the trans Atlantic flight of Alcock and Brown Alcock and Brown Take the Atlantic Back in Newfoundland, two teams worked feverishly to finish assembling their planes and testing their equipment in preparation for what they considered the ultimate prize: the still unclaimed Daily Mail prize of fifty thousand dollars for the first non-stop crossing of the Atlantic. One team had a clear head start: the Handley Page team headed by Admiral Mark Kerr. The Handley Page V/1500 ï¿½Berlin Bomberï¿½ was the largest aircraft built by the Allies during the war, and was equipped with four powerful Rolls-Royce engines. The plane and crew were making preparations to fly the Atlantic almost from the beginning. They watched Hawker and Grieve begin their ill-fated trans-Atlantic flight; Alcock and Brown had also heard about the failed attempt of the Shamrock, which had gone down while crossing from England to Ireland in the first stage of an east-to-west crossing; and they had been there when the navy group passed through on their way to the successful crossing (with stops) of the Atlantic. The plane enjoyed the best airfield and the best accommodations, and for some of the time, had the only fuel on the island.

Afterward, Handley Page executives would wonder what had kept their plane on the ground. Alcock and Brown taking on mail on Vickers Vimy, June 13, 1919 By the time the final plane and its crew arrived in Newfoundland on May 26, the Handley Page had been tested and repaired many times. In what might be considered typical of the naval approach, Admiral Kerr seemed determined not to attempt the flight until his plane was in perfect condition. The last plane to arrive was the Vickers Vimy, a night bomber built too late to be used in the war. The Vickers engineers replaced the bombs with fuel tanks, quickly disassembled the plane, and shipped it to Newfoundland. The crew for the flight was headed by Captain John Alcock of the Royal Air Force, and the navigator was Lieutenant Arthur Whitten Brown of the Royal Flying Service. Both men had spent the last years of the war in a German prison camp and had very limited flying experience, especially with so large a plane. (Brown, as it turned out, had been an observer when he was shot down, and had taught himself aerial navigation while a prisoner.

He had almost no experience as a navigator before the flight of the Vimy.) The Vimy was assembled in an open field (there was no available hangar big enough) in cold and often rainy weather. Spectators and Vickers Vimy at Lester's Field, June 1919 Miraculously (and with the help of a gifted local mechanic named Lester), the plane was ready after only fourteen daysï¿½Kerr was waiting for a new radiator to replace one on the Handley Page that ï¿½wasnï¿½t quite up to snuff.ï¿½ What Kerr did not know, but Alcock realized, was that the problem was not with the radiator, but with the water. Using local water, the Handley Page radiator kept cloggingï¿½which was exactly what had brought Harry Hawker downï¿½because of the heavy mineral content and sediment. To counter this, Alcock had the water filtered several times and boiled (and then cooled), so that the radiator would not clog. On the morning of June 14, while the Handley Page team was preparing for yet another test, Alcock and Brown took off.

Take off of Alcock and Brown's Vickers Vimy, June 14, 1919 The flight of the Vimy was a difficult one. Brown had to climb out onto the wings six times during the flight to chip off ice that formed there. Several times, Alcock had to fly precariously close to the ocean, hoping that the warmer air of the lower altitude would melt the ice that kept clogging the engine. And on at least two occasions, Brown made what he thought would be a last entry into the flight log and stuffed it into his shirt, hoping his experience would be of use to later aviators if his body were ever found. Alcock and Brownï¿½s historic 1919 flight ended ingloriously, as the Vimy ploughed into an Irish bogï¿½its front landing gear had been removed before the flight. The first people to greet the aviators thought they were joking when they claimed they had just flown across the Atlantic. Sixteen and a half hours later, on the morning of June 15, the Vimy landed in a bog near the installation at Clifden, in Ireland.

People on the ground tried to wave them off from the bog and direct them to a landing field that was prepared for aircraft; Alcock and Brown just waved cheerfully back. Before taking off, Brown had removed a front nose wheel from the plane in the hopes of reducing weight and drag. Now, without the front wheel, the Vimy landed in the bog and simply ploughed its nose into the soft mud. Local people and soldiers ran up to the plane and asked Alcock where he had flown from. When he said they had flown across the Atlantic, the crowd broke out in laughter. The outgoing John Alcock and the diffident Arthur Whitten Brownï¿½both of Manchester, Englandï¿½had the right combination of skills to win the Daily Mail prize for the first flight across the Atlantic, outclassing better-funded teams. England erupted in celebration. Alcock and Brown were knighted by King George V and awarded the Northcliffe prize by the Secretary of State for War and Air, Winston Churchill. Alcock and Brown toured England and were praised from banquet to banquet. But Alcock was killed in a crash in December 1919, and Brown never flew again (though he lived till after World War II).

Back in Newfoundland, Kerr decided he would attempt some sort of land record instead and flew to the United States. The Handley Page crashed near Cleveland, Ohio, and while the crew survived, the Berlin Bomber was a total loss, marking the end of Admiral Kerrï¿½s brief career in aviation. Alcock and Brownï¿½s crossing of the Atlantic was to have a profound effect on two men who up to this point had not done much flying. One was a navy lieutenant named Richard E. Byrd, a dashing young flier trained at the navyï¿½s Pensacola Flight School. During the war, Byrd had volunteered to fly bombers built in the United States to England, and when the war ended, before any such ferrying could take place, he formally requested to be part of the crew that would fly a Nancy across the Atlantic. Byrd could not know that such plans were already afoot, so when he was called to Washington he was disappointed to discover that he was not being asked to fly the planes, but to take command of the naval air station in Nova Scotia to scout out a suitable stop for a possible trans-Atlantic flight by the U.S. Navy.

Later he discovered that foreign service (even in Canada) disqualified him from being a member of the NC crews. The other man was a Frenchman who had worked his way up from being a shepherd in France to being a waiter to, by 1919, being the owner of two fashionable Manhattan hotels. His name was Raymond Orteig, and he had no connection to the world of aviation. But watching the prizes of post-war aviation being garnered by England and the United States, and seeing France fall by the wayside, he sent a letter to the president of the Aero Club of America, dated May 22, 1919: ï¿½Gentlemen: As a stimulus to the courageous aviators, I desire to offer, through the auspices and regulations of the Aero Club of America, a prize of twenty-five thousand dollars to the first aviator of any Allied country crossing the Atlantic in one flight, from Paris to New York or New York to Paris, all other details in your care. Yours very sincerely, (signed) Raymond Orteig.

Orteig made no secret of his motive: he hoped the prize would prove an incentive to French fliers and would lead to Franceï¿½s once again being a first-rank nation in aviation. In the original rules, a five-year limit was set (it was later extended), and there was no stipulation that it had to be a solo flightï¿½that was Lindberghï¿½s idea (as a way of lightening the load). The year 1919 saw yet a third crossing of the Atlantic, this one in July by a British dirigible, the R.34, a virtual carbon copy of a captured German Zeppelin (called, as it happened, the L.33). The crossing was, in fact, a two- way transatlantic flight, making the R.34 the first aircraft to cross the Atlantic both ways. The flight from Scotland to New York was not without its harrowing moments. The weather was bad the entire trip over, and at one point a crew member had to parachute out of the airship to direct the ground crew. But the airship created a sensation in New York and heralded the beginning of regular airship service over the Atlantic.

(The crossing back to Europe took only three days.) Your browser does not support inline frames or is currently configured not to display inline frames. June 15, 1919: First Nonstop Flight Crosses Atlantic | WIRED June 15, 1919: First Nonstop Flight Crosses Atlantic subscribe 6 months for $5 - plus a FREE Portable Phone Charger. Author: Jason Paur. Jason Paur Date of Publication: 06.15.10. Time of Publication: 12:00 am. 12:00 am June 15, 1919: First Nonstop Flight Crosses Atlantic 1919: John Alcock and Arthur Brown land their Vickers Vimy airplane in a bog in Clifden, Ireland, marking the end of the first nonstop flight across the Atlantic. It’s a good bet to win a drink at a bar: “Do you know who was the first person to fly across the Atlantic in an airplane, nonstop?” Most takers think it’s Charles Lindbergh. But the true answer is the kind of knowledge only the most die-hard aviation geeks would know: Alcock and Brown.

In 1913, the British newspaper the Daily Mail offered a prize of 10,000 pounds sterling (about $1.1 million in today’s money) to the first aviator to cross the Atlantic. But World War I intervened the following year before anybody could make an attempt, and the competition was suspended. In reality, it was unlikely anybody could have made the crossing in 1913. But by the end of the war, aviation technology had improved significantly. In late 1918, the competition to fly across the Atlantic resumed and stipulated the flight must be made in less than 72 hours. With fighting still fresh in the minds of the British, a new rule prevented teams of “enemy origin” to enter. By the spring of 1919, several teams had gathered in St. Johns, Newfoundland, vying to be the first to cross the Atlantic and collect the prize. There were so many teams that Alcock and Brown had a difficult time finding a suitable field they could use as a runway for their flight. There were no airports in the area.

The Vickers Vimy airplane they had prepared for the attempt back in England was still en route by steamship, and other teams had already set up camp at the best locations. The Vickers Vimy was a large airplane for the time. The twin engine bomber was developed for use in World War I, but it wasn’t ready until after the war had ended, and it never saw combat over Europe. With a wingspan of more than 67 feet, the biplane was powered by a pair of 12-cylinder Rolls-Royce engines producing 360 horsepower each. The airplane used for the record-setting attempt was modified by removing the bomb racks and adding extra fuel tanks, so it could carry 865 gallons for the flight. The pilot and navigator sat in an open cockpit at the front of the airplane. By mid-May, one of the rival teams had flown nearly 20 hours east across the ocean before engine troubles forced the crew to ditch at sea. Fortunately, the plane crashed near a ship that was able to rescue the two-man crew. Another attempt at the prize ended in a crash before the airplane was even able to get airborne. The Vickers Vimy arrived in Newfoundland on May 26.

Two teams had failed to make the crossing, and the prize was still up for grabs, as was some good real estate for a suitable runway. The team was allowed to use a small field to assemble the airplane, but it was not long enough for the heavily fuel-laden airplane to take off. The Vimy arrived in 13 crates and was assembled in a large canvas tent in just two weeks. At the same time the airplane was being assembled, Alcock had found a suitable takeoff field. Groups of people worked to clear rocks and fill ditches to make it smooth enough for use as a runway. After a few days waiting out bad weather, the decision was made to fuel the airplane at its new field and make an attempt for the first nonstop crossing of the Atlantic. (A U.S. Navy Curtiss seaplane had flown from Newfoundland to Portugal in May, after a 10-day stop in the Azores.) After a few last-minute repairs to fix a broken landing gear that failed under the weight of the fuel, Alcock and Brown lifted off from Lester’s Field on the afternoon of June 14. Brown radioed the message, “All well and started,” to announce they had begun their journey.

Unfortunately, it would be the first and last radio message the crew would make. The wind-powered generator failed shortly after, and the duo was left without a radio for the remainder of the flight. Using a sextant and a drift-bearing plate, Brown was able to determine their position as they flew. Shortly after the radio went out, fog covered the sea, so he could not determine their drift. A haze developed, and he was unable to use the sextant to determine their location. At night approached, Brown urged Alcock to climb above the clouds so he could use the stars to get a fix on their position. It was good news: He calculated they were averaging 106 miles per hour, faster than they had planned. But soon they flew into another bank of clouds, and Alcock became disoriented and lost control of the aircraft. The airspeed indicator had been stuck and Alcock didn’t realize the airplane was slowing down. Eventually it stalled and entered a spin . They lost more than 4,000 feet as they spiraled toward the North Atlantic.

Breaking out of the clouds at around 100 feet, Alcock was able to recover from the spin and with very little room to spare, leveled off and continued flying east toward Ireland. The weather did not improve, and rain turned to snow as they flew farther east. Ice covered the airplane, and Brown had to frequently stand up in the open cockpit and clear ice and snow from the instrument sensors which were outside the cockpit. Eventually, the ice covered the air intake of one of the engines. Alcock decided to shut the engine down before the backfiring could destroy it. Descending into warmer air, the duo hoped the ice would melt before they hit the water. At around 500 feet, they broke into clear skies and were able to restart the engine. It seemed nothing more could go wrong with their flight, and sure enough less than half an hour after restarting the engine, Alcock and Brown spotted solid land. They had reached Ireland. In a less-than-ceremonious landing, Alcock put the plane down in a bog he had mistaken for a smooth field. The wheels dug in, and the plane tipped onto its nose.

With a gentle crash at 8:40 a.m., they completed the first nonstop flight across the Atlantic. Accounts vary, but the flight of approximately 1,890 miles across the shortest part of the Atlantic had taken around 16 hours, averaging roughly 118 mph. They were awarded the prize money in London by the British Secretary of State for War and Air, Winston Churchill. They were later knighted by King George V. Over the course of the next several years, many more pilots would fly airplanes across the Atlantic, and even more would cross in airships . Different teams flew different routes between North America and Europe. Eventually in 1927, Charles Lindbergh would make his historic flight between New York and Paris to win the Orteig Prize. It was the first solo nonstop flight across the Atlantic and the first to link the two major cities. Lindbergh was, however, the 19th person to cross the Atlantic in an airplane. Pilots Steve Fossett and Mark Rebholz recreated the flight of Alcock and Brown in a replica Vickers Vimy in 2005.

Source: Various The First Transatlantic Flights The First Transatlantic Flights Enlarge image The Crossing of the Atlantic Ocean by air was first achieved by a NC4 Flying Boat piloted by Lt. Commander Reade of the U.S. Navy in 1919. It flew from Newfoundland to Plymouth, England, via the Azores and Lisbon. It took 35 hours and 58 minutes, spread over 28 days. Within a few weeks of Reade's achievement a group of experienced aviators gathered in Newfoundland to prepare to make the first non-stop transatlantic flight. Captain John Alcock and Lieutenant Arthur Whitten-Brown left Newfoundland at 5:15pm on 13th June 1919 and landed in a bog near Clifden in County Galway the following day. They had flown 1,890 miles in 16 hours and 27 minutes, an achievement for which they were later knighted. On the 40th anniversary of the flight, 15th June 1959, a memorial plaque was unveiled by Sean Lemass, TD, near the site of the historic landing.

The flight of Alcock and Brown was of particular significance to Irish aviators because it highlighted Ireland's advantageous position on the world's great air route. In May 1927 Charles Lindbergh completed the first solo non-stop from America to Europe. He left Roosevelt Field, Long Island, New York for Paris on 20th May and arrived there on the evening of 21st May. The flight time for the epic journey was 33 hours and 38 minutes. Lindbergh's heroism and bravery in accomplishing this flight has made him one of aviation's most celebrated figures. All of these flights originated in the west and it was not until April 1928 and the Flight of the Bremen, that the more dangerous east-west crossing was made. Alcock and Brown - Great Britain Alcock and Brown Great Britain The First Non-stop Aerial Crossing of the Atlantic Captain John Alcock and Lieutenant Arthur Whitten Brown, in a modified Vimy IV they made the first non-stop aerial crossing of the Atlantic. They took off from Lester's Field, near St. Johns, Newfoundland on June 14,1919.

They landed June 15,1919 at Clifden in Ireland. The time for the crossing was sixteen hours, and twenty seven minutes. The news of the adventure spead like wildfire and the two men were received as heroes in London. For their accomplishment they were presented with Lord Northcliffe's Daily Mail prize of £10,000 by Winston Churchill who was then Britain's Secretary of State. A few days later both men were knighted at Buckingham Palace by King George V for recognition of their pioneering achievment. John Alcock and Arthur Whitten-Brown pushed their way through an excited crowd which had gathered at the entrance of the London Royal Aero Club. Alcock carried a small linen bag in his hand, and after greeting General Holden, Vice-President of the Club, he handed over the bundle of 197 letters that Dr. Robinson, Postmaster in Newfoundland, had entrusted to the fliers. These were then rushed to the nearest post office, where they were franked and forwarded (airmail stamps not yet having been invented). The letters had made the long journey from Lester's Field near St. John's, Newfoundland, to London in record time.

At Lester's Field, Alcock and Brown had climbed into their "Vimy" flying crate to prove, as Alcock put it, that "there are possibilities of flying non-stop from the New World to the Old." Like Kohl, Fitzmaurice, and von Hunefeld, who were to fly in the opposite direction nine years later, Alcock and Brown had wanted to take off on a Friday the 13th. But the two Englishmen actually set out in their converted World War I Vickers bomber on June 14. After three weeks of exhaustive preparation, they had finally made their start. Some of their efforts had been spent in attempting to find a smoother takeoff point than Lester's Field, but after a week of combing the rough terrain, they gave up the search. The sky was overcast, even though the latest meteorological report from United States Lieutenant Clements had forecast good weather conditions. It was 1:40 p.m. as the "Vimy," with the throttle wide open, and both engines at full power, taxied over the bumpy ground at Lester's Field. Alcock headed his aircraft into the west wind.

"Depressingly slowly the 'Vimy' taxied toward a dark pine forest at the end of the airfield," Brown reported. "The echo of the roaring motors must have struck quite hard against the hills around St. John's. Almost at the last second Alcock gained height. We were only inches above the top of the trees." Alcock's recollections were rather more brief: "At 1:45 PM we were airborne," he said. 1,890 nautical miles of open sea and sixteen hours of flying time lay ahead of the Englishmen. Only fifteen and a half years after the Wright brothers powered flight, they had now set off on what turned out to be one of the most breathtaking flights in the history of aviation. The sirens of vessels in St. John's Harbor blew a final farewell as the "Vimy" passed overhead at a height of 1,083 ft. Alcock turned the aircraft eastwards, in the direction of Ireland. The biplane gained height, and the coast of Newfoundland was left behind. The altimeter soon read 1,300 ft.

For four hours, the "Vimy" flew peacefully in the open sky, and the difficult takeoff was forgotten. For Alcock and Brown it was just one more of the 1,001 takeoffs they had made as Flying Corps pilots. Already anticipating his arrival in England, Brown remarked, "Great Scott, what a banquet we'll have in London. Roast duck, I can just imagine it, green peas. . ." Few people were even aware of Alcock and Brown's plans. England was enjoying her first post-war summer, and the newspapers were filled with reports of Germany's reaction to President Wilson's Fourteen-Point program. Special editions also carried stories of Bela Kun's revolution in Hungary and the Allies' successes against the Bolsheviks on the Archangel Front. However, there was a five-line story on the back page of one newspaper which mentioned the preparations being made for the "Vimy" in Newfoundland. But no one paid much attention to it. As the "Vimy" flew over the Atlantic, the conversation of the two men seated in the open cockpit turned to the friends who had helped them at Lester's Field: Bob Lyon, Maxwell Muller, Montague and Harry Couch.

And they recalled the various attempts that others had made to cross the waste of water between the old and new worlds. Five years earlier a British company, Martin and Handasyde Ltd., had set about building a transatlantic aircraft. The scheme had been financed by Edgar MacKay. As with the "White Bird," in which Nungesser and Coli later undertook their ill-fated attempt to fly the Atlantic, the undercarriage of the aircraft was to be released shortly after takeoff. The fuselage was built like a boat. Misfortune seemed to hang over the undertaking. Shortly before the aircraft's completion, Gustav Hamel, the appointed pilot, failed to return from a routine flight in his Morane-Saulnier over the English Channel. Alcock and Brown's ambition was to fly the Atlantic non-stop. Although they would not be the first to make the crossing, they aimed at being the first to do so without intermediate stops. At 5 p.m. fog banks suddenly appeared on the horizon, stretching without a break from north to south. "We've got no choice," Alcock said. "We've got to go in!" Brown made another calculation of their position and recorded the wind speed as zero.

The "Vimy" disappeared into the fog. It was so thick that neither man could make out the blades of the propellers. Even the comforting roar of the Rolls-Royce "Eagle" engines was muffled, and Alcock and Brown continued to fly virtually soundless and blind. Time went slowly. Brown glanced at his wristwatch. It was six o'clock. "Won't this ruddy fog ever end?" he grumbled. Instead of replying, Alcock slowly took the "Vimy" higher, hoping to find good visibility above the fog bank. Before dark Brown might once more be able to take his position by the sun; but after nightfall it was questionable whether the stars would be bright enough to guide the fliers reliably on their course. Suddenly a terrifying noise broke the silence; the right-hand engine sounded like a machine gun blazing. The two men were scared stiff. The exhaust pipe of the cylinder facing inwards had split, and the engine was shooting naked flames into the slip-stream. Alcock and Brown remained helpless as the metal turned red hot, melted away and finally started striking the controls in white-hot globules. On top of this nerve-shattering clatter, a further discomfort developed.

The heating in the men's leather flying suits stopped working. The batteries had run out. "We froze like young puppies," Alcock said later, "and in the narrow cockpit we had no room to move about. At any rate," he added somewhat ruefully, "Brown did manage to get some movement later . . . " Flying above the fog brought them no luck. They had barely broken through the upper level of the bank when they discovered clouds above them, and not a sign of the hoped-for sun. And directly ahead lay mountains of cloud which were too near to be avoided. The "Vimy" plunged straight into them, and was thrown like a leaf. The experience that today's supersonic pilots, astronauts and acrobatic and fighter pilots with their advanced equipment and controls barely notice represented severe physical discomfort to Alcock and Brown: the up and down of their stomachs caused by the plane's bucking response to controls and gusts of wind. Again and again they had the feeling that the "Vimy" stood motionless before plunging down. Alcock, who had been pressed down into his seat by the violent movement of the plane, glanced at the altimeter. The reading was 4,000 ft.

The pointer began to jump about as the instrument recorded 3,200 ft., then 2,900 and down to 1,000 ft. The plane was descending in a spiral. But it occurred to neither pilot nor navigator that their end might have come. Their one thought, according to Alcock, was "However shall we get back on our original course and avoid being lost in the endless waste of the Atlantic?" The altimeter, at that moment the most important instrument, showed 100 ft. Their chances of survival narrowed, when suddenly, at a mere 65 ft. above the waves, Alcock managed miraculously to regain control of the "Vimy." The weather had begun to change. When Brown was later asked how he and his captain reacted to their worst ordeal, he replied, "We grinned!" Alcock had opened the throttle to the full. He swung the plane through 180 deg. onto its old course, pulled back the joy stick and climbed slowly to a height of 7,200 ft. There was now more to it than just grinning: both men suddenly realized that they felt very hungry.

Alcock made his feelings known by pointing his left hand at his mouth while he closed and opened it. Brown got the message. He reached behind him for their frugal meal of sandwiches which had been prepared for them by Miss Agnes Dooley at St. John's. They had also brought some whisky on board as well as a bottle of beer which they emptied and finally threw overboard. The long-distance flight routine continued. Checks were made regularly on the revolution rate of both engines, on the cooling system temperature, on the oil pressure, and on the fuel consumption as they switched from an empty tank to the next full one. This gave Brown a task for which he was thankful: it made him warm. Before the tanks which directly fed the engines were empty, they had to be refilled by vigorous pumping from the main tank in the fuselage. All these experiences and five hours of flying were behind them when they again saw the sun. It was now directly behind them. Brown knelt on his seat, grasped the sextant and calculated their position. It was a small triumph for them that they were only a few miles south of their planned route. Then once again they were swallowed up by cloud.

They continued to fly with no visibility, chilled and deafened by the noise of the right-hand engine, until 9 p.m. Then Brown wrote on a page in the log book: "Can you get above the clouds by 9:30? We need stars as soon as possible." He held up the scribbled lines and focused a pocket flashlight on the page. Alcock nodded his head rather indecisively. They were now flying at 5,400 ft., and climbed even higher, but found no way through the cloud. Midnight came and went. It was now June 15, but there was no relief for the fliers. At 12:05 a.m. Brown wrote to Alcock: "Must see stars now." Their altitude was 6,500 ft. and they were surrounded by clouds and darkness. The only illumination was the green glow of the control panel lighting and the bursts of flame from the starboard engine. Alcock pulled the joy stick back lightly and opened the throttle. The clouds went on without end. At 12:15 a.m. Alcock dug his fingers into Brown's shoulder, and pointed above his head.

There was the moon, Vega, and the Pole Star, Polaris! Like a shot Brown was up on his seat, operating the sextant with his numbed fingers. In the frozen cockpit, Brown placed the open log book on his knee, spread out the navigation tables on the right-hand side, held them with his elbow and calculated the "Vimy's" position by the dim light of the flashlight which he held in his left hand. At 12:25 a.m. their position was 50 deg 7' latitude north, 31 deg longitude west. They were already nearly half way across, but were still flying a little too far to the south. Brown made further calculations. They had already flown 850 nautical miles, which meant that about 1,000 more still lay ahead. Their average speed had been 106 knots. At 12:30 a.m. the two optimists enjoyed some more sandwiches and coffee. Brown laced his coffee with whisky.

"I looked towards Brown, and saw that he was singing," Alcock said, "but I couldn't understand a word." Brown's song about the swallow that flies so high and the river that never dries up was lost on the wind. Meanwhile, in the newsroom of London's "Daily Mail" discussions about the "Vimy" and its crew were gloomy. A cable from St. John's had announced the takeoff; since then there had been no news either from Newfoundland or from the fliers. The newspaper staff knew that the "Vimy" carried a radio transmitter, but after three hours' flight it had gone dead, a fact neither Alcock nor Brown knew at the time. If all went well, the competitors for the £10,000. prize should reach the Irish coast at 9 a.m., but there was no sign of life from the "Vimy." Dispatches piled up on the news editor's table, but not one of them was from Alcock and Brown. At 3 A.M. the fliers thought they saw the first signs of dawn. Suddenly they also saw something else: a new mountain of cumulus cloud ahead, again too close to circumvent.

A sudden turbulence seized the machine and flung it out of control. Alcock and Brown felt themselves being pressed down into their seats. They were drenched by rain, which turned into hail. The swirling journey went on and on. At 90 knots the speedometer jammed. Alcock struggled to regain control and ended up more by luck than by good judgment in the safety of a nose dive. He cut off the gas and relied heavily on his experience as a night bomber pilot. The plane plummeted from 4,000 ft. to 1000 ft. and, just above the surface of the water, Alcock gained control of the "Vimy." For a fraction of a second he could not believe his eyes--he saw the sea lying vertically, and then with a quick automatic reflex action he straightened out the "Vimy" and opened the throttles to the full. "The salty taste we noted later on our tongues was foam," Alcock reported. "In any case the altimeter wasn't working at that low height and I think that we were not more than 16 to 20 ft.

above the water." Brown's only comment was: "I kept thinking about Lieutenant Clement's weather report." Specifically, he had failed to forecast the snowstorm into which they had flown immediately after their recent narrow escape. Like a shroud, snow covered the wings, fuselage, the struts, even the engines. Ice formed on the engine parts and Alcock needed all his strength to move the rudder. Unless something drastic was done, the men knew that the engine would stop and all the controls would go out of action. once again, at an altitude of 8,500 ft., the non-stop fliers fought their way forward. Snow piled up in the cockpit, and both men crouched behind the windshield for protection from the icy wind. Snow on the carburetor air filters made both the engines run irregularly. Brown knelt on his seat and took off his goggles so that he could see more clearly. Ice now began to form on the engine intake connection; at the same time a layer of it was spreading over the inspection windows through which the fuel supply could be observed. As far as Brown was concerned, the only possible way of avoiding a crash was to make a trip out onto the wings.

He grabbed a knife and swung his legs out onto the nose. Seeing what he had in mind, Alcock stood up from his seat and tried to hold his companion back. Brown jerked himself free, and, in the blinding snow, he wriggled forward from strut to strut and from cable to cable, holding on with one hand. His left leg caused him difficulty because it was still stiff from wounds he had received in the war. The limping lieutenant gradually removed the ice from the inlet connections and cautiously cleaned the inspection window of the fuel intake. The slip-stream tugged at him, and frost nibbled at the flesh on his hands. Brown cleared the air filters of snow--then he had to go back again, back and over the nose to the other wing and the other engine. Meanwhile, Alcock had more than enough to do to keep the plane as steady as he could--flying at 8,000 ft. over the Atlantic in a snowstorm! One false move and Brown would have been plunged to his death, and his own number would undoubtedly have been up soon afterwards. With astonishing bravery, Brown repeated his acrobatics, not once, but four times.

Not a single step or a single movement of the hand was free from risk. At 6:20 as day broke, the lateral controls were not operating. They too had iced up. An hour later the "Vimy" was flying approximately 3,800 ft. higher (at 11,800 ft.) when the sun appeared. For the last time the navigator stripped the gloves from his aching fingers and took up the sextant. His calculations showed that they were still on course. But it was obvious that the plane had to be lowered into warmer air if the elevator and other controls were to be prevented from freezing. Alcock moved the joy stick forward; the plane descended and was engulfed in cloud. Again the fliers had no visibility. Icing presented a problem for which, in those days, there was virtually no practical answer. Even during this latest descent of the "Vimy" there was a distinct danger of the elevator's icing up. They were now only 30 minutes away from their longed-for goal. Alcock kept his eyes glued to the altimeter as the plane descended from 9,800 ft. to 6,800 ft.

With the reduced throttle settings, the cutout engines were running perceptibly quieter. Then at 3,200 ft. Brown suddenly shouted: "It's melting! The ice is breaking up!" Both men were soon sitting in a puddle; in the cockpit, too, the snow was melting. At 1,000 ft. above the ominously rough ocean, Alcock reopened the throttles, and the engines responded; both ran smoothly. Twenty minutes later the men were triumphant: they had sighted land. Brown searched on his map. It was not Galway, for which they had been heading, yet Brown knew that the land must be Ireland. Then he saw the top of Connemara, identified the town of Clifden, and scribbled his observations into the log book which he held up for Alcock to read. After flying toward the small town at a low height, Alcock circled over the streets and looked for an outlying meadow on which to land. He made a slow curve, found nothing suitable, then headed towards the Clifden radio-station and circled round it. Beyond the transmitter's tower he noticed an invitingly green meadow.

The men in the transmitter building waved and gesticulated in vain. Below the deceptive green covering lay the extremely dangerous swamp, Derrygimla Moor. Alcock thought that the people in the tower were waving a welcome, and he brought the "Vimy" down--into the swamp. The plane ploughed a short, deep four-track furrow and buried its nose far into the mud. After 1,890 miles and 15 hours 57 minutes of flying time the heroes had landed in a bog. They had to remain seated, held fast by their safety belts. The men who had watched the "Vimy" land rushed toward the plane, jumping from one grass tuft to another through the swamp. A man by the name of Taylor was the first to reach the fliers and he asked breathlessly: "Anybody hurt?" "Where are you from?" "America." The news of the adventure spread like wildfire, and there followed for Captain John Alcock and Lieutenant Arthur Whitten-Brown a hectic round of greetings, receptions, speeches, galas, and banquets. Brown made his shortest speech in Clifford Street, London.

When he appeared with Alcock on the Aero Club balcony he stopped the cheering and said: "No speech now. You wanted us. Here we are!" At the banquet which followed the officers were greeted with an unforgettable menu unlikely to be found anywhere else. It consisted of: Oeufs Poches Alcock, Supreme de Sole a la Brown, Poulet de Printemps a la Vickers Vimy, Salade Clifden, Surprise Britannia, Gateau Grand Success. After the fliers received Lord Northcliffe's £10,000. prize from Winston Churchill, they insisted that the Vickers and Rolls-Royce mechanics who had helped them should receive a £2,000 share of it. Official recognition of their pioneering achievement came a few days later from King George V. Captain Alcock and Lieutenant Whitten-Brown were received at Buckingham Palace. They left the Palace as Sir John and Sir Arthur. After the trans-Atlantic flight, Teddy Brown(by now Sir Arthur Whitten-Brown) got married and headed for the U.S. on his honeymoon in October 1919. Meanwhile...... "Alcock was working full-time again at Brooklands, testing planes. On Saturdays he returned to competitive flying.

On December 15 he was present at the Science Museum in London when the Vimy, was hauled from the Irish bog, and when presented to the nation. Three days later, he had to deliver a new Vickers plane, the Viking, to Paris, for the first aeronautical exhibition there since the war. Low cloud, rain, and strong wind made the morning miserable. Alcock's colleagues suggested he delay the flight, but he left - with no navigator. Over the English Channel, the weather was blustery; when he reached the Normandy coast, the plane was in fog. Alcock must have taken it low in an attempt to see a town or a railway line he could identify. About one o'clock that afternoon, a farmer named Pelletier was in his fields at Cote d'Everard, near Rouen. He saw a big plane 'become unsteady, make a big sway and fall to earth.' Although it didn't catch fire, the Viking was wrecked. Pelletier found Alcock, 'a terrible mess', unconscious in the cabin. From papers in a pocket of Alcock's civilian suit, and from an engraving on his diamond-studded wristwatch, the farmer identified him.

The farmer and another worker carried Alcock to the farmhouse. The other man was sent to the road, where British Army vehicles often passed, to flag one down. A priest was called. No Army truck went by that afternoon, but eventually contact was made with No. 6 British General Hospital at Rouen, which sent doctors. By then Sir John Alcock was dead. Alcock's parents were notified, as was the world. Brown heard about it in San Francisco. His statement was a cliche: 'Alcock's death was a true sacrifice for humanity.' The coffin, with a military escort, crossed the Channel from Le Havre, was received at London's Waterloo Station by Alcock's parents and representatives of the Vickers company. The procession reached Manchester on Christmas Day and the coffin was taken to the parish church of the parents in Fallowfield. Then a service was held in Manchester Cathederal. Among those present were representatives of all the companies which sent planes to Newfoundland. Notes: This page adapted from: 1. Heiner Emde and Carlo Demand Conquerors of the Air New York: The Viking Press, Inc., 1968.

May 8, 1927: First Attempt at Non-stop Trans-Atlantic Flight between America and France Ends in Mystery - History and Headlines May 8, 1927: First Attempt at Non-stop Trans-Atlantic Flight between America and France Ends in Mystery 3 Comments A Brief History On May 8, 1927, 2 weeks before Charles Lindbergh and his Spirit of St. Louis flew into history, 2 Frenchmen made the first attempt at a Paris to New York (or New York to Paris) flight and disappeared somewhere over the Atlantic. Digging Deeper The world of aviation progressed to the point where the idea of a non-stop trans-Atlantic flight began to seem possible. Two British aviators, John Alcock and Arthur Whitten Brown, made the first non-stop transatlantic flight in June 1919 when they flew a modified World War I Vickers Vimy bomber from St. John’s, Newfoundland, to Clifden, Connemara, County Galway, Ireland.

Around the same time (May 1919), New York hotelier Raymond Orteig wrote the following in a letter to the president of the Aero Club of America: “As a stimulus to the courageous aviators, I desire to offer, through the auspices and regulations of the Aero Club of America, a prize of $25,000 to the first aviator of any Allied Country crossing the Atlantic in one flight, from Paris to New York or New York to Paris, all other details in your care.” Two French World War I aviation veterans and national heroes teamed up with their PL-8 bi-plane to make the attempt. The plane, named L’Oiseau Blanc (White Bird) took off and was never seen again, sparking mystery and debate that would not be matched until the disappearance of Amelia Earhart. Modern investigators believe the plane may have reached North America, perhaps Newfoundland in Canada or Maine in the US. Although no trace of wreckage was ever found, reports of people in Newfoundland and Maine claiming to hear an airplane overhead in thick fog and clouds gave rise to the theory that the bi-plane had gotten that far. Searchers in airplanes and boats searched over the planned route of the PL-8, but without results.

Theories about this mystery abounded, with some offering the idea that boot-leggers may have shot the Frenchmen down with Tommy Guns. Land searches for any sign of the crashed airplane came to nothing, and even underwater searches near areas where the airplane was allegedly heard likewise proved futile. A few reports of possible pieces of The White Bird have been found, but never proven to actually be part of the plane. Various sources have referred to the mystery of The White Bird as the greatest of aviation mysteries, calling it “the Everest of aviation mysteries” and calling the PL-8 “History’s most important missing airplane.” Numerous memorials of various types to this mysterious flight exist as do museum exhibits. Canadian lakes are named after the lost aviators and Canada produced a made for television movie about the event. The 2005 movie Sahara referenced the fictional finding of the wreckage. The PL-8 had been specially constructed by the Pierre Lavasseur Company, and was painted white so as to be easier to find if it went down in the ocean. Only 32 feet long and with a wingspan of 49 feet, the PL-8 sported only one engine and propeller, with only 460 horsepower.

Weighing about 11,000 pounds fully loaded, the top speed was 120 mph, but it only cruised at 102 mph for an estimated 40 hours. No radio was included in the equipment in order to save weight, especially considering the unreliable radio sets of the day. So what happened to our brave French aviators? If you know, let the rest of us know. If not for this mystery Charles Lindbergh would not be known as “Lucky Lindy” and would be just one more aviation pioneer. Meanwhile, at the time of this writing (April 10, 2014) the month long search for the missing Malaysian airliner, Flight 370, continues without success! If you liked this article and would like to receive notification of new articles, please feel welcome to subscribe to History and Headlines by liking us on Facebook . Your readership is much appreciated!

Historical Evidence John Alcock & Arthur Whitten Brown Vickers Vimy Transatlantic Flight John Alcock & Arthur Whitten Brown Vickers Vimy Transatlantic Flight The Vickers Vimy In 1913, Lord Northcliffe, offered £10,000 to the first pilot(s) who could fly non stop across the Atlantic in either direction between North America and the British Isles (including all of Ireland). Vickers entered a converted Vimy bomber and chose Captain John Alcock to pilot the plane and Lieutenant Arthur Whitten Brown to navigate. After taking off from Newfoundland on the morning of the 14th June 1919, Alcock brought the Vickers Vimy down on a bog at Clifton, on the west coast of Ireland at 8.40 a.m. They had been in the air for 16 hours and 28 minutes and flown 3,154km in order to complete the record for the first transatlantic flight.

Celebrations at Crayford On the 23rd July 1919 Prince Albert (the future King George VI), the Chairman of Vickers, Sir Trevor Dawson and other invited guests gathered at the Princesses Theatre to celebrate it’s reopening after a tragic fire had destroyed the theatre in 1916. Children from nearby St Paulinus School were taken to the theatre to greet the visitors as they arrived. Amongst the special guests were John Alcock and Sir Arthur Whitten Brown, who were introduced to the audience by Sir Trevor Dawson. Both men received engraved gold wrist watches from the Vickers directors present at the Princesses’ Theatre. This was the same gold watch that helped to identify Captain Alcock when he died in a plane crash while flying to the Paris Aircraft Exhibition in 1919. Explore the site Flight to the Future | History Today Flight to the Future Aviation The glamorous success of Alcock and Brown’s first non-stop transatlantic flight in the wake of the Great War made the world smaller but no less nationalistic, argues Maurice Walsh. In July 1979, History Today marked the 60th anniversary of two events in aviation history, one still celebrated, the other a technological museum piece.

In separate articles entitled 'Crossing the Atlantic in 1919' D.L.B. Hartley and B.J. Haimes recalled the non-stop flight of Alcock and Brown in their Vickers Vimy from Newfoundland to Ireland in June that year and the journey the following month of a British airship, a copy of the Zeppelin, from East Fortune airfield near Edinburgh to New York carrying 31 men and a stowaway cat. Both authors were interested in these feats as glamorous adventures. But they acknowledged that neither would have been possible without the focus given to developing aircraft as weapons during the First World War. Well before 1914, as Haimes pointed out, Germany's airships were more feared than its formidable navy. Zeppelins could obliterate cities and spearhead an invasion of Britain, replicating the plot of H.G. Well's 1907 novel, The War In The Air, in which a fleet of German airships destroys US battleships and forces the surrender of New York. During the war the Zeppelins bombarded the east coast of England from Newcastle to Margate, killing more than 1,400 people and spreading fear and panic.

The war also accelerated the investments European governments had made in military aeronautics; by 1918 Britain had 4,500 planes and the US was manufacturing 14,000. But when the peace conference convened in Paris, flight was no longer the terror from the skies, but had once more been converted into a subject of popular fascination. Alcock and Brown's journey was the most obvious example of how the romance of air travel seemed to have occluded the brutality of the bomber. Not long after they set down in a muddy field in Galway, to win the £10,000 prize offered by the Daily Mail for the first continuous flight across the Atlantic, news of their achievement sped around the world. Crowds lined the roads as a Daily Mail reporter drove Alcock and Brown to Galway city where their car was surrounded by people thrusting pieces of paper through the windows to be signed. Messages of congratulation poured in from the king, Lloyd George and Woodrow Wilson. A Hollywood producer offered $50,000 if they would attempt a trans-Pacific flight. By the time they boarded a train for Dublin the next day to begin their journey to London they were already celebrities.

Their faces were displayed on news-stands in London, New York and Paris, where Le Matin proclaimed that 'an immense horizon has been opened to long distance flight'. Air travel epitomised the limitless possibilities of the postwar era. Wells was exhilarated by a trip in an aeroplane over Slovakia, marvelling at how flight opened up a view of 'the sunlit clearness and brightness of the outspread world'. As more people took to the skies they would realise that they no longer needed to be constrained by 'a patchwork of various sized internment camps called Independent Sovereign States'. On their journey across Ireland, well wishers appeared at every train station to greet Alcock and Brown. But they were passing through a country in the throes of a revolt against the British Empire. The crowds who cheered them on waved the tricolour, the flag of the new government that had unilaterally declared Irish sovereignty. The assassination of policemen had begun and a war was developing in which military aeroplanes would be deployed to hunt down roving bands of IRA guerrillas.

In my book, the arrival of Alcock and Brown in Galway is not incidental to the Irish independence struggle but a motif of the transforming world the new nation is trying to take its place in, a world in which jazz, Freud, celebrity culture and US power will shape Ireland as much as the national ideals of its revolutionary leaders. It did not occur to Wells that nationalism, far from being an unlikely holdover from a bygone era, would flourish in an interconnected world. One forgotten outcome of the postwar settlement was that airspace was designated as sovereign national property in 1919. Maurice Walsh's Bitter Freedom: Ireland in a Revolutionary World 1918-1923 was published by Faber & Faber in May 2015. Related articles Pilots to Re-Enact First Transatlantic Flight - ABC News Pilots to Re-Enact First Transatlantic Flight By NED POTTER Email Ask 10 friends who was first to fly across the Atlantic, and chances are the most common answer will be Charles Lindbergh. In fact, he was beaten by eight years.

John Alcock and Arthur Whitten Brown, two British pilots, made the first nonstop flight, from Newfoundland to Ireland, in June 1919. "We came across the Atlantic in 16 hours," Brown said years later, "but it wasn't a pleasant trip." From their description, it was horrific. They got lost in sleet and darkness. They became disoriented and went spinning toward the ocean more than once. They flew upside down at times. They crashed on landing. But the world fell in love with them. "We had fog nearly all the way across," Brown said. "I saw the sky once, for long enough to fix our position by the stars." Tracing Their Path Now, 86 years later, a group of dreamers is trying to retrace the steps of those two pioneers. They have built a copy of the Vickers Vimy biplane flown by Alcock and Brown and are waiting at the airport in St. John's, Newfoundland, planning to take off as soon as the weather cooperates. The pilot is a man familiar to many Americans: Steve Fossett, the millionaire adventurer who flew around the world nonstop in a hot-air balloon earlier this year.

But this project was masterminded by a California businessman named Peter McMillan. He cobbled together the resources to build the Vickers Vimy replica, saying a long-ago mission is relevant to the modern day. "It really sent a signal to the world that ultimately airplanes would make it a smaller place," McMillan said. "It's a pilot's challenge," said Fossett at a stop in Toronto on the way to Newfoundland. "This is flying airplanes the way they used to be flown." Fossett and his co-pilot, a 747 captain named Mark Rebholz, plan to navigate with the same tools available in 1919: a compass and sextant. They will allow themselves a few modern amenities: a satellite phone, GPS locator and survival suits in case of emergency. "We're not willing to die for this effort as John Alcock and Arthur Brown were," Rebholz said with a smile. Open Cockpit They are willing, though, to endure discomfort. The cockpit of the plane is open. The air over the North Atlantic, even in June, will be frigid.

The engines on the original plane were so loud that Alcock and Brown, sitting side by side, had to scrawl notes to each other. And even an updated biplane is a dangerous way to cross the ocean. But McMillan said that in a cautious world, it sends a useful message. "A little bit of risk-taking is the lifeblood of human achievement," he told ABC News. Seven times on the original flight, Brown had to climb out of the cockpit to clear ice from the plane. At times, their altimeter said they were 8,000 feet over the ocean; at least once they came within 70 feet of a crash. When Winston Churchill, then the British secretary of state for air, presented them with the prize for making the flight, he said he did not know whether to admire them most for their audacity and determination -- or their sheer good luck. But every traveler who flies between the United States and Britain today is retracing the route of that historic Vickers Vimy biplane. "Well, that's the start," Brown was quoted as saying when he climbed out of the wrecked plane. "I suppose they'll soon be coming over in dozens." 0 Shares

Question: In which year did Alcock and Brown make the first non-stop trans- Atlantic flight?
Answer: 1919