Call Sign June 1999

Pic Right: Replica of the Alcock and Brown Vimy on display at the RAF Museum, Hendon

Alan Green looks at the 80^th anniversary of the first Transatlantic flight…

If you've already planned your summer vacation, chances are the arrangements were made with comparative ease and the journey is likely to be smooth and trouble free.
Yet 80 years ago this month, the first direct non-stop Transatlantic air crossing was anything but smooth or easy. During 14 / 15 June 1919, Capt. John Alcock (pilot) and Arthur

MILESTONES IN AIR TRAVEL - JUNE 14^th 1919

Whitten Brown (navigator) were the first men to complete the almost-2000 miles between St. Johns, Newfoundland and Clifden, Ireland. This easterly direction was chosen given the prevailing wind and the fact that these landfalls were the closest between the two continents.
Monetary Incentive

The Daily Mail’s Lord Northcliffe, a visionary regarding air travel, had put up a £10,000 prize for the premier aviators to cross the Atlantic non-stop. Several teams entered the race but were unsuccessful. With superb flying skill, navigation of the highest order and total dedication, Alcock and Brown rose to the challenge despite appalling weather and extreme difficulties.
Both men were veteran flyers from World War One and met at the Vickers Aviation Co. in Surrey. With meticulous planning, they prepared their Vickers 'Vimy' twin-engined bi-plane for the record attempt. Modified to carry extra fuel and equipment, the aircraft was crated up and sent by freighter to Newfoundland. Alcock, Brown and their support team all followed by steamship. Brown spent most of the sea time observing the weather, it proved to be time well spent.
At their St. Johns base, the Vimy was rebuilt and prepared for flight. News of the earlier failures by their rivals raised the men’s spirits, but high winds and driving rain forewarned them of what was to come..

The Adventure Begins

With final pre-flight testing completed, 300 air mail letters

bearing a commemorative 'St. Johns' stamp, were loaded aboard. Lastly, two toy cat mascots, ‘Lucky Jim’ and ‘Twinkletoes’ were safely secured as the aviators connected up their electrically heated flying suits and made ready for take off. Heavily laden, the Vimy rumbled down the makeshift runway as it struggled to get airborne. With a last look behind them, the airmen set course for Ireland. Dense fog soon made flying difficult and accurate navigation almost impossible.
   As they climbed to avoid the worst of the weather, so ice became a major problem covering the Vimy's flying surfaces and threatening to force them down. Brown, despite a lame leg, had to crawl out along the wings in the full force of the slipstream to hack away at the mass. Throughout their entire adventure, Alcock, the pilot, ate with one hand while keeping the other on the control column and both feet firmly on the rudder bar!
   Soon, more was to go wrong. Firstly, a small electric generator failed leaving the men without any means of radio communication, unable to send even an SOS. Later, part of the starboard engine exhaust pipe broke away allowing fumes to drift across the cockpit and causing a deafening roar for the remainder of the flight.
   At one point, the Vimy spiralled out of control, plummeting from 4,000 feet and breaking through the clouds - just barely above sea level! With lightning-like reflexes Alcock regained his sense of balance -and righted the aircraft to the horizon. But as Brown checked his compass, he realised something was amiss. They were

going the wrong way - heading back to America! Correcting themselves, they continued on.
Mission Accomplished

Eventually, after nearly 17 hours in the air, land was sighted and Alcock looked for somewhere safe to put down. At 08.48 GMT on Sunday 15 June 1919, the aircraft touched terra-firma but its' wheels sunk into the ground. They'd landed rather unceremoniously in a bog! The airplane nosedived into the mire, throwing the men forward.
   Unhurt, they scrambled out clutching their precious mailbags. Nobody had ever flown so far or for so long before and the pair were feted as heroes. King George V knighted them and Winston Churchill presented them with their £10,000.
   Then on December 8^th that same year, Alcock was killed in a flying accident. Brown mourned the loss of his friend for the rest of his own life (he died in 1948) and never flew again.
   Interestingly, on display at the RAF Museum, Hendon, is a McDonnell Phantom FGR2 which reprised the flight in June 1979 for the 60th. anniversary of that historic first crossing.

My very grateful thanks to Grp. Capt. Henry Hall RAF (Retd) and Andy Simpson, both of the RAF Museum for their help in the preparation of this article.

Next month, Call Sign looks at the conquest of the English Channel by a lone Frenchman….

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