the rear door. The FBI has begun a nationwide hunt for the hijacker, who was probably inspired by Paul Cini who hijacked an Air Canada DC-8 two weeks ago. Declaring himself an IRA member, Cini demanded $1.5 million ransom. After the passengers had been let off at Great Falls the DC-8 took off again. Cini had planned to jump from a rear door, but was overwhelmed by cabin staff and crew as he tried to strap on his parachute.”

B-747 – Not the First “Whale”

            One of the fascinating things about looking for information in old history is that you often don’t find what you’re looking for but come across some interesting and useless data. A case in point. While looking for information about Northwest Airways’ founder, Col. Lewis H. Brittin, we came across a clipping about the Donier Do J Wal. The Wal in German is apparently “Whale” in English. That type plane first flew in 1922. It was a flying boat with a rectangular wingspan of 74 feet. It carried nine passengers, fourteen on shorter hops. It was powered by two engines (Rolls-Royce, Napier, Hispano-Suiza, Lottaine or Fiat) in tandem. The airframe was made of early type of Duralumin. There were quite a number of them built. Surprising to me they were built in Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Spain, The Netherlands and even Japan. All were apparently made under some form of licensing, not as a consortium like today’s Airbus Industries.

Who’s got the Answers?

            We came up with another clipping that really intrigued us. This apparently from a Miami newspaper dated May 8, 1943. Maybe some of our readers know more about this expedition.

            “The US Air Transport Command sometimes suffers from a shortage of pilots to ferry aircraft or military equipment. To remedy this, it calls on airline pilots. Four and a half days ago, 30 Curtiss C-46 Commando cargo aircraft left Miami, Florida and headed west. At the controls were five USAAF pilots, ten from TWA and fifteen from Northwest Airlines. All 30 twin-engined C-46s landed in Karachi, India safely after flying over the Himalayas.”

            While the article seems to be complete, it leaves a lot unanswered questions, In today’s world of jets zipping from just about anyplace to someplace else, and with satellite navigation and communications, it doesn’t seem to be much of a feat. But 60 plus years ago it was another matter.

• Why were all the planes in Miami? Is that where they were built or was there perhaps a modification center there (similar to NWA’s Holman Field operation) run by Pan Am, Eastern or National?
  
• The C-46 was a cargo version of the CW-20, which was a 34-passenger airliner. It would seem doubtful that the planes would be flown by a single pilot, but the story only refers to a total of 30 pilots for the 30 aircraft.

• How about navigators and radio operators? There must have been some aboard.

• With westbound departure from Miami and arriving in India after crossing the Himalayas, it would appear the flight apparently flew up the inside route to Alaska, down the Aleutian chain, over Russia, Mongolia, Tibet and China to get to Karachi. That sounds like a lot of uncharted territory.

• Getting the TWA and NWA pilots back home must have been interesting as well.

If you’ve got answers, we would like to hear from you!