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:
“We find that Good and Evil happen alike to all Men on this Side of the Grave; and as the principle Design of Tragedy is to raise Commiseration and Terror in the Minds of the Audience, we shall defeat this great End, if we always make Virtue and Innocence happy and successful.”
—Joseph Addison (1672–1719)
“To be sure, we have inherited abilities, but our development we owe to thousands of influences coming from the world around us from which we appropriate what we can and what is suitable to us.”
—Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe (1749–1832)