Design and Development
Based on the earlier Sikorsky S-40 that flew in 1931, Igor Sikorsky and Charles Lindbergh (who was working at the time as a consultant to Pan American Airways) laid out plans for a new, larger flying boat. During the S-40's inaugural flight on November 19, 1931, the two visionaries began preliminary sketches on the back of a menu in the S-40's lounge.
Pan Am's president, Juan Trippe, had a similar vision of an aircraft able to span oceans. The new design provided for an increased lifting capacity to carry enough fuel for a 2,500 mi (4,000 km) nonstop flight against a 30 mph (48 km/h) wind, at a cruising speed far in excess of the average operating speed of any flying boat at that time. Pan Am was also courted by Glenn Martin, but Sikorsky's S-42 was delivered first, as the Martin M-130 was still almost a year away from completion.
Read more about this topic: Sikorsky S-42
Famous quotes containing the words design and/or development:
“Nowadays the host does not admit you to his hearth, but has got the mason to build one for yourself somewhere in his alley, and hospitality is the art of keeping you at the greatest distance. There is as much secrecy about the cooking as if he had a design to poison you.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Dissonance between family and school, therefore, is not only inevitable in a changing society; it also helps to make children more malleable and responsive to a changing world. By the same token, one could say that absolute homogeneity between family and school would reflect a static, authoritarian society and discourage creative, adaptive development in children.”
—Sara Lawrence Lightfoot (20th century)