Beautiful Thing

All one day last week men, women and children in sultry Manhattan, on the broad beaches of Long Island, at windswept Point Judith, R. I. and in leafy Connecticut stared aloft in wide-eyed wonder at a beautiful flying thing, the like of which they had never seen before. Through a blue cloud-flecked sky it wheeled its solitary way round & round in a wide circle over three states.

From its one long thin wing, its four mighty motors, the row of portholes in its fat body, many an observer rightly guessed that it was the Sikorsky 8-42, world's largest amphibian. What they did not know was that it was on its final acceptance test-flight for Pan American Airways; that it was breaking eight world's records by flying the greatest load the greatest distance at the greatest speed.

Even if they had known, few laymen would have been greatly interested in such unspectacular record-breaking. But to airmen the performance was wildly exciting. Over a measured course of 311 mi., her motors throttled down to only 69% of their maximum 3,000 h.p., the 8-42 had flown four times non-stop at an average speed of 157.5 m.p.h., carrying the equivalent of her full load-capacity of 32 passengers, crew of five, 2,000 Ib. of mail and cargo.

With her gross weight of 19 tons and top speed of 192 m.p.h., the 8-42 will be the world's biggest and fastest airplane in regular over-water service. Last April in her first test-flights she broke two world's altitude-with-load records, and with her performance last week now holds all existing transport seaplane records. Following her acceptance by PAA last week she flew non-stop from Bridgeport to Miami (1,300 mi.) for shakedown cruises at the company's Dinner Key Base.

Next fortnight she is scheduled to fly to Rio de Janeiro to be christened Brazilian Clipper by the wife of Brazil's President Vargas. Thereafter in Pan American's Miami-Rio-Buenos Aires service she will cut air travel time from seven days to five.

Biggest airplane ever built in the U. S., equally at home in air, water and on land, the 8-42 gave Pan American Airways plenty of cause for pride last week. But prouder than Pan American, was the mild, soft-spoken man who had designed and built this monster of the air out of a boyhood dream.

Baron Igor Ivan Sikorsky first became interested in aviation when, aged 13, he observed the family wash flapping in the breeze. His interest in multi-motored flight was due largely to a mosquito. Born a Russian subject, in 1889, son of a wealthy psychology professor at Kiev University, he built his first flying-machine (a helicopter) at the age of 18, was jeered by crowds when it failed to rise. His second helicopter rose 5 ft. before collapsing. Thereafter young Sikorsky built a 15-h.p. biplane (S-1), followed by two others of more horsepower. All three crashed, because Igor Sikorsky had not yet learned the principles of flight.

Success came in 1912 when his seventh plane won the Petrograd Military Competition prize of 30,000 rubles. Shortly afterward a fuel-line, clogged by a dead mosquito, nearly cost Sikorsky his life in a forced landing. In 1913 (aged 24) he built and flew the world's first successful multi-motored airplane. His next model, a 4-engined monster which lifted twelve tons, made him famed as the "beardless father of Russian aviation." honored by Tsar and nation. During the War his huge Sikorsky bombers had a reputation for coming back. Of the 73 completed, only one was shot down in the course of 400 flights into enemy territory. From a Sikorsky bomber was dropped the first 1,000-lb. aerial bomb of the War.

Then came the Revolution to plunge this young nobleman into obscurity overnight and drive him penniless to Paris, later to the U. S. A stranded emigre, his life apparently wrecked, he led a hand-to-mouth existence for five years by lecturing on astronomy at $3 a lecture. In 1923 he and a few other White Russian exiles pooled their resources ($600) and proceeded to build an airplane out of old automobile parts in a chicken-coop on Long Island. An able pianist. Sikorsky meanwhile attracted the attention of his fellow exile, Sergei Rachmaninoff, who helped raise $100.000 to start an aircraft factory. First U. S. built Sikorsky (S-29) carried two grand pianos from New York to Washington, flew half a million miles before being purposely crashed in a Hollywood thriller. More famed was S-35, which Sikorsky built in 1926 for Capt. Rene Fonck, French Ace of Aces, who planned a non-stop flight to Paris. Loaded with nearly 14,000 Ib. of gasoline, S-35 crashed on the takeoff, incinerated two mechanics. Newshawks saw Sikorsky weep.

Not until the post-Lindbergh aviation boom did real success come to Sikorsky in the U. S. From his factory in Bridgeport, Conn., since then, has gone many an amphibian to the U. S. Navy, many a transport to Pan American Airways, many an air-yacht to U. S. tycoons. Two years ago his Russian mechanics built the world's first giant amphibian (S-40), the famed 40-passenger Yankee Clipper used on Pan American's over-water routes.

Today, at 45, U. S. Citizen Sikorsky is once again as famed as he was in Russia 20 years ago. Shy, gentle, absentminded. he lives in Longhill, Conn, with his wife and three children, usually covers his high bald forehead with an old greasy checkered cap.

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