What was CNAC?
CNAC was the China National Aviation Corporation, a civil airline partnership between Pan American Airways and the Chinese Nationalist Government of Chiang Kai-...
Author: Gregory
CNAC travel brochure, circa 1935
Colorful cover of the airline's travel brochure, middle 1930s, featuring the Douglas Dolphin
CNAC on the cover of Fortune Magazine
“CNAC is the China National Aviation Corporation. It is one of those peculiar enterprises whose capital value in dollars and cents might barely equ...
The Future Revealed Itself…
The people in this story knew as much about tomorrow as we do today. Which is to say, very little. The future revealed itself to them the same way it reveals it...
First Flight Shanghai-Canton
A beautiful and colorful first flight cover commemorating the first airmail service from Shanghai to Canton, signed by CNAC pilot Robert Gast.
What was, at the time, the world’s most exciting undertaking – flying
The romance of those beautiful airplanes flying against the backdrop of 1930s China set a hook in my heart. Shirley’s stories and her father’s photos cracked op...
The first hints of something much more substantial…
I had one of my life’s best 24-hour pushes in New York: at Bantam, I lunched with John Flicker, my acquiring editor (thanks, John!), and Nita Taublib , who mig...
I staggered upstairs, collapsed on my bed, pulled a blanket over my head, and sobbed tears of relief.
For the next year and a half, I failed to land another book project, and it wasn’t for lack of trying. Amidst the magazine writing and the part-time gig, three ...
The lowest I’d ever been
I came home from the reunion, thrilled to have bumbled into such an incredible story, invested three months researching and writing a book proposal about the ma...