Long Island, New York, has proven to be an integral player in modern aviation. Our home base and
main
campus location at Republic Airport in Farmingdale enjoys a rich history of aircraft manufacture
throughout the 20th century, and is home to many amazing photographic exhibitions and archives
in the main
terminal.
There are a number of smaller airports spread around the middle and eastern parts of the island;
satellites to the world-famous major hubs of JFK and Laguardia. The north shore of Long Island
is not
known as an airport district, yet something happened in 1937 to give the small hamlet of Port
Washington a
significant blip in aviation history’s radar.
In 1937, two transatlantic joint "survey" flights, defined as an experimental dual flight to
test out a
new route, was flown between Foynes, Ireland and Port Washington, NY - the home to Pan American
World
Airways’ new waterside facility which ultimately became Pan Am. It was a perfect stopping off
point for
the dual route, because it sat at Manhasset Bay and was ideal for a huge and lumbering seaplane
to slither
up Manhasset Bay and take off along the expansive Long Island Sound.
The flying boats were the "Caledonia", a Short S23 'C' Class Empire, registered G-ADHM and built
for
Imperial Airways, an early British commercial airline from 1924 to 1939, which later became
British
Airways, and the Pan American S-42 B Clipper III. These ships jointly made the first
transatlantic
commercial "survey" flights to and from Port Washington on July 5 to 6, 1937. The article below
from
Goodliving Magazine (1987) presents an interesting account of two recipricol survey flights, and
how a
fledgling airline with a crazy idea about commercial transatlantic travel prefaced in 1937 what
is
commonplace today, instead of the daredevil feat that it had been up until then.
The Short Brothers S 23 "Caledonia"
The Pan American Sikorsky S-42 Clipper
The commemorative plaque erected in Port Washington (note the wrong date which was never
fixed):
The arrival of the Caledonia at Port Washington on July, 6, 1937 (3:25 to 5:48):
