Across the Pacific

Airline executive Juan Trippe, pilot Charles Lindbergh, airplane builder Igor Sikorsky and radio engineer Hugo Leuteritz join forces to build an airline to Latin America as Pan Am takes flight.

Pan Am builds larger flying boats and harnesses radio for navigation as it dominates service to Latin America. Plans to cross the Atlantic are dashed when Britain bars the planes from landing. So he sets his sights on the Pacific instead.

Defying the skeptics, Pan Am builds an airway to Asia, allowing the China Clipper to hopscotch across the world's widest ocean by landing at five stepping-stone islands: Hawaii, Midway, Wake Island, Guam and the Philippines.