On November 22, 1935, Pan American Airways’ _China Clipper_ took off from San Francisco Bay on its first scheduled trans-Pacific flight to Manila, Philippine Islands. One hundred years before, to the day, the first Yankee clipper ship had sailed into the same bay. Twenty-five years before, a young man had made America’s first trans-Pacific flight--a flight of 33 miles from the California shore to Catalina Island. The 26-ton _China Clipper_ heading into its 8,000-mile trans-Pacific flight was a Martin 130 flying boat built by Glenn L. Martin, the young fellow of the Catalina flight. In just 59 hours and 48 minutes of flying time the first _China Clipper_ landed in Manila Bay. PAN AMERICAN CLIPPER INAUGURATES AMERICA’S FIRST TRANSATLANTIC AIR TRANSPORT SERVICE With the sweep of its wings the first _China Clipper_ ripped out weeks of slow surface travel to the rich markets of the Far East. By 1936 a trip from this country to China was measured by a matter of sixty or seventy flight hours instead of by weeks. It was not the big clipper planes alone that built the far-flung Pan American Airways. Juan Trippe visualized his world airways system and then picked the finest experts in every field to carry out his plans. Former diplomats covered the proposed routes long before the Clippers flew them. There was, of course, no freedom of the air. No plane could fly over a foreign country without permission. Trippe’s emissaries had to get franchises. Germany, France, Britain, and Holland were after franchises in South America too. There, as in the Far East, they got the rights to fly, not by government pressure, but by selling aviation as a valuable business asset to any nation. Once Trippe had his franchises, he sent experts to explore and lay out routes. They carved airports out of jungles and Arctic wastes, and in places where no white man ever had penetrated. The supply problems overcome and the engineering marvels performed by Trippe’s advance men would furnish plots for a dozen movie thrillers. In laying out the bases at Wake and Guam on the Pacific route, more than one million separate items were bought, shipped, and installed before the first _China Clipper_ took off from San Francisco. Pan American’s map added another blue line after the Pacific route was under way. This time it was to Alaska, and another distant travel time could be reckoned in flight hours rather than ocean days. Then came the Atlantic and the giant Boeing 314 Pan American _Clippers_. [Illustration: 1939-1945 WINGSPAN 152 FEET LENGTH 106 FEET THE HUGE LONG-RANGE BOEING _CLIPPER_ WEIGHED 41-TONS. POWER FOUR 14-CYLINDER 1,500 HP. RADIAL ENGINES FOUR 3-BLADED PROPELLERS WITH A DIAMETER OF 14 FEET FURNISHED THE _THRUST_ FOR THE PLANE. SPEED ONE HOUR 175 MILES RANGE 3,100 MILES CEILING 15,000+ FEET PAYLOAD PAYLOAD 74 DAY PASSENGERS. OR 40 SLEEPER PASSENGERS, A CREW OF 8 TO 15 PLUS 2 TONS OF MAIL