Boeing 314 Clipper Round The World Page

Welcome to the Boeing 314 Clipper Round The World Page!

This page documents the progress and highlights of a flight around the world in a Boeing 314 Clipper Flying Boat, using Microsoft Flight Simulator 2002.

The flight has been in planning for some time now, you might even say for two years or more, as the flight is not a million miles from the one I did in a Catalina Flying boat back in 1999. That flight I attempted to do in 80 days using FS98, but due to work commitments actually took 90 days.

I am not being so ambitious this time, there are no plans as to how long this will take...

The Clipper has a top speed of 180 m.p.h. and no true autopilot (a gyropilot does exist) so this is no computer controlled, go have your tea and come back in 3 hours to land flight!

The Clipper is a 1930's design, so no mod cons, but lots of character.

My two breaks with the 1930's "real" flying is that I will be taking a GPS/Weather Radar with me (in the form of Avidyne FlightMax). This is mainly due to the Clipper not having the ability to tune into current day Navaids.

The typical cruising altitude of the Clipper is 8,000 ft or less, so I hope to see the world below at a nice sedately pace. One of the main reasons for not using a Jet for this Round The World (RTW) trip. However this does make it hard to get across America as the mountain ranges on the West coast are higher than that, so I need to track all the way down to Central America to get across (FlightMax also has ground proximity warning so hopefully I can avoid running into mountains!).

A description of the Clipper and the Flight Simulator aircraft I am using is on the "The Aircraft" page.

Another issue when I last did the RTW in the Catalina is just how short the days are when you get to northern latitudes. Landing at night on water is no easy thing. So setting out before dawn and landing at the end of days that only have 4-5 hours of daylight is likely to be the order of the day (especially on the eastern Russian Coast).

The route and flight plans being used for this trip are on the "The Plans" page.

All of the flights will be using "real" weather, so it is going to be interesting avoiding storms and the usual morning/evening smog/fog on the coast in some parts of the world is going to add some extra spice to the flights.

Anyway that's enough waffle from me. It is hoped to update the Progress and Pictures pages with highlights of the flights as I go. So stay tuned to these pages!

Author/Pilot: Barry Perfect