The Loening Air Yacht was the height of CNAC’s commercial aviation technology when China’s Wings‘ main character, William Langhorne Bond, arrived in China in March, 1931.
I’d never heard of the Loening Air Yacht when I discovered the China’s Wings story; by the time I’d finished writing the book, it was one of my favorite airplanes (along with the Douglas Dolphin and the DC-2).
Here’s a gallery of photos of the ungainly beast. Click my Loening Air Yacht tag for all the posts I’ve made that feature the strange airplane:
Here’s an interesting YouTube video of the Oakland-to-San Francisco seaplane ferry using a Loening in 1930, with brief footage of the San Francisco waterfront.
My grandfather, Lawrence A. Waite, flew for CNAC along the Yangste River Line starting February 1931. He wrote a memoir about this experience. Would you like to read it?
I would! That sounds interesting.