Across the Pacific
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Tells the story of a great milestone in aviation history: the 1935 crossing of the Pacific Ocean by a Pan American Airways flying boat known as the China Clipper. The documentary series recounts the development of this technological innovation – led by Pan Am’s chief executive Juan Trippe, pilot Charles Lindbergh, airplane engineer Igor Sikorsky and radio engineer Hugo Leuteritz – with dramatic re-enactments, interviews with historians and biographers, and archival photographs, newsreel clips and film.
With his path across the Atlantic blocked, Juan Trippe surprises even his own staff by turning to the Pacific. Defying the skeptics, Pan Am builds an airway to Asia, allowing its airplanes to hopscotch across the world’s widest ocean by landing at five stepping stone islands: Hawaii, Midway, Wake Island, Guam and the Philippines. Hugo Leuteritz’s radio direction finders point the way, and Igor Sikorsky’s latest flying boat, the S-42, pioneers the route before giving way to the Martin M-130 known as the China Clipper. Within two years, Pan Am is offering regular passenger service to Hong Kong, connecting America and the Asian mainland. Air service from New York to London begins in 1939, completing a chain of airways encircling the globe.
