Pan American Clipper: Sikorsky S-42 1935 Pan American Airways (Patreon)

more at http://quickfound.net/

Silent footage. '...Pan American Airways) flying over Oakland and Alameda (California) and through incomplete towers of San Francisco - Oakland Bay Bridge and through towers of Golden Gate Bridge; also scenes of Clipper over San Francisco.'

Originally a public domain film from the Library of Congress Prelinger Archives, slightly cropped to remove uneven edges, with the aspect ratio corrected, and one-pass brightness-contrast-color correction & mild video noise reduction applied.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sikorsky_S-42

Wikipedia license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

The Sikorsky S-42 was a commercial flying boat designed and built by Sikorsky Aircraft to meet requirements for a long-range flying boat laid out by Pan American World Airways (Pan Am) in 1931. The innovative design included wing flaps, variable-pitch propellers, and a tail-carrying full-length hull. The prototype first flew on 29 March 1934, and, in the period of development and test flying that followed, quickly established ten world records for payload-to-height. The "Flying Clipper" and the "Pan Am Clipper" were other names for the S-42...

During the inaugural flight of Sikorsky's previous flying boat, the S-40, on November 19, 1931, the pilot and Pan American Airways consultant, Charles Lindbergh, who considered the S-40 a monstrosity, engaged designer Igor Sikorsky in a conversation about what he thought the next airplane should look like. The conversation continued that night at the hotel in Jamaica. Sikorsky argued that design development should be incremental and that the safe approach would be a larger S-40. Lindbergh argued that a sleeker design, with a range in still air of 2,500 miles, was needed.

In June 1931 Pan Am president Juan Trippe had requested designs from six aircraft companies for an aircraft able to span the oceans. The new design would need increased lifting capacity to carry enough fuel and 300 pounds of mail, but no passengers, for a 2,500 miles (4,023 kilometers) nonstop flight against a 30 mph (48 km/h) wind, at a higher cruising speed than the norm for similar flying boats at that time. Of the six companies tenders had been sent to, only Sikorsky and Martin provided submissions. Sikorsky offered the S-42. The other offer was the more ambitious Martin M-130.

The new Sikorsky design, the S-42, had major aerodynamic improvements over the S-40. Igor Sikorsky said, "in its very outline the S-42 represents simplicity. Diverting sharply from the past Sikorsky designs, external bracings have been reduced to a minimum. The tail, instead of being supported by outriggers, is attached directly to the hull." The S-42 had a high wing loading which required flaps to provide acceptable takeoff and landing speeds. Though Lindbergh approved of the S-42, it fell far short of his proposed range...

Pan Am's S-42s were used primarily on the Miami - Rio de Janeiro route. In 1937 S-42s also operated a New York-to-Bermuda service. 1940 saw S-42 flights between Seattle and Alaska. An S-42 was also used between Manila and Hong Kong...