Just as the solar flight currently being attempted across the Pacific needs the sun, the first aeroplane to cross the Atlantic non-stop required aid from the weather – a westerly wind.
The tailwind of 30mph helped Captain John Alcock and Lieutenant Arthur Brown cross from Newfoundland in Canada to Clifden in County Galway, Ireland, in just 16 hours at an average speed of 118mph. But it was by no means all plain sailing.
Brown had to repeatedly climb out of the cockpit to clear snow from the air intakes of the two Rolls-Royce engines, showing how surprisingly cold it was on 15 June, 1919.
The landing was not easy either. Mistaking a peat bog for a grass strip, the converted Vickers Vimy bomber ended nose down in the mire. Both men escaped unhurt, were knighted, and became household names.
It is a measure of their achievement that it would be another eight years before the next Atlantic crossing – this time a solo flight by the American Charles Lindbergh.
Less well known is that less than a month after Alcock and Brown’s epic trip a British airship, the R34, made the first east west crossing.
It left on 2 July and arrived at Long Island on 6 July – a flight of 108 hours – short of fuel, but with 31 people and a cat on board. Hot food was prepared on an engine exhaust pipe.
A measure of the difference the prevailing wind made was that the airship’s return journey took just 75 hours, even though one of its five engines was out of action.
- This article was amended on 15 June 2015 to clarify that the Alcock and Brown flight was the first to cross the Atlantic non-stop.
