Baby Clippers

CXIX

Not long after the introduction of the S-42 flying boat, Pan American Airways commissioned Sikorsky to build the S-43. The S-43 was for all intents and purposes, a smaller amphibian version of the S-42. It was similarly, if rather less ostentatiously, appointed within. 

The S-43 “Baby Clipper” (top)  could be confused (at first glance) with its larger sister, the S-42 (bottom), but the S-43 was smaller in all its dimensions, had only two engines, and had a single rudder

The S-43, introduced in 1935, could carry 18-25 passengers and a crew of two or three, as compared with the S-42’s crew of five and 32 passengers. The S-43’s LOA was 51’ 2” as opposed to the S-42’s 69 feet. The S-43’s wingspan was 86 feet even as opposed to the S-42’s 118’ 2’’. The S-43 had two Pratt & Whitney engines. The S-42 had four. The S-43’s range was 750 miles; the S-42’s was double that. Accordingly, the S-43 was called a “Baby Clipper” in comparison to the full-grown S-42.

The interior of the S-43 was smaller and less ornate than that of the S-42, and more closely resembles a current-day Tourist Class cabin

The S-43 was used by Pan American for feeder lines, such as the Seattle-Juneau run and the Manaus-to-Rio run. They were used for shuttle hops along the east coast of South America, and for the venerable Miami-to-Havana route, replacing the obsolescent Trimotors and supplementing the well-worn Commodores inherited from NYRBA.

Fifty three S-43s were built. Panair Do Brasil used several, as did Panagra and China National Airways Corporation (CNAC), all Pan Am subsidiaries. Other airlines that used them were Inter-Island Airways of Hawaii and Reeve Aleutian Alaska Air, A handful were sold to private owners like Howard Hughes, and several air forces used them, including Norway’s, Chile’s, the U.S. Army, the U.S. Marine Corps, and the U.S. Navy. The planes flew commercially (though not for Pan American) into the 1950s. By then, Pan Am had retired all its flying boats.

None of the actual flying boat clippers in Pan Am service currently survive, but Howard Hughes’ personal S-43 still exists, as does a remnant U.S.M.C. Baby Clipper; in this, they are unique examples of the flying boats of the era.