan American for transocean service. [[Image: Like train time in Grand Central is the busy scene at the office of the Pan American Airways at the airport.]]
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