Samoa Clipper Sikorsky S-42

Flight Simulator > Samoa Clipper Sikorsky S-42

"China Clipper" is the name given to those flying boats that flew between the west coast of the USA and Asia in the 1930's. Even now, China Clipper is still the symbol of crossing the largest ocean on a trip that "hops" from island to island: Hawaii, Midway Island, Guam and Manila and from there to Macao and Hong Kong.

Since the early 1930's, plans had been underway to fly across the Pacific and to replace the mail service business until then transported in slow steamboats. This required a huge technological effort to design and build machines that could undertake such a long journey. The first airplane that could do this was the Sikorsky S-42 which, when slightly modified, was able to fly 21 hours and 3000 miles.

At the beginning of 1936, Pan American Airway opened an office and also a meteorological and radar post on Penha hill in Macao. Its first official transpacific flight, a plane called "Hong Kong Clipper," stopped over in Macao on 28 April 1937. It landed at 10 o'clock in the morning with mailbags, and for the very first time, Macao people had the chance to send their letters by air.

The mail carried to Macao in this historic flight amounted to 39,966 items of correspondence (39,035 ordinary, 931 registered), and the mailbags leaving Macao carried totally 41,456 items of correspondence (36,713 ordinary, 4,743 registered), breaking the record of mail acceptance and dispatch of Macao Post.

Flight Simulator > Samoa Clipper Sikorsky S-42