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Sunday, June 7, 2015

Alcock & Brown

The first non-stop transatlantic flight occurred in June 1919. British aviators Alcock and Brown flew a modified First World War Vickers Vimy bomber from St. John's, Newfoundland, to Clifton in County Galway, Ireland. The Secretary of State for Air, Winston Churchill, presented them with the Daily Mail prize for the first crossing of the Atlantic Ocean in 'less than 72 consecutive hours'.

The crossing was not only a tribute to the aircraft's reliability but also to the navigation skills of the pilots. After 16 hours flying they made landfall in Galway not far from their intended landing place. The aircraft was damaged upon arrival because of an attempt to land in what appeared from the air to be a suitable green field but which turned out to be a bog.

Bazflyers took a narrow farm track over the bog to stand on the very site of the Vimy's crash landing. Unless the landscape has changed over the past 90 odd years we conclude any prospect of a successful landing would have been unlikely. Nowadays, there are are aroximately 3000 flights across the Alantic every day...! 

Cairn marking the site of Alcock and Brown's landing

Archive photo of the landing 

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