Clipper Pioneers Newsletters
The February 2012 Newsletter is available only to
paid members and auxiliary members.
Our February 2012 Newsletter features....
Turning Finals: "Two Burning, Two Burning..."
by John A. Marshall
Well, not exactly burning. Comatose was more like it, but it doesn’t rhyme nearly as well. It is an apt metaphor however, for a flight I will never forget.
It began like most, a routine flight from South Asia to Frankfurt. The flight was a bit out of the ordinary because for the first time we were overflying the Soviet Union, over a new route that had received government approval only after lengthy and tedious negotiations.
That the route was needed at all was due to the increasingly frustrating and expensive detours created by the constantly changing and volatile political atmosphere that pervaded the Middle East. Ever since the inauguration of round-the-world service, our flights had put in at Istanbul, Beirut, Damascus, Baghdad, and Teheran on their way to and from the Far East.
One by one these stops had been denied us, and overflight permission was no longer routinely granted by many countries, resulting in an inefficient, political tip-toe through the region, slaloming our way past hostile borders on the long flights to Asia. It was like creeping through a darkened house, trying not to wake the dogs. Finally, after one of our westbound 747s was forced to land at Damascus and then endure six hours parked on a remote corner of the airport in the August sun, all for the lack of the proper daily overflight number, negotiations with the Soviets for an alternative were begun in earnest. READ MORE (Paid members only) >>>
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Flying Central America
by Captain Bill Nash
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Passings of our Fellows
Upcoming Events
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and more...
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