WITH amenities modelled on those of the great luxury liners of the period, the 12 Boeing-314 Clippers operated by Pan Am and British Overseas Airlines Corporation remain the most luxurious aircraft ever to take to the skies.

The sumptuously appointed flying boats, which used to fly through Bermuda in the 1930s and '40s, are the subject of a recently published appreciation by M.D. Klass called .

The lavishly illustrated book includes sections on the aircraft's extensive use of the Darrell's Island airport in Bermuda. The largest aircraft of their type ever built, the Boeing 314 - which could carry a maximum of 74 passengers and 10 crew - used island airports like the one inBermuda as intermediate stepping stones for ocean-spanning flights across the Atlantic and Pacific.

The aircraft were originally commissioned from Boeing by Pan Am founder Juan Trippe ? also the developer of Bermuda's Castle Harbour Hotel ? specifically to allow for trans-oceanic flights. PanAm operated nine of the aircraft while three were purchased by Imperial Airways, forerunner of today's British Airways and also flew through Bermuda en route to New York and other destinations. The aircraft were built between 1938 and 1941.

The 84,000 pound, four-engine aircraft were 106 feet long, boasted a wing span of 152 feet and could reach a top speed of 199 miles per hour. After World War Two, seaplanes became obsolete because new, long-range aircraft such as the Lockheed Constellation could cross the Atlantic and Pacific non-stop.

The great flying boats were taken out of service destroyed. By the early 1950s, all of the planes were gone, ending the most romantic era in the history of commercial aviation.