The Sauk Centre herald. (Sauk Centre, Stearns County, Minn.) 1886-current, 1930-09-04
PARISH. Y. FLIGHT
WAS SUCCESSFUL
COste and BellOnte Complete
PerilOus Voyage in Thir-
ty-Seven Hours
NEAR MARK OF Indy
FOggy Weather and Winds
Necessitated a Change
of Planned Course


rejoicing on two continents this
evening as during the dinner hour
on a muggy summers day spor-
Unlocking red monoplane, an old
ship that had proved it's mettle in
years of flying over five continents,
turned a few back-f1ips and TAXED
to a stop on Curtiss field at alley
Stream. The two French fliers,
Captain Dieudonne Coste and Maui
rice Bellonte. stepped out of the
Question Mark to receive an oVa-
ton for turning the trick that had
never been done before-a non
stop flight from France to the Unit
ed States, from Paris to New York.
The wheels of the Question Mark
touched American soil at Gil p
M. &c. S. To- just 81 hours and II
minutes after the ship roared off
into a hazy French morning at lie
Bourget. France had returned the
call of Lindbergh.
Colonel Lindbergh was on hand,
with Mrs. Lindbergh, to congratu-
late the celebrated French fliers, as
were host of the f1iers' country
men. All afternoon the gathering
knot of celebrities had kept vigil
at the flying field, representatives
of the French government, Jean
Borotra, the tennis ace, and
Georges Carpenter, former heavy
weight champion and an army flier
with Coste during the war. The
citys dignitaries were there, of.
fetal representatives of Mayor
Walker. And about 5000 plain cit
liens, emissaries of the American
people, were there. jamming the
high wire enclosure along one side
of the flying field, menacing. the
stout police line on the other,
cheering hoarsely.
Ploughing through the handicaps
that beset every east-west crossing
only twice before has a plane
spanned the Atlantic to this CONT
nent without stop, both times TAX
ing off from Ireland and in one case
reaching Laborador, in another,
Observation-Disclosures Question Mark
came within less than four hours
of equalling Lindbergh's time on
the eastward track. Colonel Lind
bergh flew from New York to Paris
in 33 and u hours, May 20, 1927.
To do this, Coste and Bellonte had
to detour way south of their great
circle course to escape the fogs off
the Grand Banks, while all the
way down the North American
coast today they encountered foggy
weather and low ceiling.
This was Coste's second crossing
of the Atlantic, however. With his
former flying partner, Joseph Le-
brix, in October. 1927, he flew the
plane "Nungessor-Coil" from st.
Louis, Senegal, in Africa, to Port
Natal, Brazil, a distance of 2,15O
miles, in 10 hours.
The previous nonstop conquer
ors of the north Atlantic were the
Bremen fiers-F'itzmaurice Kochl
and Won Huenefeldt-who flew
from Ireland to Laborador, and
Wing Commander Kingsford-Smith
who recently made the jump from
Ireland to Harbor Grace, New
foundland. It remained for the
Frenchmen to link the two con-
tinents for the first time in this
direction.
The flight was an arduous one
from the time the Question Mark
reached the mid-Atlantic. After a
perfect takeoff with it's dangerous
burden of 1850 gallons of gasoline,
the sesqui-plane roared to a high
altitude and skinned across
France at 100-mile-an hour clip
crossed the channel and swung out
to sea beyond the trip of Ireland
For a dozen hours the plane kept
slightly ahead of it's schedule as it
neared mid-ocean.
Then the scarlet ship slackened
pace as the weather grew heavier
and finally as it grew dusk over
the mid-Atlantic. Coste turned the
ships nose to the southwest,
brought his craft almost due east
of New York, in wide detour be-
fore Strengthening back.
Through the night came reassur-
ing flashes from ships at sea-from
the Europa, Rochambeau, lie de
France and Franconia-thata all was
well as Bellonte's radio sputtered
the ships progress across the Par
allels. At midnight the steamship
IacnueS Cartier renorted the fiiers