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When two British pilots flew a biplane across the vast Atlantic Ocean 100 years ago, battling sleet and thick fog for more than 16 hours, they marked the history of aviation.
Captain John Albad and Lieutenant Arthur Whitten Brown, navigator off their painful 3,000 kilometer (1,860 mile) crossing, made the first non-stop transatlantic flight in the world.
Here is a return on their innovative journey between Newfoundland to Canada and Ireland from June 14 to 15, 1919.
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The North Atlantic had already been conquered by the airs when Albad and Brown had taken their place in their modified World War I bomber on June 14 – but never once. "Data-reactid =" 25 "> – Daily Mail Prices –
The North Atlantic had already been conquered by the airs when Albad and Brown had taken their place in their modified World War I bomber on June 14 – but never once.
A few weeks earlier, three US Navy stars Curtiss flew from New York State on this voyage with stops in Newfoundland, the Azores, Portugal and England.
Only one completed the trip, covering 6,000 kilometers in three weeks.
The British daily Daily Mail had launched the challenge of a nonstop pbad by offering 10,000 pounds for a one-way flight from North America to the British Isles in less than three days.
Just weeks before Albad – Brown 's candidacy, two other teams had attempted: the first plane had sunk in the ocean and had been rescued; the second sank on take-off.
<p clbad = "canvas-atom canvas-text Mb (1.0em) Mb (0) – sm Mt (0.8em) – sm" type = "text" content = "- Just erases trees –
Albad, 26, and Brown, 32, took off early in the afternoon from St John's, one of the most eastern points of the day. ;North America. "Data-reactid =" 30 "> – barely eliminates trees –
Albad, 26, and Brown, 32, took off early in the afternoon from St John's, one of the most points in the East. North America.
Their biplane Vickers Vimy was weighed down by 4,000 liters of fuel and could only clear the trees, rising in gusts of wind.
"Several times, I held my breath, lest our landing gear hit a roof or a tree," recalls Brown in "Flying the Atlantic in Sixteen Hours" (1920).
Once in flight, the Royal Air Force airmen headed east for Ireland and headed for the night.
<p clbad = "canvas-atom canvas-text Mb (1.0em) Mb (0) – sm Mt (0.8em) – sm" type = "text" content = "- Blind flying –
A thick fog meant that they were blind for most of the trip, unable to locate themselves. "Data-reactid =" 34 "> – Blind –
A thick fog meant that they had stolen blind for much of the trip, unable to locate themselves.
The plane was tossed by the wind, rising and diving, sometimes just a few meters above the water, Albad told later.
"I think we closed the loop and, by accident, we made a deep spiral, it was very alarming, we had no idea of the horizon," Albad said. Daily Mail.
Ice and hail jammed some instruments and threatened to freeze the engines. Brown had to remove the ice with a knife.
"We had a terrible trip, we never saw a boat and we did not receive any wireless messages," Albad said afterwards.
"We flew along the water and we had doubts about our position, even though we thought we were" there or about. "We searched for land hoping to find it at all moment."
<p clbad = "canvas-atom canvas-text Mb (1.0em) Mb (0) – sm Mt (0.8em) – sm" type = "text" content = "- Landing in the Irish marshes –
When the ground suddenly appeared on the morning of June 15, "it was great," said the pilot. "Data-reactid =" 40 "> – Landing in the Irish marshes –
When the ground suddenly appeared on the morning of June 15, "it was great," said the pilot.
He spotted what appeared to be a good ground for a landing near Clifden in County Galway, but it turned out that it was a swamp.
"The wheels sank deep into the field and the Vimy rolled over the nose," he said.
The plane was damaged but the two pioneers came out unscathed. The trip had taken a little over 16 hours.
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Albad and Brown were welcomed as heroes in Dublin and London. They handed the Daily Mail prize to Winston Churchill, then Minister of Aviation, and then to King George V.
Albad and Brown were welcomed as heroes in Dublin and London. They handed the Daily Mail prize to Winston Churchill, then Minister of Aviation, and then to King George V.
Their record, however, would be eclipsed just eight years later, when, on May 20, 1927, the American Charles Lindbergh will make a transatlantic flight alone and between two major cities, from New York to Paris.
Albad died just six months after his plane crashed near Rouen, France. Brown died in 1948.
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