The S-38 was developed based upon experience with the Sikorsky S-34 and S-36. The S-38 first flew in May 1928. According to Sikorsky, "The ship had very good takeoff characteristics from land and water. It had a climb of 1,000 feet (300 m) per minute fully loaded, and a maximum speed close to 130 miles per hour (210 km/h). The ship could cruise nicely around 100 miles per hour (160 km/h), and it stayed in the air on one engine. All these features were excellent for 1928 and at that time there were no other amphibians with such performance characteristics. In 1929, an S-38 was used by Colonel Lindbergh to inaugurate air mail service between the United States and the Panama Canal." The United States Navy ordered two aircraft, and Pan Am was an early customer.[1]
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 in mid-production.
Martin and Osa Johnson – In the zebra-striped S-38 Osa's Ark, with companion giraffe-patterned S-39Spirit of Africa, explored Africa extensively, making safarimovies and books.
During the 1990s two reproduction S-38s were built by the late Buzz Kaplan's “Born Again Restorations,” of Owatonna, Minnesota.[12] One was produced for Samuel Curtis Johnson Jr., the son of Herbert Fisk Johnson, to recreate his father's flight, which he completed in 1998. As of August 2017[update] the plane is suspended from the ceiling of Fortaleza Hall in the S. C. Johnson & Son company headquarters in Racine, Wisconsin .[13] The other S-38 replica, N28V, appeared in the movie The Aviator (2004), a story loosely based on the life of Howard Hughes, who owned an S-38 during his lifetime. As of August 2017[update] it is owned by Kermit Weeks and located at the Fantasy of Flight Museum in Polk City, Florida, bearing the Osa's Ark paint scheme.[14][15]
ASCADTA (actually Avianca, never was 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.[citation needed]
T. Raymond Finucane, a wealthy Rochester, NY businessman, 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.[16] Wreckage presumed to be from this plane was found eight years later by a fishing schooner.[17]
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 man 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.[18][19]
^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.
^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. ISBN978-85-7430-760-2.
^Johnson, E.R. (2009). American flying boats and amphibious aircraft : an illustrated history. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland & Co. pp. 72–74. ISBN978-0786439744.
