BRITAIN TO CANADA

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 48, Issue 156, 13 April 1928, Page 2

BRITAIN TO CANADA

MACHINE FOR COURTENAY. CONSTRUCTION IN ITALY. OTTAWA, April. 6. The British airman, Captain F. T. Courtenay, has completed plans for a transatlantic flight from Britain to Canada in a four-engined Dornier allmetal flying boat. The flight will be under the auspices of the Canadian Government. It will be the first occasion on which a transatlantic _ flight has received the official sanction or backing, of any Government. The plane in which the attempt will be made, and which is now being 'constructed in Italy, is entirely different from the aeroplanes used in the recent tragic attempts to cross the Atlantic from east to west, and it is hoped to repeat Lindbergh’s successful flight from west to east. The Hornier flying boat Captain Courtenay will use will be powered by four Bristol-Jupiter engines. The’route chosen for the flight is from Britain to the Azores, then to Newfoundland, and up the St. Lawrence River to Montreal and Ottawa. On September 4, 1927, Captain Courtenay, accompanied by Flying-Officer Downer, Mr Little, and a Canadian named Hosmer, left Southampton in the early morning in the “Whale” fly-ing-boat in an attempt to fly to Canada and back. Shortly after leaving the plane ran into fog, squalls, and heavy driving rain, and, after battling against the elements for some time, Captain Courtenay, seeing it was impossible to make any headway, landed near Corunna, Spain. It was his intention to make another start from there when the weather cleared, but the winter then set in properly, and the flight had to be abandoned.