China Clipper: The Age of the Great Flying Boats

By: Robert Gandt

Narrated by: Thomas Block

When the China Clipper shattered aviation records on its maiden six-day flight from California to the Orient in 1935, the flying boat became an instant celebrity.

This lively history by Robert Gandt traces the development of the great flying boats as both a triumph of technology and a stirring human drama. He examines the political, military, and economic forces that drove its development and explains the aeronautical advances that made the aircraft possible.

©1991 Robert Gandt (P)2015 Robert Gandt

Excellent all around.

Very interesting and in depth discussion of a wonderful age.

A boon you can listen to multiple times and pick up something new each time

His other books are just as interesting.

Excellent overview of commercial flying boats in history

I enjoyed the book. It certainly covered the topic in earnest. Naration was ok. History was not kind to the flying boats.

A Very Good History of Flying Boats, Fairly Well Read

This book by Robert Gandt is a well written history of The Great Flying Boats. I really liked the book. There is a lot of technical detail. I did parallel reading and found all of Mister Gandt's information to be accurate.

In its totality, this is a really good product. By that I mean, I purchased the Kindle and audiobook, and also there is a web page for Robert Gandt. There are numerous footnotes, photographs, and sketches in the Kindle and the web page that really added to the entire experience. I would not have enjoyed this audiobook as much without those additional items.

As far as narration, the book is well read and is faithful to the written text. The narrator has a good, but not great, classic narrator voice. I am concerned that is unfair and maybe irrelevant. I could easily follow the narration and did like it.

When the text contained quotes, the narrator added inflections, that I did enjoy, but am not sure was accurate. Spoken communication is more than the actual words. Inflection is a large part of such communication. Again, this is a rather nuanced observation, and may be irrelevant to other listeners. It did not keep me from enjoying the work. I liked it and would listen to the same narrator again.

In summary, I liked this work a lot. I definitely am glad that I was able to read along and look at photographs and study footnotes. Thank You....

This book is amazing

When it ended I was sad because i wanted to keep listening to it!! I love this book and will read it again in a heart beat!!!!

Disappointing

If you are an aeronautical engineer, you very well may enjoy this book. Way too much technical data about lifting capacity, load to tare ratios, horsepower, design specs, …. I could have tolerated some of this. This book is just a history of the design and development of sea planes be they American, Germany, British, French…
I wanted to hear about the people and the romance of the San Francisco to China route. The stop overs in Honolulu, Midway, Guam and Wake. About the rich people, the movie stars. There was almost none of this.

Great history, very technical.

This book is loaded with technical data and statistics. That kind of information is right up my alley, but in audiobook form it doesn't have any substance. The actual hard copy of this book is probably amazing. The only downfall to this book was the narrator. He is pretty monotone most of the time and the inflection in his voice was never in the right place or at the appropriate time.

Wonderful

Takes you back to the age of the flying boats, wonderful story of how they developed, matured and became obsolescent.
Great story and well presented

Overall worth a listen

I love books on the history of flight, especially PanAm and the seaplane clippers. I was very excited for this book. However the narrator's voice is just too dry. It's like listening to a bad lecture in a classroom. Its especially hard to follow when the book gets into heavy facts like seaplane model numbers.

Overall i enjoyed the book and learned some great things about the early days of international travel. I just feel it could have been better having been read with a bit more life.

Great historical background

Great book for the history if flying boats and great tie in with the war. Id listened to his book SkyGods about Pan Am so some was repeat. If you like flying boats .. Listen to this book

A good read

Lots of information and technology looked at and presented in a well organized format. I enjoyed listening to the back story .