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
Andean Corporation
Canadian Colonial Airways
Chilean Air Force
Colonial Western Airways
Creole Petroleum Corporation - operated out of Maturin, Venezuela.
Cubana de Aviación
Curtiss Flying Service^[1]
Inter-Island Airways of Hawaii
Lloyd Aéreo Boliviano-Lab
Martin and Osa Johnson
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
Northwest Airways
Pan American Airways
Pan American-Grace Airways - Operated out of Lima, Peru^[2]
Pan American Petroleum Company
Panair do Brasil
Panama Air Force
Avianca as SCADTA
Svensk Flygtjänst AB (later Swedair)
United States Army Air Forces
United States Marine Corps
United States Navy
Western Air Express

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. Their S-38 was cited in the plot line of The Phantom comic strip adventure (May 2 - August 30, 2008) as the reason Kit Walker bought an original for $3.25M (USD). The sale was by invitation only and the new owner had to depart at night because all 101 built were documented as lost, not accounting for the two survivors listed below.
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 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.
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
1 2 3 Skyways. Panorama Publications. January 1999. ISSN 1025-2657. Missing or empty |title= (help)
↑ SBHAC - Aviones de la Fuerza Aérea de la República Española
↑ Associated Press (2010-01-24). "SC Johnson unveils new architectural showpiece". Chicago Tribune. ISSN 1085-6706. Retrieved 2010-01-25.
↑ Kamin, Blair (2010-01-27). "Meeting Mr. Wright: Norman Foster's new Fortaleza Hall at S.C. Johnson & Son converses winningly with the old master". Chicago Tribune. ISSN 1085-6706. Archived from the original on 2010-02-02. Retrieved 2011-01-29. In 1935, Herbert F. Johnson, then the company's president, flew the original model of the S-38 from Racine to the Brazilian city of Fortaleza in search of a lasting source of wax from the carnauba palm tree.
↑ Burke, Michael (2008-05-12). "Johnson family's Spirit of Carnauba makes its final flight". The Journal Times. Racine, WI USA. Archived from the original on 2010-09-18. Retrieved 2012-06-16. Their trip re-created one that Fisk and Curt's grandfather, H.F. Johnson Jr., made in 1935. In that journey, he flew to Fortaleza in search of a sustainable source of the carnauba palm tree, then the indispensable ingredient in Johnson Wax.
↑ "See World's Only Flying Sikorsky S-38 at AirVenture". 2012 AirVenture Oshkosh. Oshkosh, WI USA: EAA. Archived from the original on 2011-07-24. External link in |work= (help)
↑ New York Times: March 25, 1929, March 26, 1929, March 27, 1929, and March 28, 1929
↑ New York Times, Feb. 22, 1937
↑ Pereira, Aldo (1987). Breve História da Aviação Comercial Brasileira (in Portuguese). Rio de Janeiro: Europa. p. 337.
↑ Germano da Silva, Carlos Ari César (2008). "Uma verdadeira aventura". O rastro da bruxa: história da aviação comercial brasileira no século XX através dos seus acidentes 1928-1996 (in Portuguese) (2 ed.). Porto Alegre: EDIPUCRS. pp. 22–23. ISBN 978-85-7430-760-2.
↑ Goldsborough Families, Karin Martin, 2010, pp. 146-150

Bibliography

Davies, R.E.G. (1987). Pan Am: An Airline and its Aircraft. New York, NY USA: Orion Books. ISBN 0-517-56639-7.
Yenne, Bill (2003). Seaplanes & Flying Boats: A Timeless Collection from Aviation's Golden Age. New York, NY USA: BCL Press. ISBN 1-932302-03-4.

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Sikorsky S-38.

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

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

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

USN/USMC patrol aircraft designations 1923–1962

Patrol

Boeing	XPB PB P2B P3B

Douglas	PD P2D P3D

Grumman	PF

Hall	PH P2H

General Aviation	PJ

Keystone	PK

Martin	PM P2M P3M P4M P5M P6M P7M

Naval Aircraft Factory	PN P2N P3N¹ P4N

Lockheed	PO

Sikorsky	PS P2S

Lockheed	PV P2V P3V

Consolidated	PY P2Y P3Y P4Y-1 P4Y-2 P5Y P6Y

Patrol Bomber

Boeing	PBB PB2B

North American	PBJ

Martin	PBM PB2M

Naval Aircraft Factory	PBN

Lockheed	PBO

Sikorsky	PBS

Canadian Vickers	PBV

Consolidated	PBY PB2Y PB3Y PB4Y-1 PB4Y-2

Patrol Torpedo Bomber

Hall	PTBH

¹ Not assigned

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