People and Planes - January ‘98 Aviation History Department

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Amphibious airplanes offered frequentsix-minute flights between SanFrancisco and Oakland in 1930.

By Jay E. Wright

Onlookers lined the north side of Pier 5 in San Francisco on February 1, 1930. Dignitaries stood on the floating dock and surrounded the Loening Air Yacht as it loaded passengers. The airplane’s cabin door closed, and the bystanders on the dock were waved away as the crew started the engine and taxied into the bay. The co-pilot retracted the wheels into the hull, and the pilot taxied on the step the length of the pier for a clear takeoff. After a six-minute, six-mile flight, the seven VIP passengers deplaned at the foot of Franklin Street in Oakland, at the edge of the downtown district. The inaugural flight of Air Ferries Ltd. was completed.

The scheduled transport of passengers by air across the short expanse of San Francisco Bay actually began in 1914, when Weldon B. Cooke, a well-known California flier, inaugurated an air ferry service from San Francisco to Oakland. Two flying boats were used, one equipped with a 75-hp Roberts engine and one with a 100-hp Hall-Scott. The make of the aircraft is not recorded, but one of them was referred to as an “Airmaid.” It was piloted by Silas Christofferson, who once made a forced landing in the bay with two passengers. The name of the airline is not recorded, nor is the duration of its business life, but it may be assumed that it was a short one. The air ferry concept languished for years.

The availability of dependable seaplanes and amphibians led to the establishment in 1929 of other short-haul, water-based airline services. They appeared first in the Great Lakes area and later on the West Coast. Western Air Express set up a route between Los Angeles and Catalina Island, and Gorst Air Transport serviced the Pacific Northwest, with Seattle as the hub. Both of these airlines flew the Loening Air Yacht.

The successes of these efforts encouraged Joseph J. “Buster” Tynan, Jr., to form Air Ferries Ltd. in San Francisco. Tynan was the son of the vice president of Bethlehem Steel Company and, through his father, had a direct approach to the checkbooks of many of San Francisco’s wealthy businessmen. Tynan raised capital, built a management team and ordered airplanes. When his short-haul airline service was inaugurated in February 1930, passengers were charged $1.50 a flight.

The dock in San Francisco used by the service was a float that was shaped somewhat like the top of a mushroom, so the airplanes could lower their landing gears in the water and taxi up onto the float to deplane and load passengers. The facility at the Oakland terminal was a barge with a hinged ramp; the airplanes could taxi out of the water and onto the barge for passenger loading, refueling and any minor maintenance necessary between flights. To save time, planes occasionally moored at the ramp–and passengers would then use a plank as a gangway. Special ground taxi service, which cost passengers 10 cents each way, was arranged to transport passengers to the business areas of both San Francisco and Oakland.

All maintenance was done at night at the Oakland airport. The planes were flown empty to the Oakland seaplane terminal in the morning and returned to the airport at the end of the flying day. The schedule called for a flight every 20 minutes from 8 a.m. to dusk.

The Air Ferries fleet began with three airplanes. Soon, a third terminal was opened at Vallejo, 20 miles from San Francisco. Another plane was added to handle the Vallejo route. Plans also were made to extend air ferry service to three more northern California cities, including Sacramento, the state capital 85 miles to the northeast.

The aircraft chosen for the service had previously proven its reliability by its exceptional military service history. The Air Yacht was the commercial version of the Loening OL (observation-Loening) series that had served both the Army and the Navy well since 1924.

The Air Yacht had a crew of two, seated side by side in an open cockpit. Behind them was an enclosed cabin that seated six passengers comfortably. The engine exhaust was arranged to discharge over the upper wing center section to minimize engine noise in the cabin. Two of the first three airplanes were equipped with Pratt and Whitney Hornet engines and the third with a Wright Cyclone; both types were dependable radial engines of 525 horsepower.

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