A little actual history and a little revisionist history.
Following World War 2, a number of surface carriers in the United States invested in aircraft and formed airlines for faster service overseas. Companies like Matson, Moore-McCormick and Grace Lines already had overseas offices, agents and a knowledge of foreign business regulations. They were well placed to take advantage of the new airfields and air traffic control systems built all over the world during the war.
Others, like Santa Fe railroad, (ATSF), had established domestic routes, sources of supplies of perishable products, and looked to augment their rail service with high speed refrigerated perishable air freight service. But that’s another story and another build.
Matson Lines was a well established passenger and freight operation headquartered in San Francisco, and making good money with the luxury ship service to Hawaii. In 1946 the line started to operate two DC-4s on non-scheduled routes to Hawaii, and up and down the West Coast. The aircraft, Sky Matsonia and Sky Royal Hawaiian, were all-first-class and presented fierce competition for Pan Am and United on the Hawaii routes. The attraction was to travel one way on the surface in one of the Matson cruise liners such as the SS Matsonia, Lurline, Monterey or Mariposa. Return by air. And stay at one of the luxury Matson hotels on Waikiki Beach; the Moana or the Royal Hawaiian.
Pan Am could never make any money with their Clippers on account of operating costs and difficulties, and United was struggling with unreliable aircraft types.
Matson set up their airline by hiring American Airlines’ No. 1 Captain, E.L. Sloniger. He in turn brought his favorite AA pilots, including Ernest Gann. Gann later wrote well about this and other experiences, some of which I’ve included here.
Inevitably, Pan Am, United and TWA exerted their influence in Washington and with the CAB, and surface carriers were ruled ineligible for airline certification. Matson Airlines struggled through 1947 and stopped operations in 1948. Santa Fe went through a similar series of problems, a story to be related in another post.
Here my story takes a turn. Pan Am had purchased six Boeing B-314s and started Pacific service in 1939. Initial success led to purchase of an additional six 314As, however when they started service in 1941 the hostilities already threatened the Pacific routes. PAA sold three to BOAC, who operated them through the war and on until 1948 on Atlantic routes.
When the US entered the war, the Clippers were purchased by the Navy for use as transports, and leased back to PAA who operated them. Several were lost during the war, and by 1945 they were obsolete as the DC-4 and the Constellation became available. Pan Am sold the ones they got back from the Navy to World Airways or scrapped them for parts.
“What if” Matson had bought one in 1946 with the aim of extending their airline routes from Hawaii to Micronesia, Hong Kong and the Indian Ocean? Again, they could have doubled up on their existing surface operations, making use of their Pacific Asian business operations, Not all business decisions are successful of course, but down on Market Street it sounded like a good opportunity to stick a twig in Juan Tripp’s eye.
Matson received the former Clipper Bombay, NC18616 at Alameda, CA on April 1, 1946. After conversion back to it’s luxury level of comfort, she became the aircraft of choice of now full-Captain Ernest Gann, and was based in Honolulu.
Gann moved his family from their townhouse on Washington Street in San Francisco’s toney Pacific Heights, to a 5 bedroom mansion in Kahala.
She was renamed Sky Lurline and flew Honolulu- Hong Kong- Guam- Jakarta for several years. Following the dissolution of Matson Airlines, Syd de Kantzow and his gang of pirates at Cathay Pacific bought her. She never flew any more passengers, instead becoming a floating casino in Macao Harbor.
Back to factual history: Gann retired from flying and got to work writing The High and The Mighty. But that’s beyond the scope of this story, which is already too long.
I’ve had this model for quite a while and recently became interested in finishing it. In the box, the fuselage halves were glued together, the decals are in good condition, and all of the other parts seemed to be there.
However, the world doesn’t need another Pan Am Clipper model, or at least one from me, so I decided to do something a little different.
There’s a great source of custom decals I’ve found. Vintage Flyer Decals, his site is easy to find. They sell a Matson Airlines set for the DC-4, which I looked at while looking for another DC-4 scheme. Rather than fill a shelf with DC-4s which would not be a bad thing, I thought of the story of the Sky Lurline.