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Fin ROUTES a 20-Year Sino-American Partnership Became the Cold War's First Corporate Casualty When the China National Aviation Corporation Ceased Operations in 1949

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Fin ROUTES a 20-Year Sino-American Partnership Became the Cold War's First Corporate Casualty When the China National Aviation Corporation Ceased Operations in 1949 .- t? ) OVER THE HUMP PTOxEERII{G CTIINCS fiN ROUTES A 20-year Sino-American partnership became the Cold War's first corporate casualty when the China National Aviation Corporation ceased operations in 1949. By Nancy Allison Wright g' +* 26 A\TIATION HISTORY NOVEMBER 1998 he China National Aviation Corporation (CNAC), and Harold M. Bixby, Pan American Far Stinson Detroiter circled above Chengdu's East vice president, peered anxiously out of the military parade ground. Its fuselage bore plane's windows, as upturned faces multiplied be- the ideograph "du," signifuing that it was a neath them. I mail plane. Several hundred of warlord "The soldiers seem friendly enough," yelled Allison Marshal Liu Hsiang's crack troops, shouldering over the roar ofthe throbbing engine. His passen- rifles with bayonets fixed, massed onto the field gers nodded. He circled lower. A S0-foot wall bor- below the green. single-engine, high-wing mono- dered one end ofthe 1,000-by-400-foot landing strip, plane. If the soldiers aimed their guns at the craIt, and telegraph lines intersected the other. The citi- pilot Ernest M. Allison vowed to "get the hell out of zens ofChengdu stood shoulder to shoulder. Allison here." If not. he would attempt to land. dived toward the crowd several times, hoping to Meanrvhile, drawn by the spectacle, Chengdu's scare them enough so that a wide path would appear population thronged to the parade ground. It was and he could land. The soldiers brandished their June 1. 1933, afine springday, andtheywereeager rifles at the crowd, clearing a runway. But no sooner to see the government "space machine"-in pidgin had the Stinson's wheels touched down than the English, "topside rickshaw coolie no have got'--*ome mob filled in the empty space in front of the plane. down out of the sky. William. L. Bond, the operations Fearing someone might stumble or be pushed into manager for China National Aviation Corporation the whirling blade, Aliison instantly cut the air- craft's engine. He ordered one soldier to keep the crowd back. The man acknowledged the command Inhis paintingRan in good military fashion with a snappy salute, then llanI\ary lloy presented arms with such alacnty that he thrust his White captures the bayonet through the Stinson's fabric-covered wing. drama of "flying the The postal commissioner whisked the Americans Hump" in aChina away in his car to the old marshal's military head- National Auiation quarters, where they had lunch. Afterward, the Corporation Douglas survey party departed Chengdu, their landing rights DC-S. CNAC had over Liu's territory happily secured. pioneered the route That day marked yet another milestone in the tur- ouer the southern bulent history of what aviation writer William M. edge of the Hi- Leary Jr., calls "one ofthe great pioneering ventures malayas the year in the history of commercial aviation." From CNAC's before it joined the inception in 1929 to its demise in 1949, China's first U.S. Arnry Air Forces continually operating scheduled airline dominated in a massiue cargo the country's civil aviation. Flying Loening amphib- airlift operation ians and Stinson monoplanes, CNAC pilots forged a between India und civil air network along China's lifeline, the Yangtze China, instituted to River. Later on-using Sikorsky S-38s, Douglas Dol- supply Chinese phins and DC-2s, among other aircraft-CNAc President Chiang also linked the outlying cities of Beijing, Chengdu Kai-shek's forces in and Canton. 1942 0)oy White, Dunng World War II, the airline had pioneered A N98, Stardust the famous 'Tlump" routes over the Himalaya Moun- Studios. tains between Assam, India, and Kunming, China, airlifting supplies to Chinese President Chiang Kai-shek's beleaguered forces. Following CNAC's lead, the U.S. Army Air Forces launched its massive effort to move large amounts of freight over the Hump. After the war, CNAC expanded its passen- ger and freight operations until it exceeded its pre- war size tenfold. By 1949, the airline ranked as the world's 12th largest civil aviation company and the largest, by far, in East Asia. CNAC, fonnerly named China Airways, owed its origins to Clement M. Keys, an aircraft visionary and the head of Curtiss-Wright Corporation, a giant aircraft complex encompassing 29 subsidiary and 18 afflliated companies. Keys dreamed of circling the world with aircraft, much as railroad barons of the late 1920s spanned the United States with steam- powered trains. To further that goal, he offered fund- ing and aeronautical expertise to governments in Europe, South America and Asia that were eager to develop their own air transportation systems. Ofthe countries that responded to Keys'offers, China showed enormous promise. The idea of es- tablishing internal air routes appealed mightily to President Chiang Kai-shek, then seeking to solidify his central authority. An airline could unifu Chinals NO\'EMBER 1998 AVIAIION HISTORY 27 a rcpair shop, tool shed and operati.,ls office-but to reach these facilities. a::- line personnel had to cross an armv ptii- ,<..aaa and the military refused to issue pas-s t after 6 p.m. As Allison soon discoverei .'r' the perils of promoting flight in the a= cient land of Cathay were as plentiful a-. dragons at a New Year's Day parade. Communication and navigation rvere also difficult. Only a few radio station existed, and these were operated by the Chinese Air Force, using obsolete equip ment. The lack of an adequate number of communication sites forced the new air- line to establish and maintain its our radio and weather-reporting stations. Territorial maps for the area were alsc, lacking; they were either nonexistent or inaccurate. "For the flight to Chengdu, I managed to find three maps," Allison later recalled. "All were different and the land below us was different in many re. spects from all three." The Loening amphibians suited the Yangtze River route ideally, since the mil- a itary controlled the countqy's few airporl" and most were not available for commer- cial use. 'When visibility became poor, we landed on the river and continued on the step at about 40 mph under reduced poweq" said Allison.'Iilhen visibility im- proved, we simply opened the throttle and took off." Powered by a single 525-hp Pratt & ' ;ti##;;;;,*&'. , ;:-- Whitney Hornet engine, the Loening car- ,*" , a. ; ..*.-*tt . + .t*---"'- _o ried a payload of 1,000 pounds (six pas- a+4 e- s :". F #u : - ,;*1. i sengers) and cruised at 100 mph. The pilot and co-pilot sat side by side in an Top:ALoening sprawling land mass (3,696,100 squale miles). It open cockpit above the enclosed cabin. On takeoff, C-2-H amphibian could fly over bandits, who held up an1'thing that a Loening captain had to dodge sampans, junks, sits outsidB its moved on roads or waterways, and ivarlords, rvho vic- freighters, passenger ships, gunboats and yachts partially completed timized the railroads, confiscating mail. Air trans- plying the Whangpu. He stood on the rudder pedalq hangar at Shang- portation could streamline the country's commerce gripping the throttle and wheel with both hands hai'sLungwha and trade. The 1,300-mile trip from Shanghai to while craning his neck to see between the exposed Airport in 1929. The Chengdu took 25 days by a combination of train, engine cylinders. According to'pilot Moon Chin, this bamboo-and- Yang\ze steamer and wheelbarrou', ox carl or pofter- procedure often resulted in a rim of oil settling matting hangars carried sedan chair. By plane, a businessman could around his face. were destroyedby arriveafteratwo-dayairflightduringdaylighthours. The Loenings were not the last word in passenger the year's fi.rst ty- Keys established a joint velture rvith Chiang's comfort. Bixby described the early floatplanes: "On phoon. Aboue: Four Nationalist government for exclusive airmail rights the takeoff the water used to pour in around the years later, a CNAC for 10 years on the Yangtze River route. Under the doors, and in the air such was the 'ventilation'in StinsonDetroiter agreement, signed in April 1929, the Chinese main- those cabins that you had to tie your hat on." Pas- and Loening am- tained 55 percent interest in the new company, the sengers were given cotton to plug their ears. Never- phibian are shown American partner 45 percent. CNAC did not exactly theless, for their time, the floatplanes provided safe near a more sub- prosper in its first four years, and in 1933, after his transportation. In 10 years ofservice, CNAC expe- stantialhangar at company was buffeted by the aftermath of the 1929 rienced only one fatal accident, when pilot Paul Baer the sante airport. stock market crash, Keys sold Curtiss-Wright's clipped the mast of a junk on takeolf Baer, his co- share of the airline's stock to Pan American Airlines. pilot and two passengers perished in the crash;two When Allison arrived in Shanghai on October 4, other passengers surwived. 1929, as senior pilot for CNAC, the fledgling airline Passenger traffic was disappointing during the boasted five crated Loening C-2-H Air Yachts and a first few years. fu Allison put it, "Most of the Chi- stretch ofmuddy ground, covered with high reeds, nese living along the Yangtze River had never seen on Shanghai's Whangpu River. To improve the field, an airplane before, so the appearance of these coolies built a ramp from the river to solid ground. strange objects in the sky was an unfailing source According to Allison, "Much shouting of hay-hoo and of interest to some and a source of fear to most." He burning joss sticks seemed to help the job." credits the time he flew Madame Chianginto Shang- They erected two bamboo-and-matting hangars hai after dark, during the Japanese attack in 1932, that served well until theyblew down in the year's first with the population's gradual acceptance of air typhoon.
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