THE ATLANTIC FLIGHT

Evening Star, Issue 19617, 25 July 1927, Page 8

THE ATLANTIC FLIGHT

MEN'S OWN STOHY SUCCESSION OF THRILLS ICEBERGS, FOG, AND DARK The following account was given in Berlin by tho two. American airmen, Chamberlin and Levine, of . their transatlantic flight:— “ For weeks before onrflight wo had planned for it. It-was made on a pro* mise made by one of us—Chamberlin —that ho would gladly go alone with the other —Levine —instead of a -more experienced pilot or navigator. ,We took practice spins for testing our compasses., In tho trial trips we tried to pick out any.clouds and go through them to become accustomed to fog and clouds—and also to see whether our instruments worked properly while doing so. “The big thing was to keep secret who was to be, the second man. It was always known to Chamberlin who would be the other, but he made a promise not to tell anybody. Our answer to inquiries was that the second name would not bo announced until tho plane was actually ready to start, when he would jump in. A DIFFICULT STAIIT.

“The excitement of our tranoceanic flight began before we had got away from New York. Instead of making a ■mod start, wo found wo could not rise clear of the ground, so we had to come back and start over again. But this was easier said than done. Just after we had started the first time the crowds had poured on to tho field in thousands. Wo had to fly clear of Commandant Byrd’s aeroplane ,which was at one end of the run-away, and at tho same time keep Irom smashing into the crowd of thousands which was on both sides of us. It was a miracle that our aeroplane got away without killing someone. “ After llymg for some time we suddenly realised that our compasses wore not 'agreeing. We noticed this when we found we had left New London, Connecticut. Chamberlin knew this part of the country so well that, when he did not see Now Loudon, ho instantly k .cw there was something wrong, it was wrong, all right. We found our earth induction compass running wild. This reduced us to using the only other compass we had—an old magnetic compass of tho sort you use when flying over country where difficulties are reduced to a minimum.

'■ This got us so far out of the course (hat we should have taken that when we were a bit beyond Capo Cod, we really did not know whether to keep on or turn back. But the doubts only las Ice a little while. One of us—Levine —said that it wolud be bettor to be buried in Davy Jones’s locker than return and face the criticisms and heehaws of people. Plenty of them we knew would only be too glad of an opportunity to jump on us ? especially some newspapers. That decided us. We headed for 250 miles of open water that lay between us and Nova Scotia. Then, as if we had not had trouble enough about compasses, wo began to buck into head winds. It took us much longer than we expected to hit Nova Scotia, and when we got there we were miles off our course—two and a-half hours late, and many miles off Cape Race. “We knew that if we kept up that sort of thing we should land into serious difficulties, but it was too late to hesitate. The aeroplane_ was turned towards the open Atlantic, and we gritted our teeth and started to face the really big part of our task.

ICEBERGS. “ The next thrill was our meeting an iceberg. At first we simply.-, could not make out what it was., 'Surely there is no ship as wide as that! we said to each other—because, you see, it looked like a ship, vve dipped down so as to get a good look at tho thing, and then we saw it was An iceberg—the first one that either of ns had ever seen. It was quite' a surprise, that big, white hunk of ice out there in the middle of tiie ocean We thought wo had worked out everything we might meet, but somehow neither of us had thought of that. Afterwards there was no thrill in icebergs at all. Before we got away from the Atlantic we sighted fifteen or twenty of these while fellows, and at least a hundred small ones. We used the icebergs to check our drift from our course, since the icebergs seemed fairly stationary. Chamberlin took a look at one big fellow and remarked: ‘I wonder if wo could climb to the top of that thing if wo were forced to land on it!’ By tho way, the icebergs looked grand in tiro moonlight. After the icebergs came fog, and that bothered us a great deal Incidentally we got a big surprise; we expected fog, and plenty of it, oil the Grand Banks, since wc had heard that they were famous for it, but we did not strike a vestige of fog there. After we gut clear ui the Banks ire found fog where we did not expect it at all. Mr ilimball, of New York Weather Bureau, had advised us that if we struck fog and bad weather on the northward course which we had mapped out we should veer a bit to tho south, and wc should find things all right. So wo did. and we discovered that, ho was a true prophet, lor things turned out exactly as ho' said. “ Unco the fog was so bad that Chamberlin wont up fully 15,0UUlt, hoping to clear it, but in vain. This was as high as we could climb with the load wo were carrying. From there wo dropped down to a few feet above tho water, but still there was fog all about.

NIGHT SIGNALS, I “ All This while we were reduced to | navigating with a compass, which we i did not believe in anyhow, so that you can easily understand tiiat wo were absolutely at a loss to know just where we were. The temperature soon rose above bOdeg, and we began to leaf, we were getting too far south. It \ was past midnight when wc exchanged 1 signals, abput (500 miles off the coast | of Newfoundland, with some boat 1 which passed a short distance from us, 1 but wo never found out what boat it, was. We Hashed our searchlight, put- , ting on and oil' seveud times, and wo knew they recognised U because they acknowledged it in the same way. We dropped down rather close to them trying to read their name. “ liy this time wo were wondering whether wo ■ were going to hit Ireland, England, France, or Spain, which showed to what extent we were lost up there in the storm of fog and cloud. “Then came our next big thrill—the Mauretania! Suddenly she loomed up at us Irom down below, about ten miles distant, and we made a beeline for her. We circled several times over her, and we clearly read her name Wo also waved our hands to passengers on her deck. Levine signalled with his hands like a telegraphist working telegraph keys, and an officer on the deck of the Mauretania saluted and immediately went off, showing lie understood. i think it was the captain. We came within 50ft '0 lOC t of the Mauretania, flying along right beside her. THE MAURETANIA. “ We immediately dug up a copy of the New York 1 Times/ which we were carrying in the back of «ur aeroplane, and' turned over the pages until wo found the steamship news and learned what day the Mauretania had sailed from Southampton. Having found it, we started computing what her position would be roughly when wo sighted her, and from that we computed our position and saw that we were somewhere near Ireland or England. “Tile next, eig i brill .was the first glimpse of land. Wo do not know,yet just whiit it was. Levine was sure it

must be Ireland, because he was born on March 17—St. Patrick’s Day. Anyhow, it was Ireland or England. We knew then that we were lu sight of success. “ Over the North Sea the aeroplane became unmanageable Chamberlin said: 1 1 can’t do a thing with it. Yon take the stick.’ Levine laughed,_ and when Chamberlin asked why he d;d so he said it was because it was hire riding a bucking broncho. Alter that -wc thought things would be comparatively smooth. Now that the really dangerous part of the trip was over we thought thrills would 1m less frequent, but there was one very big one. Alter we had gone over quite a long strip of the European continent and wore well on our way towards Berlin, there came a thrill which ve consider ar the biggest ol the whole trip. We found ourselves forced to go to an altitude of something like 20,000 ft above and stay there one whole night. For all we knew we might have been even higher, because the altitude recorder we were carrving only rgisterea as far as that height- Our thermometer registered 18de" below freezing point. It certainly was cold. We stuck up there at that altitude right through the night before we could venture down. Those hours were not at all pleasant After that there were not any really big thrills—not even when we were forced to land for the first time in Geimany because of our gasolene running out, and not even when the plane came down on its nose near Kottbus.”-