World Flight

World Flight
Followin in the footsteps of the great aviators.

10/12/11

First non-stop transatlantic flight


On June 14–15, 1919. Capt. John Alcock and Lieut. Arthur Whitten Brown of the United Kingdom flew in a Vickers Vimy bomber, between islands, 1,960 nautical miles, 3,630 km, from St. John's, Newfoundland, to Clifden, Ireland.
The flight took 16 hours and 12 minutes.

Alcock and Brown flew a modified Vickers Vimy IV twin-engine bomber powered by two Rolls-Royce Eagle engines, each of 360 hp.
They took off from Lester's Field in St. John's, Newfoundland at around 13.45 on June 14 1919.
When in poor visibility they misidentified a bog as a suitable grass field to land, their aircraft crashlanded near Clifden in Connemara in County Galway, Ireland, at 08.40 on June 15 1919.

They had spent around fourteen-and-a-half hours over the North Atlantic Oscean crossing the coast at 16.28, having flown 1890 miles, 3040 km in 15 hours 57 minutes at an average speed of 115 mph, 185 km/h.

Their altitude varied between sea level to 12,000 ft, 3,700 m.
Upon take-off they carried 865 imperial gallons, 3,900 L of fuel on board.

The flight nearly ended in disaster several times owing to engine trouble, fog, snow and ice.
It was only saved by Brown's continual climbing out on the wings to remove ice from the engine air intakes, and by Alcock's excellent piloting despite extremely poor visibility at times and even snow filling the open cockpit.

Source: Wikipedia

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