SEVENTY-six years ago, on Sunday, July 9, 1939 a Pan-American Airways flying boat landed on Southampton Water carrying 19 passengers to mark the beginning of the end for the golden age of trans-Atlantic liners.

As those involved celebrated the remarkable achievement, the momentous event was also in some ways ironic as the aircraft used the same waters and docks that had been the home of the great ocean-going ships for decades before.

The 37-ton flying boat, theYankee Clipper, had just inaugurated the first regular trans-Atlantic air passenger service between America and England, a journey that had taken the passengers and crew 27 hours.

It was heralded as the 'magic carpet of aviation' and the Southern Daily Echo’s front page story carried the headline 'Fantasy Becomes Fact'.

Piloted by Captain Arthur E Laporte, the Yankee Clipper, had 30 people on board, including 11 crew, 550 pounds of mail and a quantity of freight.

“Yankee Clipper alighted in Southampton Water, off the Empire Air Base at Hythe, and picked up a mooring,” reported the Daily Echo the following day.

“She was boarded by customs and port medical officials and the passengers were transferred to motor-launches, which took them to 108 Berth in the New Docks.

“The air travellers were as nonchalant as if they had made a flip from the Isle of Wight instead of having crossed thousands of miles of ocean.

“One passenger said the roughest part of the whole journey was the trip up Southampton Water in the motor launch.”

As the dark, ominous clouds of the Second World War gathered on the horizon the route never really took off, although there was a brief period when both Pan-Am and Imperial Airways flew weekly services, experimenting with flying boats as they endeavoured to set up a viable commercial air service.

Despite the humble beginnings of these first trans-Atlantic flights in the late 1930s, they were without doubt the trailblazers for the millions of people that have since flown the Atlantic and it was this change that brought about the decimation of the great liners.

In the early stages of these transatlantic flights, both Imperial Airways and Pan-Am s boat, which up until now had been employed for services to destinations within the Empire with a sector distance of around 800 miles.

However this range was about 1,000 miles shy of the Atlantic gap between Ireland and Newfoundland and so modifications were made to the aircraft that included equipping the aircraft with extra fuel tanks and stripping out all furnishings. Trial flight followed with the aircraft following a either a northerly route of Southampton, Shannon, Newfoundland, Montreal and New York or by the southerly route to Lisbon, the Azores and Bermuda.

By 1938 more revolutionary ideas were being introduced, such as the “Mercury/Maia” piggy-back composite aircraft which made a successful flight across the Atlantic with freight and mail, but this could not be taken as a serious proposition. The following year Imperial Airways started experimenting with in-flight refuelling, developed by the Dorset-based company founded by Sir Alan Cobham, but this operation was not without its hazards during early tests and so was never introduced into passenger carrying flights.

Pan-Am on the other hand opted for an entirely new and far larger flying boat, and ordered three Boeing 314s, capable of flying over the longest sectors with a useful load of 35 passengers aboard, enjoying a high level of service — there was even a honeymoon suite in the tail section.