TRANSATLANTIC FLIGHT

'Transatlantic flight' is any flight of an aircraft, whether fixed-wing aircraft, balloon or other device, which involves crossing the Atlantic Ocean — with a starting point in North America or South America and ending in Europe or Africa, or vice versa.

Contents

History

Commercial transatlantic flight

Early notable transatlantic flights

Other early transatlantic flights

History

Problems that faced early aviation included the unreliability of early engines, the limited range of contemporary aircraft (which prevented them from flying continuously for the periods of time required to completely cross the Atlantic), the difficulty of navigating over open, featureless expanses of water for distances of thousands of miles (kilometers) without straying off course, the unpredictable and often violent weather for which the North Atlantic in particular is well known, and the problem of finding routes that are of reasonable length, do not include adverse wind conditions, and avoid bad weather. One by one, these problems have been overcome, but it has been a slow process. Today, however, commercial transatlantic flight is routine. Experimental flight (in balloons, small aircraft, etc.) still presents a challenge for the adventurous.

Commercial transatlantic flight

The North Atlantic presented major challenges for aviators due to unpredictable weather and the huge distances involved coupled with the lack of intermediate stopping points. Initial commercial forays into transatlantic services, therefore, focused more on the South Atlantic, where a number of French, German, and Italian airlines offered seaplane service for mail between South America and West Africa in the 1930s. From December 1935, ''Air France'' opened a regular weekly airmail route between South America and Africa. German airlines, such as ''Deutsche Luft Hansa'', experimented with a number of mail routes over the North Atlantic in the early 1930s, both with seaplanes and with dirigibles, but these were not regularly scheduled services and never led to commercial operations. There were, however, hundreds of commercial transatlantic crossings with passengers made by German airships during the late 1920s and 1930s, including the ''Graf Zeppelin'' and ''Hindenburg''.
As technology progressed, Pan American World Airways of the United States, Imperial Airways of Britain, and ''Aéropostale'' of France, began to use flying boats to connect the Americas to Europe ''via'' Bermuda and the Azores during the 1930s. On 26 March 1939, Pan American made its first trial transatlantic flight from Baltimore, Maryland to Foynes, Ireland using a Boeing 314 (named ''Yankee Clipper'' by PanAm) with a scheduled flight time of about 29 hours. After World War II, American and European carriers such as Pan Am, TWA, Trans Canada Airlines (TCA), BOAC, and Air France acquired larger piston aircraft, which allowed service over the North Atlantic with intermediate stops (usually in Gander, Newfoundland and/or Shannon, Ireland). Jet service began in the late 1950s, and supersonic service (Concorde) was offered from 1976 to 2003. Since the loosening of regulations in the 1970s and 1980s, a large number of airlines now compete in the transatlantic air travel market, though restrictions on certain airports still remain (see ''Bermuda II'').
Navigation over the Atlantic imposes special constraints on commercial flights that do not exist for flights over inhabited land. North Atlantic Tracks (NAT) are routes used by aircraft are standardized but change daily in position and altitude in order to compensate for varying weather factors—particularly the jet stream tailwinds and headwinds, which may be substantial at cruising altitudes and have a strong influence on trip duration and fuel economy. Eastbound flights generally operate during nighttime hours, while westbound flights generally operate during daytime hours, for passenger convenience. Restrictions on how far certain types of aircraft may be from the nearest airport also play a part in determining transatlantic routes; in general, the greater the number of engines an aircraft has, the greater the distance it is allowed to be from the nearest airport (the theory being a single engine failure in a four-engine aircraft is less crippling than a single engine failure in a twin). Modern aircraft with two engines flying transatlantic have to be ETOPS certified.
Unavoidable gaps in air traffic control and radar coverage over large stretches of the Earth's oceans, as well as an absence of most types of radio navigation aids, impose a requirement for a high level of autonomy in navigation upon transatlantic flights. Aircraft must include highly reliable systems that can determine the aircraft's course and position with great accuracy over long distances. In addition to the traditional magnetic compass (the main instrument used by Lindbergh, but now much less important), Inertial navigation systems, and satellite navigation systems such as GPS all have their places in transatlantic navigation. Land-based systems such as VOR, and DME however, are mostly useless for ocean crossings.

Early notable transatlantic flights

; First Transatlantic Flight: May 8 - May 31, 1919. U.S. Navy Curtiss flying boat NC-4 under command of Albert Read makes first transatlantic flight, 4,526 statute miles (7,284 km), from Rockaway, New York, to Plymouth, England, ''via'' Trepassey, Newfoundland, Azores, Lisbon, Portugal, and other intermediate stops, in 53 hours, 58 minutes.

; First Non-Stop Transatlantic Flight: June 14 - June 15 1919. Capt. John Alcock and Lieut. Arthur Whitten Brown of the United Kingdom in Vickers Vimy bomber make first nonstop transatlantic flight, between islands, 1,960 nautical miles (3,630 km), from St. John's, Newfoundland (then an independent dominion and not yet part of Canada), to Clifden, Ireland (then still part of the United Kingdom), in 16 hours, 12 minutes.
; First East-to-West Transatlantic Flight: July 1919. Major George Herbert Scott of the Royal Air Force with his crew and passengers flies from East Fortune, Scotland to Mineola, Long Island in airship ''R34'', covering a distance of about 3,000 statute miles (4,800 km) in about four and a half days, the first East-West transatlantic flight; he then made a return trip to England.
; First Flight across the South Atlantic: March 30 - June 17, 1922. Lieutenant Commander Sacadura Cabral (pilot) and Cdr. Gago Coutinho (navigator) of Portugal, using three Fairey IIID floatplanes (''Lusitania'', ''Portugal'', and ''Santa Cruz'') used successively after two ditchings, make first flight across the South Atlantic, using only internal means of navigation (the Coutinho-invented sextant with artificial horizon) from Lisbon, Portugal, to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. [1]
; First Non-Stop Aircraft flight between European and American mainlands: October 1924. The Zeppelin ''ZR-3'' (LZ-126) flies from Germany to New Jersey with a crew commanded by Dr. Hugo Eckener, covering a distance of about 4,000 statute miles (6,400 km). It was the first nonstop aircraft flight between Europe and American mainland.
; Notable failed attempt: May 8 - May 9, 1927. Charles Nungesser and François Coli attempted at crossing the Atlantic from Paris to the USA in a Levasseur PL-8 biplane (named ''L'Oisseau Blanc''), but were lost. According to some witnesses, they might have crashed in Maine, USA.
; First Solo Transatlantic Flight and First Non-Stop Fixed-Wing aircraft flight between American and European mainlands: May 20 - May 21, 1927. Charles A. Lindbergh flies Ryan monoplane (named ''Spirit of St. Louis'') in the first solo transatlantic flight and first nonstop fixed-wing aircraft flight between American and European mainlands, 3,600 nautical miles (6,667 km), from New York City to Paris, in 33 1/2 hours. The flight was timed by the Longines watch company.
; First Transatlantic Air Passenger: June 4 - June 5, 1927. The first transatlantic air passenger was Charles A. Levine. He was carried as a passenger by Clarence D. Chamberlin from Roosevelt Field, New York, to Eisleben, Germany, in a Wright-powered Bellanca.
; First Non-Stop Aerial Crossing of the South Atlantic: October 14 - October 15 1927 - Dieudonne Costes and Joseph le Brix make the first non-stop aerial crossing of the South Atlantic, flying a Breguet 19 from Senegal to Brazil.
; First Non-Stop Fixed-Wing Aircraft Westbound Flight over the North Atlantic: April 12 - April 13, 1928. Gunther von Huenfeld and Capt. Hermann Koehl of Germany and Comdr. James Fitzmaurice of Ireland fly a Junkers monoplane (named ''Bremen'') in first nonstop fixed-wing aircraft westbound flight over North Atlantic, 2,070 statute miles (3,331 km), from Ireland to Labrador, in 36 1/2 hours.
; First woman to fly as a passenger: June 17 - June 18 1928. Amelia Earhart in Fokker F.VII trimotor Friendship is the first woman to fly Atlantic as a passenger.
; First Nonstop East-to-West Fixed-Wing Aircraft flight between European and American mainlands: September 1 - September 2, 1930. Dieudonne Costes and Maurice Bellonte fly a Breguet 19 Super Bidon biplane (named ''Point d'Interrogation'', Question Mark) in first nonstop westbound fixed-wing aircraft flight between European and American mainlands, from over North Atlantic, 6,200 km from Paris to New York City.
; Notable flight (around the world): June 23-July 1, 1931. Wiley Post (pilot) and Harold Gatty (navigator) fly a Lockheed Vega monoplane (named ''Winnie Mae'') around-the-world, 15,477 nm (28,663 km) from Long Island, New York in 8 days, 15 hours, 51 minutes; with in 14 stops, total flying time was 107 hours 2 minutes.
; First Transatlantic Solo Flight by a Woman: May 20 - May 21, 1932. Amelia Earhart in Lockheed Vega makes first transatlantic solo flight by a woman, 2,026 nautical miles (3,752 km), from Harbour Grace, Newfoundland, to Derry, Northern Ireland, in 15 hours, 18 minutes.
; First solo westbound crossing of the Atlantic: August 18 - August 19 1932. Jim Mollison makes the first solo westbound crossing of the Atlantic, flying a de Havilland Puss Moth from Dublin to New Brunswick
; Smallest plane that crossed the Atlantic: May 7 - May 8, 1933. Stanisław Skarżyński makes a solo flight across the South Atlantic, covering 3,582 km (2,226 statute miles), in a RWD-5''bis'' - empty weight below 450 kg (990 lb).
; Mass Flight: Mass Transatlantic Flight: July 1 - July 15 1933. Gen. Italo Balbo of Italy leads 24 Savoia-Marchetti seaplanes in mass transatlantic flight, 6,100 statute miles (9,817 km), from Orbetello, Italy, to Chicago, Ill., in 47 hours, 52 minutes.
; First Around-the-World Solo Flight: July 15 - July 22 1933. Wiley Post flies Lockheed Vega monoplane ''Winnie Mae'' in first around-the-world solo flight, 15,596 statute miles (25,099 km) in 11 stops, in 7 days, 8 hours, 49 minutes; flying time, 115 hours, 36 minutes.
; First Jet Aircraft to fly across the Atlantic Ocean: July 14 1948, six de Havilland Vampire F3s of No 54 Squadron RAF became the first jet aircraft to fly across the Atlantic Ocean. Commanded by Wg Cdr D S Wilson-MacDonald, DSO, DFC, they flew ''via'' Stornoway, Iceland and Labrador to Montreal on the first leg of a goodwill tour of Canada and the US.
; First Jet Aircraft to make a non-stop Transatlantic Flight: February 21 1951. An RAF Canberra B Mk 2 (serial number ''WD932'') flown by Sqd Ldr A Callard, became the first jet aircraft to make a non-stop transatlantic flight when it flew from Aldergrove, Northern Ireland to Gander, Newfoundland. The flight covered almost 1,800 miles in 4h 37 m. The aircraft was being flown to the U.S. to act as a pattern aircraft for the Martin B-57.
; First non-stop Transatlantic Scheduled Commercial Flights: 1959 - El Al

Other early transatlantic flights

Apart from most notable flights described above, many persons attempted to fly across Atlantic, which was quite dangerous in early years of aviation. These include:

★ January 22 - January 26 1926 Plus Ultra was a Dornier Do J hydroplane which completed a Trans-Atlantic flight with a crew of Spanish aviators, that included Ramón Franco and Julio Ruiz de Alda Miqueleiz, Juan Manuel Duran and Pablo Rada.

★ June 4 - June 5 1927. Clarence Duncan Chamberlin and Charles Albert Levine in Bellanca monoplane make 'first nonstop New York-Germany flight', 3,911 statute miles (6,294 km), in 43 hours, 49 minutes, 33 seconds.

★ June 29 - July 1 1927 - Richard Evelyn Byrd with crew flies Fokker F.VIIa/3m "America" from New York City to France.

★ July 13 1928 - Ludwik Idzikowski and Kazimierz Kubala attempted at crossing the Atlantic westbound from Paris to the USA in Amiot 123 biplane, but crashed on Azores.

★ January 16 1933 - Jean Mermoz and crew make a non-stop flight from Senegal to Brazil, across South Atlantic, in 17 hours 27 minutes.

★ February 6 - February 9 1933. Jim Mollison flies a de Havilland Puss Moth from Senegal to Brazil, across South Atlantic, becoming the first person to fly solo across the North and South Atlantics.

★ July 15 - July 17 1933 - Lithuanians Steponas Darius and Stasys Girėnas were supposed to make a non-stop flight from New York City ''via'' Newfoundland to Kaunas on their plane named ''Lituanica'', but crashed in the forests of Germany after 6411 km of flying, only 650 km short of their final destination. Flying time 37 hours, 11 minutes. They carried the first transatlantic airmail consignment.

★ June 29 - June 30 1934 - Polish-Americans Benjamin and Joseph Adamowicz, amateur pilots, flew across the Atlantic from Newfoundland to France.

★ July 5 1937 Captain Harold Gray of Pan American Airways flew from Botwood, Newfoundland to Foynes, Ireland in a Sikorsky 42 flying boat as part of the first transatlantic commercial passenger test flights. Captain Arthur Sydney Wilcockson of Imperial Airways flew from Foynes to Botwood July 6 1937 in a Short Empire class flying boat named ''Caledonia''.