Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 27, 2025
Early in 1920 came a series of attempts at completing the journey by air between Cairo and the Cape. Out of four competitors Colonel Van Ryneveld came nearest to making the journey successfully, leaving England on a standard Vickers-Vimy bomber with Rolls-Royce engines, identical in design with the machine used by Captain Ross-Smith on the England to Australia 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.
When, three days ago, the English team, headed by Chester Hodge, dropped out of a Curtis plane into Mineola Field, it was just 23 days, 6 hours and 15 minutes after the same crew had left that field in their Vickers-Vimy. This beats the former record of 36 days and some odd hours, made in 1913 by John Henry Mears, by the substantial margin of approximately 12 days.
Keith Macpherson Smith, and two mechanics, left Hounslow in a Vickers-Vimy bomber with Rolls-Royce engine on November 12th and arrived at Port Darwin, North Australia, on the 10th December, having completed the flight in 27 days 20 hours 20 minutes, thus having 51 hours 40 minutes to spare out of the 720 allotted hours.
Perhaps a phantom ship, with sails set and flags blowing, the name Mayflower on her hull, rode in Plymouth Harbor that day to greet a New England pilot. On the 14th of June the Vickers-Vimy Rolls-Royce biplane, piloted by John Alcock and with Arthur Whitten Brown as observer-navigator, left St.
Its chief record, however, is that of being the type fitted to the Vickers-Vimy aeroplane which made the first Atlantic flight, covering the distance of 1,880 miles at a speed averaging 117 miles an hour.
As the days went by, the boys, like almost everybody in the country, watched the newspapers eagerly for reports of the progress of the contestants in the big Air Derby around the world. Only four of the eleven aircraft to start had succeeded in getting across the treacherous Atlantic, two of these being dirigible balloons, one a flying-boat, and the other a Vickers-Vimy biplane.
The machine was a Vickers-Vimy bomber, engined with two Rolls-Royce Eagle VIII's, piloted by Captain John Alcock, D.S.C., with Lieut. Arthur Whitten-Brown as navigator. The journey was reported to be very rough, so much so at times that Captain Alcock stated that they were flying upside down, and for the greater part of the time they were out of sight of the sea.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking