Transatlantic flight

“ In a Wide Circle the Plane was Brought to the Surface.
[Pg 166]
"Who are you?" the captain of the tanker demanded, when he had recovered from mixed feelings of fear and admiration, brought on first by the narrow escape from a collision, and then by the expert surface landing which the hydro-aeroplane made.
"Americans entrants in the Transatlantic," Jack responded instantly. "Guess we're in the lead. Haven't sighted any of the others, have you?" ”

“ For a flight of twenty-five hundred miles all the disposable lift (gross lift minus weight of structure) would be needed for crew and fuel, and neither passengers nor freight could be taken aboard.
There is not in existence an aëroplane capable of flying, without alighting on the way, the three thousand miles between London and New York, even when loaded only with the necessary crew. With the very smallest margin of safety no transatlantic route of over two thousand miles is admissible for aëroplanes. ”

“ Even in the interim the plane probably would have departed, but at any rate all these considerations had been weighed hastily but carefully in Washington and the final decision was to leave everything to the lads in the leading plane, depending upon their skill as aviators, their courage as fighters, if events reached that stage, their ingenuity as Americans to accomplish successfully their given task and get the documents to Paris. ”

“ I've got all sorts of confidence in our plane, but nevertheless it would be nice to realize that we could let the world at large know our approximate whereabouts in case we should come down in old Father Neptune's lap, somewhere in about the dead center of the Atlantic. ”

“ Why the United States Government, to increase interest in airship navigation, and construction, especially for army purposes, has offered a prize of twenty thousand dollars for the first flight from the Atlantic to the Pacific, or from New York to San Francisco, by an airship carrying at least three persons. Only two landings are allowed during the flight, to take on gasolene, or make repairs. ”

“ With the huge wing-like planes expanded to the full, the Ocean Flyer coasted aslant the air-waves. The cloud belt encircling the globe was penetrated and passed through, leaving small drops of moisture glistening all over the glass of the portholes. The moon’s rays made the metal body of the vessel [77] glitter like so much silver. As they dropped lower and lower, the world became dimly visible, seeming to be literally rising to meet the descending aviators. At an altitude of three thousand feet, the downward planing was discontinued and level flight again maintained. ”

“ It is not wildly speculative to think of dispatching a plane after a liner on a well-traveled route in these days of excellent radio communication. It would be well to use for that purpose amphibian or seaplanes carrying fuel enough to take them all the way across the Atlantic if necessary.
It is conceivable that ocean flight between Europe and the United States will be the sequel to a ship-and-plane system of mail delivery, the distances covered by the plane becoming longer and longer until the steamship can be dispensed with altogether. ”

“ For the intrepid flyers behind that vanguard which had vanished had witnessed the wholesale disintegration of the leading element of the vast armada, and the pilots realized on the instant that no headlong rush into the very noses of the aero-subs would avail anything.
The vast American formation broke into a mad maelstrom of whirling, darting, diving planes. Every third plane plummeted downward, every second one climbed, and the remaining ships, even in the face of what had happened to the vanished first flight, held steadily to the front. ”

“ The United States Navy NC-1, NC-3, and NC-4 have flown from Rockaway by the southern route to the Azores. Once the first flight is negotiated, the aircraft manufacturers are convinced there will be a greater demand for flying seaplanes than for ocean liners, for they feel sure that most of the people going to and coming from Europe would prefer to travel in that way, and in less than half the time now taken by the fastest ocean greyhounds. ”

“ But in 1913 we realized the vital importance to the State of capturing the first place in aviation, particularly that of aerial supremacy at sea, for the Navy is our first line of defence. So rapid has been our progress that we are quite the equal of our French and German rivals in the production of aeroplanes, and in sea-planes we are far ahead of them, both in design and construction, and the war has proved that we are ahead in the art of flight. ”

“ The plane began losing altitude rapidly, and the passengers were informed that the plane would be ditched in the Atlantic Ocean. Fortunately, after a period of descending flight without power, the crew managed to restart an engine and land the plane safely at Miami International Airport. ”

“ But the navigation of the air, whether by airship or aeroplane, is now recognized for the more formidable novelty. The progress of the war has proved that within the narrow seas the submarine can be countered, and that the extension of its capabilities on the high seas is beset with difficulties. For aircraft the possibilities are immense. It is not extravagant to say that the 17th of December 1903, when the Wright brothers made the first free flight through the air in a power-driven machine, marks the beginning of a new era in the history of the world. ”

“ Aviation has transformed modern life. The Golden Age of Flight during the 1920s and 1930s captured the imagination of the American people, and soon opened commercial opportunities for transport and trade. Two world wars led to the development of the modern U.S. Air Force, strengthening our national security and enabling us to command the battlefield and protect our homeland from the sky. Aviation has also connected far-away nations, changing the way we conduct business, spend our leisure time, and spread new ideas. ”

“ Not only have aeroplanes, since the beginning of the war, become safer, but they have also become marvelously swifter and more powerful. As this is being written news comes from Washington that some recently imported very big and powerful Italian aeroplanes have made successfully a flight from Newport News to the Federal capital—a distance of some 150 miles—at the rate of 135 miles per hour and carrying ten passengers. ”

“ Bad weather would often ground a flight and passengers were almost as uncertain as the weather. Many of those pioneer operators had to depend on the dollar-a-ride hops of Sunday sightseers to “keep the wolf from the door.” One service operated 14-passenger converted Navy seaplanes on a route between New York and Havana, and another route between Cleveland and Detroit. Most of these pioneer air transport Operations lasted for only a short time, due to the heavy cost of maintaining the planes and the lack of properly marked air routes. ”

“ The rapid development of air navigation on the continent will be followed soon by extensive flights over the seas, and we will have large airplanes crossing the Atlantic, which will facilitate not only the establishment of the postal line transatlantic air, as the delivery of airplanes from the United States to our Allies.
The Aero Club of America, which has advocated the development of Aeronautics since your first trials, activated and assisted by every means the creation of the air postal service since 1911, feels highly rewarded by the establishment of this new service through the air. ”

“ There is no doubt that, had the United States government supported its aircraft companies to the same extent as did the British government, commercial aviation in America would have traveled along a smooth road. Even without this support it has made excellent progress. Successful regular services are established between Los Angeles and San Diego, and elsewhere in the West, and in the East many passengers have been carried between New York and Atlantic City, and around the coast of Florida. Plans are being laid for various other airways, including one between Key West and Havana. ”

“ Exactly one hundred years to the very month after the first steam-driven vessel crossed the Atlantic, from Savannah, Georgia, to England, NC-4, U. S. naval flying-boat, flew from Rockaway, Long Island, via Halifax, Trepassey Bay, Newfoundland, Azores, Lisbon, Portugal, Ferrol, Spain, to Plymouth, England; and on June 13 the “Vimy”-Bomber, built by the Vickers, Limited, England, made a non-stop flight from St. ”

“ Probably it will be experienced by all passengers traveling on the rapid trans-ocean air services [Pg 85] of the future—those who complete a westward journey becoming early risers without effort, those who land after an eastward flight becoming unconsciously lazy in the mornings, until the jolting effect of the dislocation wears off, and habit has accustomed itself to the new conditions. ”

“ In the year before Pearl Harbor the Navy had acquired only a few hundred new airplanes. We did have, however, a group of young men who had been living and breathing aviation for the past fifteen years. They knew what was needed in the way of new fighting planes and they knew how to train thousands of new naval aviators when the time came. But it took the tremendous sweeps of the Nazis in Europe and the shadow of Japan across the Pacific to unloose the flood of fighting planes which was to give the United States Navy the greatest aërial fighting force ever launched. ”

“ But the main reliance of the airman must be his compass. Crossing the broad oceans no lighted path is possible, and even in a voyage from New York to Chicago, or from London to Rome good airmanship will dictate flight at a height that will make reliance upon natural objects as a guide perilous. The airman has the advantage over the sailor in that he may lay his course on leaving his port, or flying field, and pursue it straight as an arrow to his destination. ”

“ The last three years of warfare abroad have forced the development of the aeroplane to such a degree that the time is now very near when aeroplanes will have such extended radius of certain flight as will make the preliminary reconnaissance of the unknown areas in the north and south polar regions a matter of a few weeks instead of several years.
The sheltered inlets of Bowdoin and McCormick Bays in Whale Sound, Greenland, are readily accessible every summer to a ship like the Roosevelt and an ice master like Bartlett. ”

“ Its purpose is for use in great emergencies. Nor ought the aerial navigator, particularly [223] if he be alone, be forced to rectify his altitude continually by means of his propeller and shifting weights. He ought to be free to navigate his air-ship; if on pleasure bent, with ease and leisure to enjoy his flight; if on war service, with facility for his observations and hostile manœuvres. Therefore any automatic guarantee of vertical stability is peculiarly welcome to him.
You know already what the guide rope is. ”

“ It is well in these early days, when flight is with the general public a very special and occasional event, to remember what has happened since Watt developed the steam-engine only a few generations ago, when Columbus set the first ship westward, or when America's first train ran over its rough tracks near the Quincy quarries.
The development of aviation will be world-wide and will include all sorts and races of men. The nations all start pretty much abreast. Those which developed war air services have an advantage in material and experience, but this is a matter only for the moment. ”

“ The traveller to-day demands more than comfort and safety. Travelling is in the main itself a luxury, and as more and more Americans have found themselves with sufficient means to indulge in it, they have demanded more and more luxurious surroundings and appointments. It is in response to this demand and the growth of the traffic, that within the last few years there has been placed upon the transatlantic lines a fleet of steamships that surpass in every respect anything that the world has seen. ”

“ As soon as the airship arrived over Roosevelt Field, Major John Edward Maddock Pritchard landed upon American soil, after a parachute drop of 2,000 feet.
This completed the longest flight in history, the distance covered being 3,200 miles, not counting the mileage forced upon the flyers by adverse winds. The time consumed was a few minutes more than 108 hours. The big airship brought over thirty-one persons, one of whom was a stowaway, and a tortoise-shell cat. ”

“ It is not improbable that even before the war is over the crossing of the Atlantic by plane will be accomplished. Certainly it will be one of the first tasks undertaken by airmen on the return of peace. But it is probable that the adaptation of aircraft to commercial uses will be begun with undertakings of smaller proportions. Already the United States maintains an aërial mail route in Alaska, while Italy has military mail routes served by airplanes in the Alps. ”

“ And as the cables are slipped from the mooring tower, the light gangway is drawn back, the crowd down below cheer, and the giant airship backs out, carried by the force of the wind alone till she is well clear of the station. Then her engines open up gradually. She turns until her nose points almost due west, then slips away on her four thousand miles' journey over many a classic land, desert, forest and sea towards the centre of the world's greatest empire. ”

“ All nations will be closer neighbors, and we shall all have a better understanding of our neighboring nations. The more we visit and mingle with the people of the entire world the more we can help to spread the doctrine of democracy of America. The airplane will play a great part in eliminating the greed and jealousy that breeds war. The young people of today will govern America tomorrow. The airplane will be the vehicle through which they will learn to know the peoples of the world. Through this better understanding America may always be the symbol of peace and prosperity. ”