Airborne -
across the pacific

The film's four main characters - airline executive Juan Trippe, pilot Charles Lindbergh, airplane builder Igor Sikorsky and radio engineer Hugo Leuteritz - separately struggle to find a place in post-World War I aviation. Their struggles illuminate the challenges all aviation pioneers face in these early, uncertain days. After repeated setbacks, the four men join forces and, capitalizing on the Air Mail Act and the aviation mania triggered by Lindbergh's 1927 transatlantic flight, set out to build an airline to South America: Pan Am.

Episode Duration: 56 minutes and 46 seconds

Episode Number: 101

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About Across The Pacific:

ACROSS THE PACIFIC 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.