is chalk's airline still in business

Eighty-three years later, the business, now called Chalk’s Ocean Airways, is still flying passengers in seaplanes back and forth between Florida and the Bahamas. It is, according to no less an authority than the Guinness Book of Records, the world’s oldest continuously operating airline. Still, Chalk’s was … Air & Space Magazine Janus’ aircraft had developed engine trouble. August 2002. That changed abruptly in 1919, with the enactment of Prohibition. | He and Chalk struck an agreement: Chalk would fix the engine; in return, Janus would teach the young man how to fly.A few years later, Janus migrated to Miami and, operating a Benoist flying boat, started the nation’s first scheduled passenger air service, the St.Petersburg-Tampa Airboat. I'm reading a number of news articles that say Chalk's Airlines has gone out of business.

After the final report from the Flight 101 crash investigation was released, the Chalk's had claimed to be the oldest continuously operating airline in the world, having begun operations in 1917 and scheduled flights in February 1919, and having only ceased operations for three years due to As of March 2007 the Chalk's International Airlines fleet comprised: It is, according to no less an authority than the Bimini, a ragged sevenmile strip of sand, was, in the early part of the century, principally a destination for sports fishermen. Because neither Miami nor the Bahamian islands he frequently flew to had airports, Chalk equipped his three-seat Stinson Voyager with floats so that he could take off and land the aircraft on water.In 1919, the operation, by then named Chalk’s Flying Service, inaugurated a regular schedule to Bimini, a Bahamian island 50 miles off the southern Florida coast.Eighty-three years later, the business, now called Chalk’s Ocean Airways, is still flying passengers in seaplanes back and forth between Florida and the Bahamas. The airline had many different owners after the death of founder Arthur Chalk in 1977, also operating under the names Chalk's International, Chalk's Ocean Airways, and Pan Am Air Bridge . All 20 passengers and crew on board the 1947 Grumman G-73T Turbine Mallard died in the crash, which was attributed to metal fatigue on the starboard wing resulting in separation of the wing from the fuselage. One early acquisition was a Benoist biplane.

The engine, built by Roberts Motors, was a two-stroke, water-cooled model that had the frequent bad habits of backfiring and belching flames, challenging Chalk’s skills equally as a mechanic and as a pilot.When Prohibition ended in 1933, Bimini and the airline that served it began to attract another tier of travelers: Errol Flynn was a Chalk’s aficionado, and later so were Ava Gardner, Lana Turner, Judy Garland, and the eventual all-time king of flying boats, Howard “Spruce Goose” Hughes. The airline was founded by Arthur "Pappy" Chalk, and started ad-hoc charter operations as the Red Arrow Flying Service in 1917. He also upgraded his inventory.

Initially making a living as a barnstormer, in 1917 he founded the Red Arrow Flying Service, on the dock of the Royal Palm Hotel in Miami. Chalk’s began catering to bootleggers traveling to Bimini to contact suppliers, pay them, and check on their inventory; with equal courtesy and reliability, it transported numerous federal agents shadowing the smugglers.

Ernest Hemingway loved Bimini for its access to deep-water fishing, and was a regular Chalk’s passenger during the 1940s.

In 1982, for instance, the airline flew a record 50,000 passengers. After "Pappy" Chalk served in the Army Air Service in World War I, he returned to Miami and commenced scheduled service between Miami and Bimini in the Bahamas in February 1919 as Chalk's Flying Service. Unlike the float-modified Stinson, the Benoist was a flying boat—a hull lander, with no floats. In 1926 a landfill island, Watson Island, was created in Biscayne Bay close to Miami. His office was a small table under a beach umbrella, and his reservation system was a single crank telephone hanging from a pole. Chalk's built an air ter… Chalk's Ocean Airways Flight 101 was an aircraft crash that occurred off Miami Beach, Florida, in the United States on December 19, 2005. Because it was the nearest of the still-wet Bahamas, the island became a hub for smuggling alcohol into the States. Even so, the good times didn’t last. Billing itself as "The World's Oldest Airline," Chalk's flew seaplanes in south Florida and the Bahamas for over 8 decades.