Sikorsky S-38

S-38
	Sikorsky S-38 being positioned for display at AirVenture, Oshkosh in 2006. This is a replica.
Role	Flying boat
Manufacturer	Sikorsky Aircraft
Designer	Igor Sikorsky
First flight	25 May 1928
Introduction	October 1928
Primary users	Pan American Airways; New York, Rio, and Buenos Aires Line
Number built	101
Unit cost	$37,000 in 1930
Developed from	Sikorsky S-34; Sikorsky S-36

Sikorsky PS-3, serving as a transport for the Eleventh Naval district. VJ-5 D11-4 (8285), photographed in March 1930.

The Sikorsky S-38 was an American twin-engined 8-seat sesquiplane amphibious aircraft. It was sometimes called "The Explorer's Air Yacht" and was Sikorsky's first widely produced amphibious flying boat which in addition to serving successfully for Pan American Airways and the U.S. Army, also had numerous private owners who received notoriety for their exploits.

Design and development

The S-38 was developed from the Sikorsky S-34 and S-36. The S-38 first flew on May 25, 1928. The United States Navy ordered two aircraft (designated XPS-2) and Pan American Airways were an early customer.

A total of 101 aircraft were built, manufactured originally by the Sikorsky Manufacturing Corporation of Long Island, New York, and by the Sikorsky Aviation Corporation in Bridgeport, Connecticut. Sikorsky was acquired by United Aircraft and Transport Corporation (now United Technologies Corporation) in mid-production.

Variants

A C-6A

S-38A: 11 Built
S-38B: 10 place model, 80 Built
S-38C: 12 place model, 10 Built
C-6: United States Army Air Forces designation for the S-38A for evaluation, one aircraft later used as a VIP transport.
C-6A: United States Army Air Forces designation for a C-6 with minor changes, 10 aircraft.
XPS-2: United States Navy designation for the S-38A, two aircraft later converted to XRS-2 transports.
PS-3: United States Navy designation for the S-38B, four aircraft later converted to RS-3 transports.
XRS-2: United States Navy designation for two XPS-2 converted as transports.
RS-3: United States Navy/Marine Corps designation for the S-38B transport version, three aircraft and conversions from PS-3.
RS-4: United States Navy designation for two civil S-38A impressed into service.

Operators

American Airways^{[citation needed]}
Andean Corporation^{[citation needed]}
Canadian Colonial Airways^{[citation needed]}
Chilean Air Force^{[citation needed]}
Colonial Western Airways^{[citation needed]}
Creole Petroleum Corporation - operated out of Maturin, Venezuela.^{[citation needed]}
Cubana de Aviación^{[citation needed]}
Curtiss Flying Service^[1]
Inter-Island Airways of Hawaii^{[citation needed]}
Lloyd Aéreo Boliviano-Lab^{[citation needed]}
Martin and Osa Johnson^{[citation needed]}
New York, Rio, and Buenos Aires Line (NYRBA) - Used for first airmail from Argentina to Miami. All sold to Pan Am in 1930^[2]
NYRBA do Brasil^{[citation needed]}
Northwest Airways^{[citation needed]}
Pan American Airways^{[citation needed]}
Pan American-Grace Airways - Operated out of Lima, Peru^[2]
Pan American Petroleum Company^{[citation needed]}
Panair do Brasil^{[citation needed]}
Panama Air Force^{[citation needed]}
Avianca as SCADTA^{[citation needed]}
Svensk Flygtjänst AB (later Swedair)^{[citation needed]}
United States Army Air Forces^{[citation needed]}
United States Marine Corps^{[citation needed]}
United States Navy^{[citation needed]}
Western Air Express^{[citation needed]}

23x15px Spain

Spanish Republican Air Force. One unit was used in the Northern Front during the Spanish Civil War. Shot down by friendly fire^[3]

Some famous owners include:

Osa's Ark S-38

Aviator and businessman Howard Hughes
Aviator Charles Lindbergh – Surveyed South American and Pacific Ocean routes for Pan Am with Anne Morrow Lindbergh.
Robert R. McCormick, newspaper publisher – Surveyed commercial air routes between North America and Europe.^[2]
Venture capitalist John Hay Whitney – Luxury Transport
The Flying Hutchinsons – First attempted around-the-world flight by a family.

Filmmakers Martin and Osa Johnson – In the zebra-striped S-38 Osa's Ark, with companion giraffe-patterned S-39 Spirit of Africa, explored Africa extensively, making safari movies and books.
Herbert Fisk Johnson, Jr. – Explored the northeastern part of Brazil in search of the carnauba palm, and to research carnauba wax, the source of the world's hardest natural wax. The Spirit of Carnauba, a replica of this aircraft, is on display in Fortaleza Hall on the S. C. Johnson campus.^[4]^[5]^[6]

Survivors

One of the two remaining S-38s, N28V appears in the movie The Aviator (2004), a story loosely based on the life of Howard Hughes. Hughes owned an S-38 during his lifetime. N28V is not a real survivor but rather a reproduction, built in the early 2000s. As of September 2010^[update] N28V bears the Osa's Ark paint scheme.^[7] N28V is now owned by Kermit Weeks and located at the Fantasy of Flight Museum in Polk City, Florida.

Accidents and incidents

A SCADTA (a Pan Am subsidiary) S-38, NC9107, crashed in the Colombian jungle near Pereira, killing all but one on board; the survivor was carried for seven days through the jungle to civilization.^{[citation needed]}

T. Raymond Finucane, a wealthy Rochester, NY business man, and three others disappeared over the sea aboard a Sikorsky Amphibian after departing Norfolk, Virginia for New York City March 22, 1929. In Miami, Florida, Finucane had wagered a friend who was traveling ahead by train that he (Finucane) would reach New York first. He chartered Curtiss Flying Service to fly him to New York from Miami. Also on board the missing aircraft were Frank Ables and J. Boyd, Curtiss mechanics, along with Harry Smith, the pilot. A massive search by Curtiss planes, American military planes, coast guard cutters, and even the airship Los Angeles failed to turn up anything. Mrs. Finucane, founding president of the Rochester Community Players, visited the Curtiss operation at Roosevelt Field, the destination of the flight, for updates.^[8] Wreckage presumed to be from this plane was found eight years later by a fishing schooner.^[9]

On September 25, 1932, a Panair do Brasil Sikorsky S-38 registration P-BDAD still bearing the titles of Nyrba do Brasil was seized in the company's hangar by three men, who took a fourth as one hostage. None were aviators but they managed to take-off. However the aircraft crashed in São João de Meriti, killing the four men. Apparently the hijack was related to the events of the Constitutionalist Revolution in São Paulo and it is considered to be the first hijack that took place in Brazil.^[10]^[11]

A wealthy divorcee, Mrs. Francis Grayson, Brice Herbert Goldsborough (navigator) and Oskar Omdal, and Fred Koehler (passenger) set off to cross the Atlantic (a 3rd attempt) on Dec 23, 1927 (1928?) in a Sikorsky S-38, named "The Dawn". She was determined to be the first woman to fly the Atlantic. Sea conditions were stormy and rough, but she was determined. They passed Cape Cod, 8 am, due for Harbor Grace, Newfoundland. The Sable Island wireless station picked up "Something's wrong here" with their call letters...30 miles distant. They did not reach a landing port. This began the first ever air relief expedition, including 2 destroyers and the USS Los Angeles dirigible. A message in a bottle was found on Jan 29, 1929, it read "1928, we are freezing. Gas leaked out. We are drifting off Grand Banks. Grayson." Nothing more is known.^[12]

Specifications (S-38-A)

General characteristics

Crew: Two
Capacity: 10 passengers
Length: 40 ft 3 in (12.27 m)
Wingspan: 71 ft 8 in (21.85 m)
Height: 13 ft 10 in (4.22 m)
Wing area: 720 ft² (68.6 m²)
Empty weight: 6,000 lb (2,727 kg)
Loaded weight: 10,480 lb (4,764 kg)
Powerplant: 2 × Pratt & Whitney R-1340 Wasp 9-cylinder air-cooled radial engines, 400 hp (298 kW) each

Performance

Maximum speed: 104 knots (120 mph, 192 km/h)
Range: 648 nm (750 miles, 1,200 km)
Service ceiling: 16,000 ft (4,878 m)
Rate of climb: 750 ft/min (229 m/min)
Wing loading: 14.5 lb/ft² (69 kg/m²)
Power/mass: 0.08 hp/lb (0.13 kW/kg)

References

Citations

↑ "Sikorsky to United"; Time Magazine, July 29, 1929
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↑ SBHAC - Aviones de la Fuerza Aérea de la República Española
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↑ New York Times: March 25, 1929, March 26, 1929, March 27, 1929, and March 28, 1929
↑ New York Times, Feb. 22, 1937
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↑ Goldsborough Families, Karin Martin, 2010, pp. 146-150

Bibliography

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External links

1933 film of a flight of an S-38 into the mountains of BC

[1] "Sikorsky to United"; Time Magazine, July 29, 1929

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[3] SBHAC - Aviones de la Fuerza Aérea de la República Española

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[8] New York Times: March 25, 1929, March 26, 1929, March 27, 1929, and March 28, 1929

[9] New York Times, Feb. 22, 1937

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[12] Goldsborough Families, Karin Martin, 2010, pp. 146-150

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v t e Sikorsky aircraft
Fixed-wing aircraft (company designations)	S-1 S-2 S-3 S-4 S-5 S-6 S-7 S-8 S-9 S-10 S-11 S-12 S-13 S-14 S-15 S-16 S-17 S-18 S-19 S-20 S-21 S-22 S-23 S-24 S-25 S-26 S-27 S-28 S-29-A S-30 S-31 S-32 S-33 S-34 S-35 S-36 S-37 S-38 S-39 S-40 S-41 S-42 S-43 VS-44 S-45
Fixed-wing aircraft (military designations)	C-6 C-28 JRS JR2S PS RS XBLR-3 XPBS XSS XV-2
Helicopters (company designations)	VS-300 (S-46) S-47 S-48 S-49 S-51 S-52 S-53 S-54 S-55 S-56 S-57 S-58 S-59 S-60 S-61 S-61L/N S-61R S-62 S-63 S-64 S-65 S-66 S-67 S-68 S-69 S-70 S-71 S-72 S-73 S-74 S-75 S-76 S-80 S-92/H-92 S-97 S-300 S-333 S-434
Helicopters (military designations)	SH-3 HH-3E/F R-4 H-5 H-6 H-18 H-19 H-34 CH-37 XH-39 HH-52A CH-53 CH-53E CH-53K CH-54 HH-60G HH-60J MH-60R/S SH-60B/F SH-60J/K UH-60 VH-60 RAH-66 CH-124 CH-148
Experimental aircraft	Cypher Cypher II Firefly X2 XBLR-3 XV-2

v t e United States military transport aircraft designations, Army/Air Force and Tri-Service systems
Army/Air Force sequence (1925-1962)	C-1 C-2 C-3 C-4 C-5 C-6 C-7 C-8 C-9 C-10 C-11 C-12 C-13¹ C-14 C-15 C-16 C-17 C-18 C-19 C-20 C-21 C-22 C-23 C-24 C-25 C-26 C-27 C-28 C-29 C-30 C-31 C-32 C-33 C-34 C-35 C-36 C-37 C-38 C-39 C-40 C-41/A C-42 C-43 C-44 C-45 C-46 C-47/T C-48 C-49 C-50 C-51 C-52 C-53 C-54 C-55 C-56 C-57 C-58 C-59 C-60 C-61 C-62 C-63 C-64 C-65 C-66 C-67 C-68 C-69 C-70/A/B/C/D C-71 C-72 C-73 C-74 C-75 C-76 C-77/B-D C-78 C-79 C-80 C-81 C-82 C-83 C-84 C-85 C-86 C-87 C-88 C-89 C-90 C-91 C-92 C-93 C-94 C-95 C-96 C-97/KC-97 C-98 C-99 C-100 C-101 C-102 C-103 C-104 C-105 C-106 C-107 C-108 C-109 C-110 C-111 C-112 C-113 C-114 C-115 C-116 C-117 C-118 C-119 C-120 C-121/F C-122 C-123/A C-124 C-125 C-126 C-127 (I) C-127 (II) C-128 C-129 C-130/J C-131 C-132 C-133 C-134 C-135/KC-135 C-136 C-137 C-138¹ C-139¹ C-140 C-141 C-142
Tri-service sequence (1962-present)	C-1 C-2 C-3 C-4 C-5 C-6 C-7/B C-8 C-9 C-10 C-11 C-12 C-13¹ C-14 C-15 C-16¹ C-17 C-18 C-19 C-20A-D/F-H C-21 C-22 C-23 C-24 C-25 C-26 C-27/J C-28 C-29 C-30¹ C-31 C-32 C-33 C-34¹ C-35 C-36 C-37A/B C-38 C-39¹ C-40 C-41 C-42¹ C-43¹ C-44¹ C-45 C-46
Revived original sequence (2005-present)	C-143 C-144 C-145 C-146
Non-sequential designations	C-767 C-880
¹ Not assigned See also: AC-47 • AC-119 • AC-130 • DC-130 • EC-130 • HC-130 • KC-130 • LC-130 • MC-130 • WC-130 • CT-39 • CT-43

Sikorsky S-38

Contents

Design and development

Variants

Operators

Survivors

Accidents and incidents

Specifications (S-38-A)

See also

References

External links

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