Post by 314clipper on Feb 12, 2007 13:10:18 GMT -5
A "must read" for fans of the Golden Era of Flying Boats:
Captain Lodi Speaking
by Captain Marius Lodeesen
(initially published in very small numbers just before his death in 1984; republished by Paladwr Press in 2004, still widely available).
Captain Lodi was a Dutch immigrant and US Naval aviator with incredibly fortunate timing who was hired as a junior pilot with Pan American in 1933. His career spanned 31 of the most interesting years of the airline's history, operating in all of its many divisions in a variety of classics: Sikorsky S-38/S-40/S-42/S-43, Commodore, Martin 130, and Boeing 314 flying boats; later the DC-4, DC-6, and Constellation; and finally the Boeing 707.
The book is an amazing collection of anecdotes and stories about the people, planes, and places of Lodi's remarkable career. Earning his wings in an NY-2 seaplane on Lake Michigan, flying down to Rio in an S-42, secret wartime missions to Africa in the Boeing 314, fog-shrouded approaches to Paris in Connies, navigating the corridors to Berlin in C-54s, North Atlantic crossings in America's first passenger jets (measured in number of pipes smoked from takeoff to landing), as well as his observations on the changing face of aviation.
Much like Gann and St. Exupery, he poetically yet unpretentiously captures the romance, grandeur, and adventure of those early days as one who was there, a participant rather than merely an observer.
Retired Captain Everett Wood, one of the copilots who flew with Lodi on the Internal German Service in the 1950s, wrote the epilogue. In his words, Lodi "possessed all the elements that made him a gentleman, in every sense of the term: kindness and modesty. Together with his superb piloting and his literary talent, such a combination is seldom to be found in the frame of a single person."
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Here are a few excerpts:
The ocean of the air, the Eighth Sea, held fabulous promise such as the Seven Seas could not provide. For the Eighth Sea the shoreline was the world. First across the Eighth Sea was the flying boat, the moveable feast of the 1930s. These ships were a compromise in the evolution of air transportation, one of those timely combinations of technology, creativity, and empirical judgment needed to release man from the bonds of the earth. The flying boat was tides and currents, wind and rain, thunder and terror, sweat and toil, all these things. Well it could be said, the flying boat was the greatest work of man.
On the Martin 130:
The first time I laid eyes on the China Clipper, she sat on her cradle before the hangar at the Alameda Airport across the bay from San Francisco. She had a matter-of-fact look about her like a girl who would not look good tangoing at the Copacabana, but who makes sure there is not a button missing on your shirt.
On an encounter with a Pacific typhoon while flying the Clipper as a junior crewmember with legendary Pan American pilots Ed Musick and Rod Sullivan:
From our perch in the cockpit, we see on the horizon great walls of boiling, tumbling cloud masses, bolts of lightning against a pale, afternoon sky. Underneath this pyrotechnical display hangs an ugly, black rain curtain on the sulphuric-looking horizon. Ed Musick, the skipper, squints his eyes. "Looks too large to fly around," he mutters, giving his seatbelt an extra cinch. Then he flicks off the auto-pilot and begins to hand-fly: "We'll go in on the surface, Rod. Stand by to give me help on the rudder when it gets really touchy. Lodi - keep track of my headings. But first, secure everything you can. I'm going to ease off to the south to see if I can find a light spot."
The Clipper descends and Ed levels off a few hundred feet above the sea. Now he can keep his bearings by watching the surface. The ocean heaves in slow, oily swells. A huge anvil begins to cover the sky. Darkness closes in, velvety as on cats' feet. The rain curtain stretches from horizon to horizon. There are no light spots.
"I think it's just a squall line," says Rod Sullivan, the first officer. Rod is a captain himself, a very experienced one. "If we cross at right angles," he says, "it shouldn't last too long. I've flown through stuff like that lots of times in the Caribbean." Musick stares at the tremendous sweep, the great, sombre threatening curtain of darkness that seems to grip the ocean's surface like the backdrop of a stage in heavy folds of drapery. He turns his head and looks at me. I sense Musick does not think it is a squall line. He turns back on course, we head towards the curtain.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The text has been enhanced here and there with amateur sketches by the author, and with a selection of photographs and maps added to the second edition by R.E.G. Davies.
As fellow Pan Am Captain Gene Banning says in the foreword:
Lodi writes of many of the "old-timers," as well as of many Pan American events, the more colorful people he met, and his narrative includes some of his best stories. These may be unusual but all are true."
"Marius Lodeesen was a great pilot, a man of letters, a raconteur par excellence, and always a joy to be with. And fortunately this remarkable man has given readers the opportunity to share his infectious joy through the pages of this book.
Overall, a brilliant and fascinating look at a bygone era. It is truly a gem - don't miss it!
Wayne
airwaysmag.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=71
www.flyingclippers.com/postflight/1888962224.html
Captain Lodi Speaking
by Captain Marius Lodeesen
(initially published in very small numbers just before his death in 1984; republished by Paladwr Press in 2004, still widely available).
Captain Lodi was a Dutch immigrant and US Naval aviator with incredibly fortunate timing who was hired as a junior pilot with Pan American in 1933. His career spanned 31 of the most interesting years of the airline's history, operating in all of its many divisions in a variety of classics: Sikorsky S-38/S-40/S-42/S-43, Commodore, Martin 130, and Boeing 314 flying boats; later the DC-4, DC-6, and Constellation; and finally the Boeing 707.
The book is an amazing collection of anecdotes and stories about the people, planes, and places of Lodi's remarkable career. Earning his wings in an NY-2 seaplane on Lake Michigan, flying down to Rio in an S-42, secret wartime missions to Africa in the Boeing 314, fog-shrouded approaches to Paris in Connies, navigating the corridors to Berlin in C-54s, North Atlantic crossings in America's first passenger jets (measured in number of pipes smoked from takeoff to landing), as well as his observations on the changing face of aviation.
Much like Gann and St. Exupery, he poetically yet unpretentiously captures the romance, grandeur, and adventure of those early days as one who was there, a participant rather than merely an observer.
Retired Captain Everett Wood, one of the copilots who flew with Lodi on the Internal German Service in the 1950s, wrote the epilogue. In his words, Lodi "possessed all the elements that made him a gentleman, in every sense of the term: kindness and modesty. Together with his superb piloting and his literary talent, such a combination is seldom to be found in the frame of a single person."
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Here are a few excerpts:
The ocean of the air, the Eighth Sea, held fabulous promise such as the Seven Seas could not provide. For the Eighth Sea the shoreline was the world. First across the Eighth Sea was the flying boat, the moveable feast of the 1930s. These ships were a compromise in the evolution of air transportation, one of those timely combinations of technology, creativity, and empirical judgment needed to release man from the bonds of the earth. The flying boat was tides and currents, wind and rain, thunder and terror, sweat and toil, all these things. Well it could be said, the flying boat was the greatest work of man.
On the Martin 130:
The first time I laid eyes on the China Clipper, she sat on her cradle before the hangar at the Alameda Airport across the bay from San Francisco. She had a matter-of-fact look about her like a girl who would not look good tangoing at the Copacabana, but who makes sure there is not a button missing on your shirt.
On an encounter with a Pacific typhoon while flying the Clipper as a junior crewmember with legendary Pan American pilots Ed Musick and Rod Sullivan:
From our perch in the cockpit, we see on the horizon great walls of boiling, tumbling cloud masses, bolts of lightning against a pale, afternoon sky. Underneath this pyrotechnical display hangs an ugly, black rain curtain on the sulphuric-looking horizon. Ed Musick, the skipper, squints his eyes. "Looks too large to fly around," he mutters, giving his seatbelt an extra cinch. Then he flicks off the auto-pilot and begins to hand-fly: "We'll go in on the surface, Rod. Stand by to give me help on the rudder when it gets really touchy. Lodi - keep track of my headings. But first, secure everything you can. I'm going to ease off to the south to see if I can find a light spot."
The Clipper descends and Ed levels off a few hundred feet above the sea. Now he can keep his bearings by watching the surface. The ocean heaves in slow, oily swells. A huge anvil begins to cover the sky. Darkness closes in, velvety as on cats' feet. The rain curtain stretches from horizon to horizon. There are no light spots.
"I think it's just a squall line," says Rod Sullivan, the first officer. Rod is a captain himself, a very experienced one. "If we cross at right angles," he says, "it shouldn't last too long. I've flown through stuff like that lots of times in the Caribbean." Musick stares at the tremendous sweep, the great, sombre threatening curtain of darkness that seems to grip the ocean's surface like the backdrop of a stage in heavy folds of drapery. He turns his head and looks at me. I sense Musick does not think it is a squall line. He turns back on course, we head towards the curtain.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The text has been enhanced here and there with amateur sketches by the author, and with a selection of photographs and maps added to the second edition by R.E.G. Davies.
As fellow Pan Am Captain Gene Banning says in the foreword:
Lodi writes of many of the "old-timers," as well as of many Pan American events, the more colorful people he met, and his narrative includes some of his best stories. These may be unusual but all are true."
"Marius Lodeesen was a great pilot, a man of letters, a raconteur par excellence, and always a joy to be with. And fortunately this remarkable man has given readers the opportunity to share his infectious joy through the pages of this book.
Overall, a brilliant and fascinating look at a bygone era. It is truly a gem - don't miss it!
Wayne
airwaysmag.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=71
www.flyingclippers.com/postflight/1888962224.html
