Wingspan: 9.5"
Length: 6.5"
Code: NC09116

This hand-carved Sikorsky S-42 Pan American Wood Model Airplane in New Collector Series is a mahogany wood display model airplane, done by highly experienced craftsmen, a work of art hand-painted with great concern for details and accuracy.

Based on the earlier Sikorsky S-40 that flew in 1931, Igor Sikorsky and Charles Lindbergh, working at the time as a Pan American Airways consultant, laid out plans for a new, larger flying boat. During the S-40's inaugural flight on 19 November 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 mile 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.