Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Investment in Igor Sikorsky’s Vision – Igor I Sikorsky Historical Archives
In the fall of 1923, Russian aviation pioneer and designer Igor Sikorsky was facing economic disaster. His newly established Long Island company, Sikorsky Aero Engineering Corporation, had nearly run through its meager resources. Sikorsky, who was virtually unknown in the United States, was working on the S-29A (“A” for America), a twin-engine, closed-cabin, 14-passenger transport. At that time, his “factory” was set up on a chicken farm owned by his friend Victor Utgoff, a former lieutenant in the Russian navy. The obstacles faced by the company seemed insurmountable. Aside from the money problem, the work had to be done by hand, since the farm did not have appropriate machinery. Sikorsky and his workers, mostly Russian immigrants, were raiding junkyards for parts for the airplane, which had to be constantly redesigned depending on the equipment and materials they found. The main structure of the fuselage was built with angle irons from discarded bedsteads. Turnbuckles, which were use