Fantastic Trippe

MM · September 30, 2017

Fantastic Trippe

Well, the boss says that we've got a great opportunity to serve the public and enhance our reputation. Michael Todd's swell new picture "Around the World in 80 Days" seems to have folks all excited about going abroad. Over 25 million have seen this record-breaking show-of-shows. And who is better placed to accommodate those desires than the "world's most experienced airline" Pan American. To give some variety to our customers, we'll mix in a chance to enjoy the history of the classic flying clipper ships, the Sikorsky S-42 or Martin M-130, the thrill of "flying the hump" in a Douglas DC-3 or Curtiss C-46, and naturally the speed and comfort of the world's most modern globe-spanning aircraft like the Douglas DC-6, the Lockheed Constellation and the Boeing Stratocruiser. All depending on fleet availability.

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"Getting there is all the fun. Every seat is first class and we have enough seats for everybody. This is the way to travel."

According to Mr. Trippe's orders, we shall, wherever possible, fly our passengers into the very best airports of 1956 where established Pan Am local operations will care for their every need. And we shall provide accommodations in the very best of hotels including our own InterContinental masterpieces.

Expected Stops

London Heathrow [London Airport] (EGLL)

Paris Le Bourget (LFPB)
Rome Ciampino (LIRA)
And fly-over Brindisi Casele Military (LIBR)

Suez Port Said (HEPS)

Aden [RAF Khormaksar] (OYAA)

Bombay Chhatrapati Shivaji [Santacruz] (VABB)

Allahabad (VIAL)

Calcutta Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose [Dum Dum] (VECC)

"Fly the Hump"
Chabua (VE30)
Kunming Wujiaba (ZPPP)

Hong Kong Kai Tak (VHHX)

Shanghai Hongqiao (ZSSS)

Yokohama Haneda (RJTT)

Clipper Flying Boats (Pan Am)
Wake Island (PWAK)
Midway Island Henderson (PMDY)
Honolulu (PHNL)

San Francisco (KSFO)

Salt Lake City [Municipal] (KSLC)
Omaha Eppley [Omaha Municipal] (KOMA)
Chicago Midway (KMDW)

New York City JFK [Idlewild (KIDL)] (KJFK)

Gander (CYQX)
Shannon (EINN)

London Heathrow (EGLL)

Total distance is 20,279nm.

[Sad to say, a fair chance that I shall not have the time. But why not give it a go?]

MM · October 3, 2017

RTW80 Leg 1. EGLL-LFPB.

In 1947 Pan American put in place the first "Round the World" service – flown by the then new Lockheed L-049 Constellation. The airline represented all that was foreign and exotic and romantic for kids in my generation…and this little effort salutes that wonderment.

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This sequence of legs constitutes a fictional rendition set in late 1956 to celebrate the wildly popular Michael Todd film "Around the World in 80 Days." We shall, whenever possible, shape the route to stop at cities where Pan Am had built up local support operations. And for fun, we shall "Fly the Hump" to replicate the legendary air transport efforts to supply China during WWII. (Ten former Pan American DC-3s and flight crews initiated the airlift in 1942.) And in the mid-Pacific we shall include a leg or two flown in the Pan American China Clipper, the iconic 1930s Martin M-130 flying boat that linked San Francisco with Manila and Hong Kong.

In this first leg, from London City (EGLL) to Paris Le Bourget (LFPB) we shall acquaint our passengers with our "Clipper Crew" and provide them a chance to enjoy the marvels of Paris, the "City of Light." You might enjoy this charmingly innocent late 1950s Pan Am travelogue that celebrates Paris and France in "Voici La France."

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The actual flight was largely uneventful. We landed at Le Bourget with plenty of time for the passengers to get into town and find their rooms at Le Grand, change for dinner, and enjoy true night out in Paris. Everyone was pleased except for one rather self-confident English gentleman who insists the he and his valet have first choice of rooms. Pan American aims to please.

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Summary:
Date: 2017-10-03
Route: EGLL-LFPB
Aircraft: DC-6B [PMDG]
Leg Distance: 187nm
Total Distance: 187nm

MM · October 4, 2017

RTW80 Leg 2. LFPB-LIRA.
2017-10-03

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An early afternoon departure allows our clients to either (1) explore the city's cultural sites in the morning or (2) recover from their exploring the city's entertainment sites last night. (I cannot say much on the topic, but I hear that one or two establishments on the Montmartre were in good form. The great artists' history lies in these streets, you know. Monet, Renoir, Picasso, Pissarro, van Gough, and of course Toulouse-Lautrec. And the romantic dream of An American in Paris.) Our English gentleman arrived early, nervously tapped his pocket watch, and rolled his eyes at the late-arriving passengers.

Today we journey to Rome, "The Eternal City." For westerners, the historic sites are second-to-none. Here stand the Colosseum, the Roman Forum, the Pantheon, Trajan's Column, the Catacombs, and the Arch of Constantine. And of course, the wonders of the Vatican. All this inside a modern bustling and thriving urban environment.

The city has a certain Italian joy of life that makes for an exciting and altogether rewarding visit. During the 1950s, the Italian economic miracle took hold and produced years of la dolce vita. We shall enjoy the sweetness of its life.

As for the flight crew, we shall stay at the traditional PAA-affiliated hotel Metropole. At the recommendation of previous PAA crews, we shall dine at "Trattoria Nuova Stella."

You might like a charming brief film of Rome in 1955. Or perhaps the longer, and more inclusive, Pan Am (1959) idiosyncratic travelogue Wings to Europe Grand Tour. (Rome begins at 9:17.)

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Climb out of Parisian Airspace

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The Swiss Alps with the Matterhorn discernible in the background

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Distinctive Genoa is recognizable through the clouds below

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Descent over Rome. Haze over the city made tourism difficult
You can see the Colosseum and the Vatican is dimly visible in the distance to the right

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The big Douglas is now empty on Ciampino's tarmac

You can trace the flight's online tracking provided by The Duenna. (The popular flight authentication program was written by John Mueller and then updated and revised by Eamonn Watson. For more, see here.)

Summary:
Date: 2017-10-03
Route: LFPB-LIRA
Aircraft: DC-6B [PMDG]
Leg Distance: 605nm
Total Distance: 792nm

kalizzi · October 4, 2017

Lovely account of the trip, and a matching, equally lovely set of screenshots. Bravo!

Jeff W · October 5, 2017

Enjoying the travelogue very much. I particularly like the period images. I will be carefully checking to see how many of your leg destinations you are able to find Pan Am posters for.

DaveLTB · October 6, 2017

Nice work

I love those posters

MM · October 6, 2017

Thanks, all. The posters were Jeff's idea in a previous event. I'm unashamedly praising by imitation!

MM · October 6, 2017

RTW80 Leg 3. Rome to Athens. LIRA-LGAT.

2017-10-05

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Today we journey to Athens, the classical source of Western civilization and the modern capital of Greece. We shall get a look at Vesuvius, pass over the Adriatic port city of Brindisi, and view the rugged Greek terrain before descending over the city of Athens itself.

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To the west lies Mount Vesuvius with the Sorrentine Peninsula, the Gulf of Naples, and the Island of Capri in the distance.

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The port of Brindisi below. Linda overheard the English gentleman declare forcefully to his companion the superiority of travel by rail and by steamship - where schedules rule the day.

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The office in late afternoon light.

For two centuries, classical Athens was the region's dominant city state in terms of culture and power. By the fifth century (BC), Athens had incorporated the nearby port Piraeus and become both a land and a naval power. Its large fleet enabled Athens to help other cities to rebel against Persian rule and, with Sparta, it led a coalition of those Greek city states to defeat the Persians at Marathon (490) and Salamis (480).

Athens had, in 508, adopted a form of democratic rule. (The previous tyrant had expropriated the property of wealthy families who then revolted. They brought in exiled leader Cleisthenes who devolved power to a selected-by-lot council and to a once-a-week citizen assembly.) The next 150 years constituted the "Golden Age" of Athenian democracy. Athenians of the era laid the cultural and intellectual foundation for what we now know as Western civilization. This is the period of classical theater as developed by Aeschylus, Aristophanes, Sophocles and Euripides – all well worth reading nowadays. The idea of interpretive analytic history bore fruit at the hands of Herodotus and Thucydides. And the western core of philosophy and social science was created by the legendary greats Socrates, Plato and Aristotle. This period of sustained intellectual discourse stands out as a bright point in the span of human history.

Under the charismatic Pericles, who fostered the arts and democracy, the city expanded. It built up the Acropolis (including the Parthenon) and started a grander imperial ambition to create the Delian league of Aegean city states. The resulting tensions produced the Peloponnesian war and led to Athens' defeat at the hands of long-time rival Sparta.

By the end of the fourth century, Phillip II of Macedon became dominant and on the battlefield he effectively ended Athenian independence. Athens nevertheless remained as an influential world center of the arts, culture, and learning right through the final years of the Roman empire. By the end of the middle ages and certainly after the Ottoman conquest, Athens fell into a long period of decline. In fact, at the time of the creation of the new Greek state in 1834, Athens was little more than a town at the foot of the Acropolis. It was chosen as the new national capital for cultural and historic reasons rather than for its contemporary standing.

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the city was rebuilt with an emphasis on classical themes. But it was not until the 1950s and 1960s that the city experienced the massive growth that turned it into a major megalapolis. At the end of the rise, the city made a name for itself not only for its glorious history but also for its traffic congestion and pollution. (The latter have been alleviated over the years.)

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Turning onto finals over the white houses of Athens.

We land at Hellinikon (LGAT). The airport was built in 1938 and it was modernized and used by the German occupying forces during WWII. Post-war, US Air Transport Command flights operated here to deliver US Marshall Plan aid to Greece and Turkey. In 1956, the field was turned over to Greek civil authorities and commercial flights began. Eventually, the close-in airport handled large airliners, including B747s, and served over 12 million passengers a year. In 2001, the airfield was replaced by Athens Eleftherios Venizelos (LGAV). Since that time, the abandoned site has been in a long and uncertain process of redevelopment – it still resembles a ghost town.

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Hellinikon's West Terminal.

Because there are no Pan Am operations at the field, we need another option. The TWA folks are friendly but their staff are not available – Mr. Trippe and Mr. Hughes are not the closest of friends . So we are happy to take advantage of newly-formed Olympic Airways offer to use their West Terminal facilities.

Some films of interest. The transition to modernity in Athens 1950 (7:15) and Athens 1961 (4:31). Aviation enthusiasts might like Greece 1950s Athens Airport and Athens from the Air (2:23).

Summary:
Date: 2017-10-05
Route: LIRA-LGAT
Aircraft: DC-6B [PMDG]
Leg Distance: 564nm
Total Distance: 1356nm

Jeff W · October 6, 2017

Three for three on the posters. Well done Mike. I am expecting an airplane over the Pyramids in a future report.

MM · October 7, 2017

RTW80 Leg 4. Athens to Port Said. LGAT-HEPS.
2017-10-06

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Next a flight over the Mediterranean to Port Said at the mouth of the Suez Canal. The direct flight passes over Paros (and Antiparos) as well as Santorini. But it is mostly over water.

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Out of Athens.

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Santorini off to the East. The circular island constitutes a giant (12 x 7 km) caldera that represents a volcano that has repeatedly built up, erupted and collapsed, and then cycled again over the centuries. The Minoan eruption, at about 1650 BC, is one of the top three or four eruptions in the last 5,000 years. Historians have suggested that the ensuing tsunami might have indirectly triggered the fall of the Minoan civilization. (And speculation, with a little evidence, suggests that the eruption is the source of the Atlantis myth.) The current volcano remains a serious threat.

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In the pattern to land at HEPS, flying over ships awaiting entry to the canal.

From its founding until the mid-twentieth century, Port Said was one of the prime "international cities" in the world. It was originally built on bare desert to support the 1859 construction of the Suez Canal. (Everything had to be shipped here. Without stone, the French had to engineer the use of artificial concrete blocks, sunk in the water, to build the massive jetties. The famous lighthouse of Port Said engendered the invention of reinforced concrete as a building material.)

With the enormous success of the Canal, the city found itself astride the world's main transport route between East and West. Thousands of expats, from the Mediterranean and around the globe, came for the economic opportunities and stayed to form a cosmopolitan community.

"If you truly wish to find someone you have known and who travels, there are two points on the globe you have but to sit and wait; sooner or later your man will come there: the docks of London and Port Said."
-- Rudyard Kipling

By the 1930s, Port Said was a bustling international port with a multi-national population: "Jewish merchants, Egyptian shopkeepers, Greek photographers, Italian architects, Swiss hoteliers, Maltese administrators, Scottish engineers, French bankers and diplomats from all around the world" with consulates from seven nations. French was the common language.

The international character of the city ended in the 1950s. With the Egyptian revolution of 1952, Nasser and the Pan-Arab nationalists took power on a wave of anti-British sentiment. In 1956 Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal Company, an act that prompted the British and French to invade and capture Port Said. However, facing immediate pressure from both the US and USSR, and opposition at home, the British and French governments quickly agreed to a cease fire. In the ensuing settlement, the foreign forces left and Egypt regained control over the canal. (For Egyptian nationalists, the sporadic defense of Port Said became mythologized as a valiant act that crushed the colonial powers.) The canal has continued to be a central piece of Middle Eastern war and politics.

With the rise of Arab nationalism and the loss of a European military presence, the cosmopolitan French-speaking community left Port Said for destinations around the world.

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Pan American has arranged security measures to insure that our British and French passengers on board can expect safe passage. This is, naturally, a sensitive time. We expect that our passengers will cooperate by not acting in a demonstrably nationalistic sort of way. (We have had a quiet word with the English gentleman tapping his pocket watch.)

Summary:
Date: 2017-10-06
Route: LGAT-HEPS
Aircraft: DC-6B [PMDG]
Leg Distance: 564nm
Total Distance: 1934nm

MM · October 11, 2017

RTW80 Leg 5. Port Said to Jeddah. HEPS-OEJN.
2017-10-10

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Just after 7:15, substantially stimulated by the local coffee, we departed Port Said for Jeddah. For the first part of the journey, we flew low over the Suez Canal to give our passengers a good look at the world famous engineering feat and a chance to gaze at the ship traffic below. [Thanks from all of us to Henrik Nielsen, the master shipbuilder.]

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From the top: Emma Maersk, the world's largest container ship when built in 2006; DS Power, an oil tanker out of Istanbul; Niels Juel, a Danish Navy frigate; and Hapag-Lloyd Hong Kong Express, built in 2013 as one of the world's largest container ships.

The Suez Canal Company (a joint venture between the Egyptian government and a consortium of French private investors) initiated construction in 1859 and opened up for business in 1869. From that moment, the Canal changed world trade and history: travel time from East Asia to Europe and the reverse was cut by a third. The world got smaller rather quickly.

While having an enormous impact on world-wide trade and on European empire-building (not to mention on gentlemen's wagers), the canal itself was not a financial success. Eventually, debts forced the Egyptian monarchy to sell its shares to the British government who later sent military forces and took control of the Canal in 1882. This British rule over the canal evolved through different guises and lasted until Nasser's nationalization in 1956.

The Suez Canal was shut down between 1967 and 1975 due to a standoff between Egypt and Israel (this was the pause between the Six Day War and the Yom Kippur War). For eight years the canal blockage trapped fifteen cargo ships – named the "Yellow Fleet" due to their being covered by sand. The stranded sailors built a little international community across their decks, taking mutual advantage of the ships' different facilities. (They even issued "official" stamps which are now a collectors item.)

Since that time, Egypt has operated the canal with solid professional expertise. In fact, the government has just invested in enhancing the "bypass" sections in order to double the capacity of the canal to handle bigger and greater numbers of ships. The primary risk to success now comes from Somali pirates who threaten the canal's sea lanes.

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After following the canal to Suez, we passed over Mount Sinai and the secluded monastery of St. Catherine to reach a waypoint at Sharm El-Sheikh at the southern tip of the Sinai Peninsula. [As late as the 1950s, Sharm was little more than a fishing village. Now it has become a large and successful tourist resort city.]

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And then south along the Red Sea. This is one of the saltiest bodies of water in the world. With torrid heat and desert-encircled seawater, evaporation rates are high. Despite, or because of, the heat and salinity, the ecosystem is rich in speciation. The two coasts are populated by extensive coral reefs that attract and sustain many different fish, including some 44 species of shark. The waters are now a (careful) diver's delight.

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Finally we landed at Jeddah's KAIA. On the rollout we could see the special-built Hajj terminals that handle two million pilgrims each year.

Today, Jeddah is Saudi Arabia's second largest city and its financial capital. The port (32nd in the world) transships most of the Kingdom's bulk cargo. Not surprisingly, it is the nation's most cosmopolitan city.

In its early days, Jeddah was a fishing village, a trading hub, and a port that served sea-traveling Hajj pilgrims. Traditionally, pilgrims would travel in massive caravans overland. In the nineteenth century, steamships became more important, and in the twentieth century (starting in 1937), airline travel became predominant. And the numbers have changed. In the 1950s, something like 150,000 traveled to Mecca for the Hajj. In recent years, the Hajj has swelled to something like two million. (The current Saudi government earns about $8-9 billion each year from the Hajj, a revenue second only to the state's oil and gas industries.)

King Abdulaziz International Airport (KAIA), services those two million pilgrims in two specially-designed terminals at the north side of the airport. Normal International and Domestic service runs through two other terminals and the eastern side hosts King Abdullah Air Base. Overall, the airport is the busiest in the kingdom and the currently-being-finished expansion is claimed to increase capacity from 13 million to 80 million passengers. Jeddah will become the world's largest airport. On the other hand, in 2016 KAIA earned a reputation as the world's worst airport for travelers – lambasted for poor hygiene, rude staff, and a lack of amenities. (It outpaced Juba in South Sudan, Port Harcourt in Nigeria, and Tashkent in Uzbekistan.) The new terminals may improve matters.

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For our purposes, we were able to use the Royal Terminal, normally reserved for VIPs, foreign kings and presidents, and the Saudi Royal Family. We were invited here in lieu of the intimate 1950s airfield that was replaced in 1981. (Some vintage film can be seen here.)

Mr. Trippe has friends.

Summary:
Date: 2017-10-10
Route: HEPS-OEJN
Aircraft: DC-6B [PMDG]
Leg Distance: 684nm
Flight Time: 2:46
Total Distance: 2618nm
Total Flight Time: 10:15

MM · October 14, 2017

RTW80 Leg 6. Port Jeddah to Aden. OEJN-OYAA.
2017-10-12

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Routine departure from Jeddah and a flight along the coast over rugged Yemen to the (in the 1950s) Royal Air Force base Khormaksar in the crown colony of Aden.

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Climbing out over Jeddah's expanding urban area.

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Beautiful blue sea, blue skies, and a sandy edge to the mix.

The flight along the Red Sea coastline was largely uneventful. A slight quartering headwind was an irritant but everything was just fine.

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The rugged desert mountains of North Yemen

Yemen has a two thousand year history of rebellion. The mountains have fostered independence and resistance against all sorts of authority – including the Roman, Ottoman, and British empires. The people are fractionated by geography and religion and ethnicity and have not yet developed an enduring sense of collective identity. And the vast expanse of difficult mountain terrain has made it practically impossible for rulers to exercise power over the entire country.

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In the green western highlands, the market city of Ibb

These western highlands catch rainfall from the sea and allow a relatively successful agriculture on the terraced mountainsides. Historically, the region is known for its coffee (Coffea arabica). During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, highlands coffee was exported through the Red Sea port Mocha to the intense demand of European and Asian traders. The name "Mocha" became synonymous with "coffee" and the region prospered. Coffee plants from Mocha (high acidity) were taken to Java and blended with the local variety (naturally rounded) to produce the popular Mocha Java. While other nations have since come to dominate the globe's coffee production, Yemen's "Arabian" coffee remains among the finest in the world.

The traditional flowering plant qat (khat) is a major part of the economy. In Yemen, as in other parts of the Red Sea and Horn of Africa region, chewing qat is just part of traditional social life. It produces a mild state of euphoria and stimulation and it reduces the appetite. (In this respect, It may be comparable to very strong coffee or to amphetamines.) Today, about 40 percent of the available water in Yemen is dedicated to this highly profitable crop – though of course the water used here does little to quench the thirst or feed the hunger of Yemen's people.

This is all the more important because Yemen is losing its water. The typical Yemeni has access to 140 cubic meters of water per year (for all uses) where the internationally defined threshold for water stress is 1700 cubic meters per year. Yemen depends on its groundwater but the water tables have dropped severely leaving much of the country facing a prospect of losing access to water in the near future. There is a real threat that Sana'a may become the modern world's first capital to die for lack of water. This environmental disaster has become a human tragedy because the ongoing civil war makes it impossible for any government to coordinate a solution. And in many rural areas, the water shortage itself is a cause of armed conflict.

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With Taiz below, time to initiate the descent

We turn our gaze southward. The city of Aden has had a long history as a trading port. From the twelfth century it prospered at the crossroads of shipping between India, the Arabian peninsula, Egypt and East Africa. (Even the Chinese, in the 1420s, sent a fleet of treasure ships to establish relations with Aden.)

However, Aden had declined to a population of 600 when, in 1839, the British East India company sent Royal Marines to take possession of the island as a base against piracy. In 1850, Aden was declared a free port with the liquor, salt, arms, and opium trades flourishing. And it won the coffee traffic from Mocha.

For the British Empire, Aden became strategically prominent as a link between the Suez Canal, India, and British East Africa. The harbor of Crater (the original port city of Aden) had silted over and the function was moved to the newer harbor Ma'alla on the western side of the peninsula. With the opening of the Suez Canal and the rise of the steamship, Aden became crucial as a coaling station to supply coal and water for the ships' boilers. "Steamer Point" at the far western end of the peninsula was established for just this purpose. For nearly a century, Aden was one of the busiest ship-bunkering, duty-free shopping, and trading ports in the world.

After World War II, the British developed the port at Ma'alla and started a construction campaign to introduce modern design to the city. And in the 1950s British Petroleum built its refinery and oil tanker facilities in Little Aden across the harbor from the main isthmus. Aden was the world's second busiest port, after New York.

However, all this mattered little as the rising forces of Arab nationalism produced a series of successful revolts that led the British to grant independence and depart. [This was part of a world-wide tide of decolonization – when the sun finally set on the British and French empires.)

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Late afternoon light frames the turn to finals

After the British left in 1967, the southern Yemeni formed the People's Democratic Republic of Yemen. The new state engaged in a rivalry, and some combat, with North Yemen – until the two merged as the Republic of Yemen in 1990. Since that time, in a twisted tale of personalities, regional rivalries, sectarian division, international intervention, and Islamic nationalism, Yemen has suffered a series of political crises and a long civil war. As of this writing, affairs are in flux with the Saudi-supported southerners, based in Aden, fighting the Iran-supported northerners, based in Sana'a, and Al Qaeda forces operating in between. But things are not that simple.

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Aden's Jebel Shamsan volcano and Ma'alla harbor decorate the approach to Khormaksar

RAF Khormaksar was first established in 1917 and enlarged after World War II. When in 1958 nearby rebel forces threatened Aden, the RAF moved combat squadrons to Kormaksar, which became decidedly operational, in order to provide support for the British Army. The sharp end of the spear was carried by squadrons of Hawker Hunters. By the end of 1967, the new London government had decided to withdraw from Aden and the station was closed. This airfield is now Aden International Airport.

A charming little personal story. A mutual friend told of his RAF deployment to Khormaksar as a very young man. Coming from England, he was stunned by the heat – getting off the aircraft was as walking into an oven. He was disappointed to be barracked in the "normal" quarters which were stifling in the constant heat. As did others, he immediately put in for the limited air conditioned accommodations and, some time later, won the lottery. He eagerly embraced the cool air … but discovered that his body was having to adjust every day as he transitioned from the air conditioned evenings to the heat of his professional duties and then back again. After a while, he couldn't stand it any longer and requested a transfer to the normal barracks.

If you care to follow the Duenna-recorded flight track, look here.

Summary:
Date: 2017-10-12
Route: OEJN-OYAA
Aircraft: DC-6B [PMDG]
Leg Distance: 630nm
Flight Time: 2:42
Total Distance: 3248nm
Total Flight Time: 12:57

Jeff W · October 14, 2017

Excellent Narrative. I am impressed that you were able to find a period airline poster featuring Aden. Well Done Really like the screenshot of the approach with sun sinking.

Ron Attwood · October 14, 2017

Mike, you dragged it all back to me. I was that airman. I was based in Steamer Point and Chapel Hill barracks is where I scuttled back to after experiencing aircon. A freshly starched and laundered uniform put on in the morning was a soggy mess by 10am. Happy days. Terrific narrative mate.

kalizzi · October 16, 2017

I add my voice to the others, the narrative is very captivating. Well done and keep up the good work. Godspeed.

MM · October 16, 2017

RTW80 Leg 7. Aden to Salalah. OYAA-OOSA.
2017-10-14

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We are switching aircraft for this "East of Aden" portion of the journey. By the mid-1950s, Pan American's Around the World Service had replaced the older Lockheed L-049 "Constellation" with the Douglas DC-6B "Super Six". The Constellations were moved to the profitable South American routes. Today, we are calling back to the RTW service the Clipper Undaunted to honor its stablemate Clipper America, the original L-049 that initiated the route in 1947.

For those interested in the aircraft's history, here (or identically here) is the wonderful ABC Great Planes documentary on the Lockheed Constellation. Well worth a look.

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Departure from Aden showing Crater, Ma'alla harbor, Steamer Point, and Little Aden.
Betty reported that among the passengers is a kid named Conway Twitty singing "It's Only Make Believe." How did he know that this is P3Dv4?

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Cruising over the desert sand

This was a fairly routine flight. The only excitement, much appreciated by the passengers, occurred on our getting the new First Officer Rick Sperry familiarized with his duties.

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The lush green coastline of Oman

Oman's Dhofar coast is exposed to the South West monsoon from mid-June to mid-September. The monsoon is locally known as the Khareef. The Dhofar Mountains that run parallel to the coast both attract and contain the khareef. When the moisture condenses as thick fogs over the hills the result is a verdant paradise. The water supports an annual resurgence of herbs, grasses, and trees that lasts through the late summer season (and for some time afterwards) until the vegetation loses its moisture. The population, especially in urban areas such as Salalah, depends on the khareef for their water supply.

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Turning point at the 4,000ft high cliffs before Salalah

At least since the 1950s, an annual Khareef Festival is held in Salalah to celebrate the monsoon and to attract tourists. This effort has been successful, as this sort of wet green environment is highly unusual in the Gulf region. The fog cools temperatures considerably and provides a respite from the relentless heat. This celebratory film makes so much of the thick white fog and lush green vegetation that even our English gentleman traveler can appreciate how different the world looks for those who live on the Gulf. Though, whimsically, he uttered something poetic about "Eden" and "this sceptered isle."

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Downwind over Salalah

The Salalah plain is surprisingly well-cultivated with traditional farms employing a sophisticated irrigation system. It relies on the khareef to sustain the water table, but hydrogeological studies suggest the quantity of groundwater will not be sufficient to maintain agriculture for much longer into the future. Nevertheless, this fragile cyclic climate contrasts with the arid Empty Quarter – the vast sand sea that extends out over a third of the Arabian peninsula. The desert starts just beyond the green Dhofar hills to the north.

Historically, Dhofar's most famous product was frankincense, an aromatic resin hardened from the sap of the frankincense tree. This was the mainstay of the regions' wealth for thousands of years. From Rome to Egypt to India to China, frankincense was widely used for both daily and ceremonial purposes. It was (and is) used to greet and say farewell to guests and at weddings and funerals and feasts. Right through the Middle Ages, frankincense was prized as gold and made the rulers of Dhofar wealthy men. (Now it is more of a specialized product.)

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Flaps down for finals into Salalah

When we arrived on our mid-1950s Pan American flight, Oman was in the midst of a old fashioned power struggle. Governance was split between the Sultan of Muscat, Said Bin Taimur, and the Imam of Oman, Ghalib Al Hinai. The precipitating issue was oil. Said ruled in a feudal style and had outlawed almost all technological development. The Iman controlled the inner tribal lands. Between 1955 and 1957, the Sultan moved troops to take control of the internal oil discoveries but took heavy casualties. Only with the aid of British Army armored columns and RAF aircraft were his forces able to prevail. (Ghalib withdrew to the seemingly impregnable mountain fortress in Jebel Akhdar but was eventually defeated through a daring nighttime surprise attack by the Special Air Service.)

Later, during the late-1960s, the Dhofar Rebellion (a Yemeni- and Chinese-supported Marxist force) achieved military control over the Dhofar Mountains above Salalah and the coastal plain. The old Sultan Said seemed ready to capitulate when he was deposed in a bloodless coup by his son Qaboos bin Said. Starting in 1970, Qaboos expanded the armed forces, modernized the state's administration and introduced expansive social reforms. The rebellion was finally defeated in 1975 with the military help of Iran, Jordan, Pakistan and Britain's RAF and Special Air Service.

Sultan Qaboos opened up the country, pursued vigorous economic reforms, and modernized the social order with a serious commitment to health, education, and welfare. While dependent on oil revenues, Oman's economy has become relatively diversified when compared to other states in the region. The number of hospitals rose from one to ninety. And the educational system made real progress: before 1970 only three formal schools existed; today there are over 1,000 state schools and 650,000 students. Qaboos established a modestly powerful Constituent Assembly and eventually all Omani over the age of 21 were given the right to vote. While Sultan Qaboos has been a wildly successful monarch by Middle East standards, he has not opened the country to a Western-style competitive democracy…and given the incendiary political and ideological and religious conflicts in the region he is not strongly incentivized to do so.

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Betty confidently surveys the tarmac as we are ready to deplane

The airport was RAF Salalah when we visited in the 1950s. This was a relatively small facility with a scattering of single-story buildings and a squat two-story tower. (For home videos of life and operations at RAF Salalah in 1962, go here.) The civilian version opened in 1977 and is now Oman's second airport. The newly built expansion (2015) locates the new tower and modern terminal on the north side of the runway and hosts international connections to the Gulf and to India. The heaviest international traffic carries tourists during Khareef season.

If you care to follow the Duenna-recorded flight track, look here.

Summary:
Date: 2017-10-14
Route: OYAA-OOSA
Aircraft: L-049 [A2A]
Leg Distance: 584nm
Flight Time: 2:17
Total Distance: 3832nm
Total Flight Time: 15:14

MM · October 20, 2017

RTW80 Leg 8. Salalah to Bombay. OOSA-VABB.
2017-10-18

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We fly to Bombay (renamed Mumbai in 1995 as a act of Maharastra symbolic politics).

Mumbai, formerly Bombay, is big. It’s full of dreamers and hard-labourers, starlets and gangsters, stray dogs and exotic birds, artists and servants, fisherfolk and crorepatis (millionaires), and lots and lots of people. It has India’s most prolific film industry, some of Asia’s biggest slums (as well as the world’s most expensive home) and the largest tropical forest in an urban zone. Mumbai is India’s financial powerhouse, fashion epicentre and a pulse point of religious tension. (Lonely Planet)

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First, Goodbye to Arabia

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Absolutely clear morning over the Arabian Sea. A long flight over water gives time to enjoy some film.

The Lockheed Constellation is a star of this 1953 promotional film for Eastern Air Lines: Flying with Arthur Godfrey. The fine production values make it an easy watch. The picture introduces the public to such things as the cockpit instruments and controls as well as navigation aids including ADF and ILS. No autopilot. At that time Eastern president, and legendary pilot, Eddie Rickenbacker was adamant that his captains fly hands-on.

The narrator is Arthur Godfrey who was a wildly popular radio and television talk show star in the era and a genuine aviation enthusiast. He was a Naval Reserve pilot certified for jets, helicopters, and carrier landings. And he commuted to work from northern Virginia to New York in his own Navion. (In the film, Eastern's chief pilot Dick Miller looks uncomfortable. Perhaps he's not used to acting a role. Or perhaps he is not used to a young pilot bossing him around. In any case, Godfrey is happy to offer everyone a Chesterfield.)

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Hours later, as we approached the Indian coast, some ominous cloud formations took shape.

In 1956, Bombay was already a world city. It achieved success under British rule, first under the East India Company and then the British Empire. Located on seven islands, the port city was linked together by a century-long effort of building connecting causeways that generated what is now a single landmass. The United States played a part in the city's success when its Civil War allowed Bombay to take its place as the world's predominant cotton port. And during the later nineteenth century, entrepreneurs from around India came here to develop a modern industrial and commercial center. The successes attracted migrants to Bombay who shaped a relatively open and multicultural urban scene. It became the huge, energetic, prosperous and overcrowded metropolis that it was in the mid-twentieth century – a population of 3 million squeezed into a relatively restricted geographic area. (Mumbai is much larger and more crowded now, of course, with 13 million inhabitants.)

Here is a 1960 observation of Bombay after independence:

Bombay owes most of its prosperity to the great waterway constituting the harbour. … There are few more scenic and impressive sights than the approach up this waterway studded with hilly islands, with a view of the stately buildings of the city, and to the right, the palm-fringed shore of the mainland rising gradually to the peaks of the Western Ghats in the distance. Bombay's position as the gateway of India, its fine natural harbour and the enterprise of its inhabitants, made it one of the first cities of the world. (J.H. Ge., Encyclopædia Britannica, 1964.)

Any self-respecting member of the nineteenth century's Reform Club would have been proud of Bombay's rise on the dynamics of enterprise and free trade.

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Bombay seen through the swirling clouds

Bombay was the destination of JRD Tata's first "airline" flight in 1932 when he piloted a single-engined DH.80A Puss Moth from Karachi to Bombay's Juhu aerodrome (which still exists just west of Santa Cruz and the modern airport). Tata was born to a wealthy family of Indian businessmen and, as a young adult, was brought back from Europe with the idea that he would head the family business. And he certainly succeeded, making Tata Sons an enormous multi-business family-held conglomerate. Tata (or as he was popularly known "JRD") instituted all sorts of reforms in Indian business practices, endowed research institutes, and won numerous awards for his 50 years of highly-respected leadership.

From an aviation standpoint, Tata was a skilled airman and a visionary entrepreneur. He was India's first licensed pilot. And when he initiated Tata Air Services with that small mail delivery in 1932, he and his South African friend Nevill Vintcent set on a course to create India's first airline. After WWII, that airline became Air India which, under Tata's leadership, became the country's flagship international carrier. The first headquarters were at Juhu Aerodrome (a hut with a palm thatched roof) and eventually were relocated to a modern office tower in Bombay where it remained until 2013. (The national government took financial control of Air India in 1953 – although JRD Tata continued to run it for another 25 years. In more recent times, the airline has experienced the ups-and-downs common to the industry. In 2017, it is currently rumored that Tata Industries is considering purchasing the financially-challenged airline. Multiple levels of irony here.)

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The lights of Santa Cruz airport ahead. With 1.1sm visibility, this was always going to be an interesting landing.

Juhu Aerodrome served as the city's main airport until 1948. At that time, commercial operations were moved to the larger RAF Santacruz, just a mile to the east. In the 1950s, Bombay Santa Cruz airport was one of the world's important air traffic centers, connecting directly with the west and through Calcutta to the east. Daily air services were maintained to and from almost all important cities within the country.

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All is well. Santa Cruz Rwy 09 crisp and clear. Thanks to the "modern" ILS.
On the left are the new (nearly finished) terminal and tower through the haze. The active facilities on the right are not yet visible.

When we arrived on our Pan Am ship, flight arrivals were handled through two converted RAF hangars (which are still in usage) while Air India International had its own small brick building tucked in a corner. This "Old Airport" area – on the south side of the 09/27 runway – now houses maintenance hangars and the General Aviation terminal.

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Safely shutting down at the (1950s) international arrivals terminal

The new Santa Cruz passenger terminal was then under construction and commissioned in 1958. And in the 1980s, a modern international terminal was built at Sahar, across the runway to the northeast, and the terminal at Santa Cruz was converted to serve domestic flights. The airport has simultaneously had two names – Santa Cruz Airport and Sahar Airport – and some locals use the original names. In a cultural move, the airport was renamed Chattrapathi Shivaji International airport (CSIA) after the 17th century Maratha emperor.

Among those entrepreneurs who made Bombay in the late nineteenth century was Jamsetji Tata who began his industrialist career with cotton during the 1860s. He built up what became the Tata Group (see JRD above) which is now India's biggest conglomerate. Among this accomplishments was the 1903 inauguration of the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel on Bombay's waterfront near the Gateway to India. (The common legend has it that Tata built the grand hotel in response to being refused entry to Watson's Esplanade Hotel due to its whites only policy. Perhaps apocryphal.) The elegant "Taj" was Pan Am's preferred hotel during our "classic" era.

If city tourism is not in the cards, you might be interested in seeing a local movie. Not to worry that it is in Hindi.

The period after independence (late 1940s and 1950s) is now seen as the "Golden Age" of Hindi film. Perhaps the most famous is Mother India (1957), the story of a village mother holding her family together in the face of adversity. (The theme was seen to represent the strength of traditional India as it faced modernity and, perhaps, the role of women in contemporary society.) The film remains one of the most successful of all time. On another track, a number of acclaimed films explored the nature of modern urban life – often taking an ambivalent stand. On that theme, you might enjoy a song from Pyaasa (1957) which, underrated at the time, has since been recognized as a "top 100" in international film history.

The quintessential, and commercially popular, Bollywood combination of action, comedy, romance, melodrama and musical took off in the 1980s and has evolved different forms over the years – sometimes emphasizing crime and violence, other times the tensions in contemporary social relations, and other times romance and melodrama. All this with plenty of song and dance. (Traditionally, the actors are often good dancers but not especially good singers. The "playback" singer is typically listed in the opening credits and the soundtrack of often released before the film – as a separate and profitable entity. An entertaining example of this common practice is in this romantic song and dance piece from the 2000 blockbuster Kaho Naa… Pyaar Hai.) Overall, the film industry in Mumbai has become a major player in global cinema. In recent years, Bollywood has competed with Hollywood at the international box office – in terms of customers if not revenue.

Summary:
Date: 2017-10-18
Route: OOSA-VABB
Aircraft: L-049 [A2A]
Leg Distance: 1078nm
Flight Time: 4:10
Total Distance: 4910nm
Total Flight Time: 19:24

MM · October 23, 2017

RTW80 Leg 9. Bombay to Allahabad. VABB-VIAL.
2017-10-20

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Today's flight follows the course of the mid-nineteenth century Great Indian Peninsula Railway that by 1870 had (just) connected Bombay with the administrative city Allahabad. There, the East Indian Railways linked directly with Calcutta, the British administrative capital of India. These two railway lines allowed travelers to traverse the Indian subcontinent within three days – a stunning technological achievement for the mid-nineteenth century.

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A Railway Map of India, 1871. The geographically inclined might click for a larger version.

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Departing foggy Bombay.

The railways revolutionized India in many different ways. The network connected a subcontinent fragmented by regional and cultural and religious divisions and laid the foundations of a more modern society. The economic and social transformations associated with that integration brought enormous benefits and palpable costs.

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The Western Ghats in the distance

The initial seeds of the railway were laid in the 1850s with the first two sites being Calcutta and Bombay. For the Great Indian Peninsula Railway (out of Bombay) the early years were a real challenge. The railway had to cut a path through encircling Western Ghats in order to break out into the broader central plains where the expansion would be relatively easier. This was rather an impressive engineering feat for nineteenth century technology. Sadly, many Britons and Indians gave their lives for the achievement.

At that time, before Indian industrial development, all of the heavy equipment, including the locomotives, had to be shipped from Britain. The steel that supported the massive bridges and constituted the track was British steel. The men who physically built the bridges, excavated the tunnels, and laid the track were Indian.

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If you squint, under the cloud shadows you can make out Burhanpur Station, where the Fogg & Co. railway train stopped for water and coal. On the banks of the Tapti River, Burhanpur is a regional administrative seat. And it has long been a major textile hub with state-of-the-art spinning mills and several hundred different firms in the industry.

With the 1857 "Indian Rebellion" or the "Sepoy Mutiny" or the "First War of Independence" (depending on one's sensibilities), it became apparent that the railways constituted an instrument of British imperial power. Troops from distant provinces (for example, Sikhs from the Punjab or Gurkhas from Nepal) were moved quickly and strategically to put down the rebellion. After the Crown took over the governance of India from the East India Company, interest in the railways rose not only for economic development but also for military reasons.

Most Indians embraced this technological change for its dramatically increased travel opportunities, for the economic development of the heartland, and for the practicalities of employment (tens of thousands of Indians did much of the management of the enterprise). However, those who keenly valued India's cultural heritage and its village way of life, the threats were real. Mahatma Gandhi deeply opposed the railways because everything that they embodied (Western commerce and industry and social change) contradicted his view of the best and the purest of the Indian spirit.

By 1870, the railways extended 4,000 miles and employed 7,000 people. By 1880, that was 10,000, by 1900, 20,000, and by 1947, 40,000 miles. Today, there are 7,000 stations and 13 million Indians travel by rail every day. This is the 4th biggest railroad in the world.

Looking at India now, both the present and the future, it is difficult to see a realistic alternative course to the one that was (and remains) transported on rails.

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The Vindhya Range and Bundelkhand. Look closely for elephants.

It is in this area that Fogg & Co enjoyed an elephant ride, participated in some late-night adventure, and added one member to their party. Bundelkhand was then a collection of minor local principalities that were only loosely overseen by the British. [See the above map.] Under the British Raj, the principalities constituted about half of India's area and a third of its population. By treaties, the princes ruled their lands while ceding suzerainty to the British crown in external matters. Britain explicitly retained control over the military and over communications – the post, telegraph and railway. Jules Verne was thus correct to note that British law did not prevail here. Bundelkhand lies in a remote branch of the Vindhya Range and the region remains one of the least developed in India.

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The broad Ganges frames the descending Constellation.

Allahabad is at the junction of two great rivers, the Yamuna and the Ganges. This confluence is a sacred place for Hindus and a mass pilgrimage destination every twelve years. A purifying bath in the flowing river here is said to flush away all of one's sins and free one from the cycle of rebirth.

For centuries, the city was a political or administrative capital of the region. After the Indian Rebellion of 1857, the British made it the capital of the United Provinces for twenty years. It is now the Judicial High Court seat for the state of Uttar Pradesh (UP).

Allahabad played a prominent role in the Indian quest for independence. Sessions of the Indian National Congress were held here in the nineteenth century. In the early twentieth century, the residencies of the Nehru family hosted a number of conferences of movement activists. The Nehru family, most notably Jawaharlal Nehru but also his independence-leader father Motial Nehru and future prime minister daughter Indira Gandhi, lived in Allahabad. (As a point of local pride, seven of India's fifteen prime ministers were natives of or had direct ties to Allahabad.)

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Kelly Johnson's flaps down for Finals

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Off the aircraft to see the sights

You might enjoy a terrific BBC documentary on the British role in building the railways and then on the current state of the railway industry. Television journalist John Sergeant provides a useful, self-consciously British, perspective. (These are two hourlong programs, cut into 10-minute segments for YouTube.)

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British Indian Railway – On Tracks of Empire – Unite and Divide
Playlist . Or individual parts: One, Two, Three, Four, Five, and Six
(IMHO this is the better of the two.)

British Indian Railway – On Tracks of Empire – Power and Privilege
Playlist . Or individual parts: One, Two, Three, Four, Five and Six
("Power and Privilege Part Four" focusses on the spectacular construction over the Western Ghats – with all the associated engineering ingenuity and human sacrifice.)

For another personal side of the railways, with an emphasis on the faded majesty of the steam engines and the way the railroads connected to small villages throughout the country, you might like to look at the National Geographic program The Great Indian Railway. This is more a human socio-cultural exploration with a rich view of how men and machines touched rural Indian society.

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And what I feel personally sad about is that with the locomotives dying out, [so is] a breed of men who had nerves of steel. They were men of muscle and the strength, understood metal what it was all about. What we get today, in lieu, the diesels, the electrics, which have really no muscle in them. They're all technology. There's no strength behind them. To us, as old railway men, they are really not comparables. … With that, a part of our soul will be gone.
– A veteran railway man in The Great Indian Railway

[Leg flown in advance due to work commitments.]

Summary:
Date: 2017-10-20
Route: VABB-VIAL
Aircraft: L-049 [A2A]
Leg Distance: 623nm
Flight Time: 2:31
Total Distance: 5533nm
Total Flight Time: 21:55

MM · October 25, 2017

RTW80 Leg 10. Allahabad to Calcutta. VIAL-VECC.
2017-10-24

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For air-minded people, Allahabad is famous for its part in the epochal 1934 MacRobertson Air Race from London-to-Melbourne. It was selected as a race check-point for its location, quality airfield and its administrative staff. One of the interesting stories of the race took place when Roscoe Turner's Boeing 247 got lost in the night on the way to Allahabad. With the fuel tanks nearly empty, the crew were seriously contemplating having to crash land in the "tiger-infested jungle" below. Happily, they were able to stay in radio contact with the station and find the field in darkness and then, after refueling, proceed on their way.

To salute the participants in the London-Melbourne, we switch aircraft to a Pan American DC-3 for the relatively short leg to Calcutta. The race's "handicap winner" was a KLM DC-2 flown by Parmentier and Moll. The DC-3 will do the honors.

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[This particular aircraft is modeled by Manfred Jahn and Jan Visser with a repaint by Ron Attwood. The Clipper Tabitha May is a currently active DC-3 owned by none other than Robert Randazzo of PMDG fame. See the AOPA report.]

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Turning to follow the Ganges

After takeoff, we follow along the Ganges River toward Varanasi. (In the Jules Verne book, Sir Francis Cromarty leaves the train at Varanasi, then named Benares, to join his troops.)

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The two-deck Malviya Bridge over the Ganges in Varanasi

In 1887 the British completed the Dufferin (now Malviya) Bridge which spanned 3,440 feet over the Ganges at Varanasi. The bridge carries the rail track on the lower deck and a road on the upper deck. This was a critical link in the east-west Grand Trunk road through the north Indian plains. The 27 massive brick piers had to be sunk deep into the ground to withstand the monsoon-swollen water of the Ganges at full flood. (A video glimpse of the bridge today. Note the guard towers.)

Rudyard Kipling immortalized this construction in his metaphorical story The Bridge-Builders. The British engineer and his men used their science and technology, and their ingenuity and courage, to construct the magnificent span. Then with the surprise onslaught of the monsoon, they faced the challenge of the boiling-angry furor of "Mother Ganga" – whose waters washed away villages and threatened to crumble the bridge at its roots. A classic conflict between the forces of nature and the ancient gods, on the one hand, and man-made technological progress, on the other.

… an overhead crane travelled to and fro along its spile-pier, jerking sections of iron into place, snorting and backing and grunting as an elephant grunts in the timberyard. Riveters by the hundred swarmed about the lattice side-work and the iron roof of the railway line hung from invisible staging under the bellies of the girders, clustered round the throats of the piers, and rode on the overhang of the footpath-stanchions; their fire-pots and the spurts of flame that answered each hammer-stroke showing no more than pale yellow in the sun’s glare. East and west and north and south the construction-trains rattled and shrieked up and down the embankments, the piled trucks of brown and white stone banging behind them till the side-boards were unpinned, and with a roar and a grumble a few thousand tons’ more material were flung out to hold the river in place.

All this was within sight of the ancient Ghats of Varanasi on whose embanked steps pilgrims come to bathe in the holy waters of the Ganges. Those who journeyed to honor Mother Ganga were spiritually offended by the imperial power's modern construction that spoiled the holy river. A true conflict between tradition and modernity.

The great Mahatma Gandhi agreed. The power and the scale of the railways were the means by which Britain plundered India. This force of modernity (Western industrial civilization) was evil. For Gandhi, the good life was the simple life.

In Kipling's story, the British bridge-builder prevails against the forces of nature and the ancient gods.

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Tabitha May over the sun-dappled fields of West Bengal

For 150 years, Calcutta (since 2001 Kolkata) was the British administrative capital of India. In the early eighteenth century, the East India Company established a trading post here on the banks of Hooghly River, a distributary of the Ganges. After some years of conflict with the local powers, the Company eventually prevailed and established their headquarters here.

In one of those conflicts, the local Bengali forces captured Calcutta's Fort William in 1756. The British prisoners, led by Dr. John Holwell, were cast into the fort's dark dungeon. At 8pm some 146 [perhaps only 64] men were crammed into a 14x18 feet space.

The dungeon was a strongly barred room, and was not intended for the confinement of more than two or three men at a time. There were only two windows, and a projecting veranda outside, and thick iron bars within impeded the ventilation, while fires, raging in different parts of the fort, suggested an atmosphere of further oppressiveness. The prisoners were packed so tightly that the door was difficult to close. …

By nine o'clock several had died, and many more were delirious. A frantic cry for water now became general, and one of the guards, more compassionate than his fellows, caused some [water] to be brought to the bars, where Mr. Holwell and two or three others received it in their hats, and passed it on to the men behind. In their impatience to secure it nearly all was spilt, and the little they drank seemed only to increase their thirst. Self-control was soon lost; those in remote parts of the room struggled to reach the window, and a fearful tumult ensued, in which the weakest were trampled or pressed to death. They raved, fought, prayed, blasphemed, and many then fell exhausted on the floor, where suffocation put an end to their torments.

About 11 o'clock the prisoners began to drop off, fast. At length, at six in the morning, [Nawab] Siraj-ud-Daulah awoke, and ordered the door to be opened. Of the 146 only 23, including Mr. Holwell [from whose narrative, published in the Annual Register for 1758, this account is partly derived], remained alive, and they were either stupefied or raving. Fresh air soon revived them, and the commander was then taken before the nawab, who expressed no regret for what had occurred, and gave no other sign of sympathy than ordering the Englishman a chair and a glass of water.
– Stanley Wolpert. (2009) A New History of India. (From Wikipedia)

This is, of course, the Black Hole of Calcutta.

In the nineteenth century, Calcutta flourished. Economic growth boomed from the 1850s, especially in the textile industry, and British companies invested in infrastructure projects including railroad and telegraph connections to the rest of India. Alongside the British arose a class of urbane Indians, often bureaucrats or professionals and likely Anglophiles, who provided the human capital for sustained prosperity. At the turn of the century, Calcutta was the largest and richest commercial center in India.

However, for strategic reasons, the British relocated the capital to New Delhi in 1911. Calcutta went into a long period of lethargy if not decline. Capital investment slowed. The Partition of 1947 further damaged the economy when it split off half the city's hinterland (into Muslim East Pakistan). Calcutta was surpassed by Bombay as the most dynamic center on the subcontinent.

In the 1950s, Calcutta would have evinced an air of faded grandeur.

Matters worsened during the tumultuous 1970s, with aggressive trade unions, an increase in political violence, and the rise to power of the communist party. Investors shifted funds to more growth-oriented parts of India. But in the 21st century, the city has experienced a resurgence perhaps due to better policies and perhaps due to the overall turnaround in the Indian economy. The urban agglomeration now has a population of about 14 million. You might like this breezy personal video essay: Christine Kaaloa 16 Best Things to Do in Kolkata. (If you ever feel that you have to carry the weight of the world on your shoulders … use your head. See the video segment 6:25-7:46.)

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Thick haze obscures the urban landscape of Calcutta and the Hooghly River.

Perhaps the most inspirational story of Calcutta is that of Mother Teresa. A young Albanian, she came to India as a Sister and taught school in Darjeeling and then in Calcutta. But in 1946 she experienced "the call with the call" to dedicate her life in service to the very poor. She began her missionary work in 1948, ventured to live in the Calcutta slums and began to tend to the poor and hungry. With no income, she struggled to fund her mission but eventually prevailed. She captured the attention of the Church who permitted her to form the Missionaries of Charity. For the rest of her life, she and her organizations would care for "the hungry, the naked, the homeless, the crippled, the blind, the lepers, all those people who feel unwanted, unloved, uncared for throughout society, people that have become a burden to the society and are shunned by everyone." Two quick looks at the legacy of Mother Teresa: the first from Al Jazeera and the second from France24.

Our Pan American passengers might not have known Mother Teresa's work. If they had, they would have been awestruck.

Dum Dum airport was a traditional stopover on the air route from Europe to the East. First an open grass field near the Dum Dum Arsenal, it quickly became a commercial operation. By the mid-1930s, Imperial Airways, KLM, and other airlines used the field. In the 1950s, our passengers would have seen the liveries of Aeroflot, Air France, Alitalia, BOAC, Cathay Pacific, Japan Airlines, KLM, Lufthansa, SAS, Swissair and TWA.

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The airport was later renamed Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose to honor the prominent leader of the Indian independence movement. (Bose was a controversial nationalist figure who, in WWII, collaborated wholeheartedly with Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan in order to wrest India from the British. Under Tokyo's supervision, he led the Indian National Army to support the Japanese invasion of India. The venture was defeated by the all-volunteer British Indian Army. Nehru preferred a democratic route to independence and prevailed. In the passage of time, though, the heroic stature of Bose has been resurrected by Indian nationalists.)

In the late 1970s, the anti-globalization and anti-capitalist communist party won elections to control the state of Bengal and ruled for 30 years. Most foreign carriers dropped service and the airport lost its central position for international air travel. But eventually, in the late-1990s, the airport benefited with the growth of low-cost carriers in India and recovered its traffic. This is now India's fifth busiest airport, serving 15 million passengers a year.

Summary:
Date: 2017-10-24
Route: VIAL-VECC
Aircraft: DC-3 [Manfred Jahn and Jan Visser]
Leg Distance: 412nm
Flight Time: 2:27
Total Distance: 5945nm
Total Flight Time: 24:22

DaveLTB · October 28, 2017

Fascinating Calcutta history...

Thanks, Mike, for fishing out the info.

Beautifully presented blog too.

Dave Britzius

(Cape Town)

MM · October 29, 2017

Much appreciated, Dave.

MM · October 29, 2017

RTW80 Leg 11. Calcutta to Bangkok. VECC-VTBD.
2017-10-28

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We departed Calcutta for Bangkok.

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Boarding the Constellation in foggy Calcutta

The passengers were eager to see the 700-year-old Royal Barge of Siam that the King offered to the Around the World filmmakers. (The golden swan figurehead adorns the ship that is hewn from a single tree. It measures 150 feet and requires a crew of 77 including 54 oarsmen. It remains in the Royal Family's possession today.)

Perhaps even more, the passengers were excited to see the royal palace depicted in the 1956 award-winning film, The King and I. The movie translated to the screen the Rogers and Hammerstein musical of the same name that premiered on Broadway in 1951 and has proven wildly popular over the years. The story was based on the memoirs of Anna Leonowens who served as the governess to the children of King Mongkut of Siam in the 1860s.

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Over the Bay of Bengal

While Hollywood-stylized and Western-centric, the story depicts a fascinating real-life history. King Mongkut had spent 27 years as a monk devoted to religion, living an ascetic lifestyle and acquiring an understanding of Western astronomy and Western languages. When he surprisingly became King in 1850, he understood that he would have to modernize Siam if he were to contest the aggressive European powers seeking colonial empires in the region. He managed to enact changes, gaining more control over finances and developing a "European-style" army. He opened Siam to free trade which led to a social and economic revolution as commoners enjoyed direct contact with Westerners. He encouraged noble families to educate their children in Western ways and pushed the adoption of Western geography and science and technology. Symbolizing the distance needed to come, he changed etiquette to allow court visitors to wear upper garments. (Beforehand, visitors had to be bare-chested to insure that they were carrying no weapons on their person.)

In 1861 King Mongkut decided that he needed a British governess to educate his many children in Western ways. He hired Anna Leonowens (who we now know was Anglo-Indian, not "Welsh" as thought to be the case as late as the 1950s). She was apparently quite successful and exercised some influence at the court. (Yes, she gained the respect of the King but the quasi-romantic relationship is a fiction.)

Among her students was prince Chulalongkorn who, as the next King, produced even more modernization in Siam and managed to fend off the grasp of European ambitions. He organized tax collection under a single system and thus consolidated power. He established a government of ministries organized around functional requirements rather than fiefdoms. He built a Military Academy and instituted conscription. He abolished the traditional torture methods of the judiciary. He sent royal princes to Europe for an education and exposure to Western ideas. Over considerable opposition – one-third of Thais were in servitude – he eventually abolished slavery. As it happened, Siam joined Japan and China as the only major Asian countries not to have been colonized by the Western powers.

So the film and musical are even more interesting than they might at first seem.

The King and I (Rogers and Hammerstein) (1956) was nominated for nine Academy Awards and won five. (It lost Best Picture to Around the World in 80 Days.) You might enjoy the Official Trailer and three famous musical numbers "Puzzlement", "Getting to Know You" and "Shall We Dance".

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On the Burma coastline

The city of Bangkok is relatively new. It was made capital in the late eighteenth century with the palace sited on a loop in the Chao Phraya river (which provided a natural defense). Through the nineteenth century, most people lived in stilt houses on the edges of canals and the river. Travel was entirely on the water: this was a "Venice of the East." The first road was completed in 1864, and only from 1880 did the population begin to move from the waterways to planned streets.

At the middle of the twentieth century, Bangkok was by far the dominant city in Thailand, having grown to a population of 1.2 million. It was the center of the economy with rice being milled in the city and teak logs from the north being floated downriver for processing here. Don Muang was the principal airport of Southeast Asia. And the city had become a tourist attraction in Asia with about 10,000 tourists annually. All this was about to change – in terms of pace and scale.

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Touchdown at Don Muang, the region's leading international airport (in mid-century)

Bangkok's real growth explosion did not begin until the 1960s. Both American aid and government-sponsored investment mattered. The typical rural-to-urban internal migration increased the population. The tourism industry developed after American servicemen used the city as a R&R destination. (That was the start. The industry has truly grown after those years.) And especially from the 1970s, the enormous surge of Japanese investment made a difference along with the growth of Bangkok-centered financial institutions. The success of Bangkok – relatively free and relatively well-governed – has attracted many multinationals to move their regional headquarters here.

Bangkok now has a population of about 8 million. And today it is one of the top tourist destination cities in the world. (With 21 million visitors a year, it ranks just ahead of second place London.) It possesses such traditional tourist sights as the Grand Palace and several major Buddhist temples of beauty and significance. But in addition, the city provides shopping opportunities in extensive open-air markets and modern urban shopping malls, and the backpackers' haven Khao San Road. (The ubiquitous street vendors have come under city regulation and their presence has lightened somewhat. At least temporarily.) Night life is prolific and massively popular. And Bangkok has earned the reputation as "Sin City of Asia" for its sex tourism.

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Quietly standing before the Don Muang International Terminal

(Thanks to Wolfgang Gersch, Jaap de Baare and Tom Gibson for the "California Classic" airports representing Calcutta Dum Dum and Bangkok Don Muang, circa 1962.)

Summary:
Date: 2017-10-28
Route: VECC-VTBD
Aircraft: L-049 [A2A]
Leg Distance: 868nm
Flight Time: 3:29
Total Distance: 6813nm
Total Flight Time: 27:51

kalizzi · October 29, 2017

Mike: your photographic skills are only rivalled by your articulate commentary. I again commend you for a most enriching diary and wish you safe flying. Best wishes.

MM · October 30, 2017

Thanks, friend. It is great fun to follow along with each of our pilots' trips.
Blue skies!

MM · November 1, 2017

RTW80 Leg 12. Bangkok to Singapore. VTBD-WSAP.
2017-10-29

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We flew southward to the island of Singapore, a British colony and, in the mid-twentieth century, a last outpost of the Empire.

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The Constellation rolling on Rwy 03L at Bangkok's Don Muang

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Turbulent storms were the norm for this flight

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Dark clouds surrounded the aircraft above and below

Since its formation in the early nineteenth century, Singapore had grown into one of the world's great ports serving the interior of Malaya (rubber and tin) as well as constituting the central hub for trade between Europe and Asia. This became a critical role with the opening up of the world's economy after the construction of the Suez Canal. Britain provided the discipline and knowledge necessary to provide good government and maintain a welcoming business environment. And the Imperial forces provided the protection that the small island city needed. (For a 1938 documentary film that shows the pre-War city and the seemingly invincible fortress Singapore, see Singapore – Crossroads of the East (11:20). The film's self-confidence, given subsequent events, reminds us of the value of humility.)

You might enjoy a quick look at this 1957 film for potential British tourists: Singapore, the Lion City (15:36). [The first minute's sound is spotty.] Arrive at Paya Lebar airport in a Lockheed Constellation! (You get a quick impression of the soon-to-be-lost colonial times.) Singapore 1957 (3:27) is a more informative documentary about the pre-boom Singapore. Both films do their jobs but miss much of what was transforming the city at the time.

After the Japanese captured Singapore in 1942 (and ruled it ruthlessly), the British lost their claim to governance. Young Singaporean activists were ready to join the international waves of Communism and Anti-colonialism. The British responded by granting Singapore elections and the equivalent of home rule, but not full independence. The young firebrands formed the People's Action Party (PAP) that won seats. The leftists then organized strikes that further fueled the independence movement. Under the moderate Lee Kuan Yew, the party won the elections of 1959 and formed a government in quest of full independence. Despite including a strong communist faction, the PAP leadership adopted a pro-business and anti-union stance to cultivate economic growth. After a two year merger with Malaya, one that fell apart due to ethnic rivalries, Singapore became independent in 1965.

The PAP leadership continued to pursue an aggressive economic development strategy. They emphasized the recruitment of foreign investment to bring high tech manufacturing to the island. Electronics and information technology became a strength of the manufacturing base. As did petroleum refineries. The leadership invested in schools and housing and mass transit. And the government generated domestic companies such a Singapore Airlines (often voted best in the world) and the Port of Singapore (busiest in the world) that proved profitable successes. Between 1970 and 2010, the Nominal GDP per Capita rose from US$925 to US$46,569 – surpassing all major countries in the world. (With many millionaires, the income distribution is highly skewed.) The median household income is about 18th in the world, roughly comparable to Germany, Taiwan, Britain and France. Certainly a success story.

The preeminent political leader over this period was Lee Kuan Yew. (Several of his international peers saw him as one of the world's ablest men.) Since the nation's founding, Lee followed a path of social and political discipline and was uniformly quick to crush any political opposition. While understanding the criticism, he believed it necessary to quell discord in order to pursue his goal of transforming tiny Singapore from a poor to a rich nation – within one generation. (Part of a Fareed Zakaria interview with Lee Kuan Yew (7:03).)

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On finals with the city of Singapore framing the airport

Singapore is now a modern "first-world" city with a first-class infrastructure and a competent incorrupt government. Nevertheless, Singapore remains a small city state with no natural resources. Its successful strategies of the late twentieth century may be matched by the much larger economies in the region and its place of prominence is by no means assured. It will be interesting to see how Singapore develops and adapts to the upcoming change.

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Passengers head for the new terminal at Paya Lebar

Singapore International Airport at Paya Lebar was built by the British and opened in 1955. It replaced the smaller Kallang Airport and added a longer runway and modern mid-twentieth century amenities. The new facilities were among the most spacious in the region. At the time it was a hub for Malayan Airways which connected Singapore with regional airports – the first being a DC-4 connection with Hong Kong. Then, in the 1960s the runway was lengthened to accommodate the jet age. In 1977, British Airways initiated supersonic Concorde services from London's Heathrow to Paya Lebar. (The service ended quickly as India objected to supersonic overflights.)

Singapore Airlines, a state owned profit making enterprise, began solo operations in 1972 and quickly succeeded in increasing passenger traffic. By 1975, Paya Lebar handled 4 million passengers with the liveries of all major international carriers being present here…including of course Pan American.

But neighboring housing estates meant that the possibilities for further expansion were limited and the decision was taken to move the international services to Changi on the reclaimed land to the east. Opened in 1981, Changi has been a great boon, routinely winning awards as one of the world's best airports. Peya Lebar is now an airbase of the Singapore Air Force.

The three airports are given a quick look in this Singapore Broadcasting Corporation 1988 program Diary of a Nation: Paya Lebar Airport (7:12).

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There is only one place to stay while in Singapore. Raffles Hotel was established in 1887 and was long the preferred residence for such writers as Somerset Maugham, Rudyard Kipling, Ernest Hemingway and Alfred Hitchcock. (It plays a cameo role in the 1938 film above.) See you at Long Bar, the famous visitors' watering hole and the home of the Singapore Sling (1915). Tradition dictates that you throw your peanut shells on the floor. Afterwards, you might check out the billiard room. Legend has it, in 1902 a tiger "managed to creep into the comfortable confines of the billiard room and cower under a billiard table. After its presence was discovered, the tiger was shot at least five times before receiving a fatal blow." This was the last tiger shot in Singapore.

(Thanks to Wolfgang Gersch for the "California Classic" Singapore Paya Lebar, circa 1962. And the Pan Am N88855 paint is due to the artistry of Eberhard Haberkorn.)

Summary:
Date: 2017-10-29
Route: VTBD-WSAP
Aircraft: L-049 [A2A]
Leg Distance: 779nm
Flight Time: 3:15
Total Distance: 7592nm
Total Flight Time: 31:06

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