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The machines made their start from Rockaway on the morning of May 8th, at ten o'clock, and two of them, the NC-1, with Lieutenant-Commander Bellinger, and the NC-3, with Commander Towers, arrived at Halifax after nine hours' flying. The NC-4 proved to be the "lame duck" on the first leg of the flight, and came down at sea a hundred miles off Chatham, because of overheated bearings.
Even after the repairs were made, it seemed impossible for the NC-4 to catch up with the other two machines, and she was held stormbound for five days. On May 14th she finally got away from Chatham, and, with her new engines, made the fastest time over the short course to Halifax recorded since the beginning of the flight.
As such, though credit for the first flight of the Atlantic belongs to the American NC-4, it eclipses for daring the flight of the American navy. The Vickers-Vimy plane left St. John's, Newfoundland, on June 14th, at 4.29 P.M., Greenwich mean time, and landed at Clifden, Ireland, on June 15th, at 8.40 A.M., Greenwich mean time.
The instance of Major Woods, starting on his flight across the Atlantic, and forced to come down to the Irish Sea is one example. The NC-4, American naval seaplane, had a forced landing at sea, a hundred miles from Chatham, Massachusetts, on the first leg of the Atlantic flight from this side. Its engines had been carefully cleaned and tested, and yet they failed.
From the beginning of the flight from Trepassey the NC-4, thought to be the "lame duck" of the squadron, ran away from the other two machines. She lost contact with them very quickly and plowed through the night alone, laying her course by the line of destroyers lying beneath her. She was about half an hour ahead of the NC-1 at daybreak the next day and within an easy run of Horta, Fayal.
The Atlantic has been crossed by Alcock and Brown in a Vimy-Vickers biplane, and also by our NC-4 flying-boat under the command of Lieutenant Read, and by the big English dirigible R-34; but the Pacific, with its greater breadth, has seemed so impossible that it has never been attempted." "Why should it seem impossible?" "Because they can't carry sufficient gasoline to cross the Pacific."
The half-hour lead gave the NC-4 a chance to get through a fog which was coming up over the Azores ahead of the other machines. She held a little above it until she thought she was in the right position. Then she came down through the mist. As it happened, she landed in the wrong harbor, but picked herself up and found Horta a few minutes later.
Because the little tramp steamer had no wireless, the world was kept waiting a week, before word was signaled to land that Hawker and Grieve were safe. With the Sopwith team out of the race, it became evident that Commander Read and the NC-4 would actually win the honors for the first flight.
The Sopwith Aviation Company designed their machine for such a flight, but sent it out to Newfoundland to catch and take advantage of the prevailing west winds across the North Atlantic. The story of the six weeks' wait for favorable weather, and the desperate take-off to beat the American plane, the NC-4, at the Azores, make it appear doubtful whether such winds are to be relied upon.
The sailors at work on the machine, with complete disregard of their personal safety, ran for fire-extinguishers, and with the fire burning around the mouth of the open tanks, confined it to the right wings of the machine and to the elevators of the NC-4 standing close by. No one believed that the NC-1 could be made ready in time for the flight twenty-four hours away.
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