This idea, while commendable in spirit, seemed to me somewhat fantastic in practice. Some years earlier, “Captain Dick” Richardson, a naval constructor, designer and pilot for the giant NC boats that had crossed the Atlantic, and himself a pioneer pilot, had carefully analyzed the economics of commercial operations and solemnly concluded that airplanes in excess of thirty thousand pounds gross weight could not possibly pay their freight, let alone produce revenue. At that time there had been no controllable-pitch propellers in sight, nor had wing flaps appeared on the horizon; Captain Dick’s dictum had become an axiom. In view of this, it seemed to me wise for us to attempt to dissuade Juan Trippe, President of Pan American, from his foolhardy undertaking. When, later on, we tried to do so, Juan could not be sold. He, like Igor Sikorsky, had that intuitive something that motivates the pioneer.
Meanwhile, back there in the New York office, Fred Rentschler continued to explain the complexities of the Sikorsky problem. At this point, J. F. McCarthy, United’s controller, who had sat through the whole discussion, began unrolling several of those long yellow ruled sheets of paper on which accountants were accustomed to line up their figures.
Mac had broken the Sikorsky expenses down into the usual three categories, general and sales expense, engineering expense, and manufacturing expense. Now it appeared, the ratios of these expenses to one another and to shipments, sales, and so on, were far out of line with good practice. There were certain items in each that were more or less fixed, but manufacturing expense now looked like the best point of attack; it was a large part of the whole; it had large reducible items and it could be cut without serious harm. In other words my job was to go down to Stratford and fire enough of these attractive Russians to bring the expense into line. Fred summed it up this way:
“There is a limit to the contribution United Aircraft can make to Russian relief.”
And so, next day I took a morning train from Grand Central. The new Sikorsky factory lay just below the town of Stratford and just above the point where the Housatonic River empties into Long Island Sound. It was a sheltered spot and had been selected as possessing good seaplane facilities with space for a landing field nearby. From the outside, the high factory buildings looked new and shiny, but as I entered the door I thought that someone had cut corners on the details of construction.
After Arnold Dickinson had arrived, we went to work. Arnold appreciated the problems, but hesitated to move in on them. That remained for me, and now I began the unpleasant task that would burden me for many years. For the good of the organization and the salvation of jobs for the many, I must separate from our companies many delightful people, men who, though warm personal friends, just did not seem to have what it took to keep the wheels turning. The task was heartbreaking but the penalties for shirking it were inexorable. All one could do was try to perform his duty to the company with utmost fairness and kindness, and without impairing the morale of the individual or organization beyond the absolute minimum. This was a job that needed doing all at once; it must not be dragged. And so my first act at Sikorsky was to issue orders that the manufacturing expense be reduced by 20 per cent, and forthwith. The method of accomplishing this would be left to the local management.
That, however, did not work too well at Stratford. The cut in manufacturing expense seemed to create not a single ripple; I soon discovered why: engineering expense had suddenly skyrocketed. And when I ordered it restored to its original level—I did not deem it wise to cut back further for fear it might impair the engineering on the Pan American project—the Sikorsky management “agreed with me 100 per cent” as they were wont to express it in their Russian slang. But I soon found out why; the direct labor skyrocketed. Evidently these Russian intellectuals, refugees from their own land, were so versatile that they could play any position on the team—infield, outfield, or umpire. The organization was like a balloon; you could press your finger on one side and make a dent, but the other side bulged out—and less obviously. And when I took my new organization to task, they always “agreed with me 100 per cent,” and then proceeded to do precisely as they jolly well pleased.
Meanwhile, we got on with the Pan American S-40’s, as they came to be called, though this project proved to have more angles than the Kohinoor diamond, and threatened to cost about as much. While the specifications for the first Pan American Clippers had been reviewed by Col. Charles A. Lindbergh, Pan American advisor, and incorporated into the contract, they didn’t mean a thing. Before Pan American would take delivery on the plane it must be passed by the Department of Commerce and given an Approved Type Certificate as to its airworthiness. Without this ATC, Sikorsky might be left with a million dollars’ worth of airplanes and no market. Now Pan American, our sole customer, used this advantage to insist on our incorporating in the ships everything its own engineers or our prolific innovators could dream up, from swivel-handled toilets to back-lighted card tables. Thus our designs were kept in a state of continuous flux—at company expense. Save for the redeeming qualities of Igor Ivanovich Sikorsky himself, it is hard to imagine what might have become of us.
A man of strong convictions, for all his humbleness, he was a brilliant engineer though never a “clever” one. Thoroughly grounded in science and mathematics and accustomed to reason from fundamental principles to valid conclusions, he possessed to an astonishing degree those powers with which to divine a true course even when the signposts were not clearly marked. This capacity he once called “intuitive engineering” without for the moment ascribing that quality of genius to himself.
Thanks to Igor Sikorsky’s personal leadership, we finally completed delivery of the first three Pan American Clippers. While United absorbed a heavy loss on them, none of this resulted from changes made necessary by official ATC tests. Unlike other companies that later suffered severe losses from this cause, Sikorsky always managed to pass the tests in a remarkably short time, even though radical design features were involved. As for Pan American, that company used the airplanes to lug tons of mail, cargo, and passengers over the high seas for many years. The ships paved the way for a later model that disproved “Dick” Richardson’s formula, hurdled the last long barrier, San Francisco to Hawaii, and pointed the way to overseas air transport by land planes. It is not unlikely that Fred Rentschler’s investment paid off in the long run, if not on the books of Sikorsky, on those of Pratt and Whitney and Hamilton-Standard.