First Adantic Flight

Otago Witness, Issue 4085, 28 June 1932, Page 48

First Adantic Flight

Thirteen years ago (on June 15, 1919) the first non-stop Atlantic flight was completed when Mr John Alcock and Lieutenant A. Whitten Brown flew -from Newfoundland to Britain. The Atlantic had been crossed by air before, when the American seaplane NC4 did the trip in three hops, but the direct flight of 1900 miles was a performance which outclassed any previous transoceanic flight. The time in which these two Englishmen made the crossing (15hr 57min) remained a record until last month, when Mrs Amelia Earhart Putnam flew from America to Ireland in 13hr 15min. Alcock and Brown used a Vickers Vimy machine of the type which was evolved in the stages of the war for bombing. It was fitted with two Rolls Royce 375 horse-power motors. The two airmen received knighthoods for their achievement, as well as the Daily Mail £lO,OOO prize for the first crossing of the Atlantic. The remarkable accuracy of Alcock’s piloting and the efficiency of Brown’s navigation are still recalled as outstanding feats, for they had none of the oata which has since been compiled relating to conditions in the upper air over the Atlantic. To their remarkable judgment must be given the credit for the record which stood so long in a sphere in which almost daily advances are being made.