Flying the Atlantic. It`s a common misconception that in May 1927, Charles Lindbergh, in his plane, `The Spirit of St Louis` was the first person to fly non-stop across the Atlantic Ocean – he wasn`t. That honour belongs to British pioneer pilots, John Allcock and Arthur Whitten Brown. Allcock was born in 1892 at Old Trafford, Manchester and Brown in Glasgow, Scotland (to American parents) in 1886. At the outbreak of the First World War, both men joined the British Flying Corps (later to become the RAF,) and both were shot down, Allcock flying over Turkey and Brown over Germany, remaining prisoners-of-war until the conflict ended. In April 1913 the British newspaper, The Daily Mail, had offered a £10,000 prize (worth £495,000 or $770,000 today) to the first person/s to fly the Atlantic Ocean from any point in USA, Canada to any point in Great Britain or Ireland in one continuous flight under 72 hours. During his imprisonment, Allcock became obsessed with becoming the first man to fly the Atlantic and claim the prize, and, upon the cessation of the war, he found a job at Vickers, Britain’s biggest aircraft manufacturer. Vickers agreed to Allcock`s request to develop an aircraft capable of flying the Atlantic and modified their Vickers `Vimy` MK IV aircraft, adding the newly developed Rolls-Royce `Eagle VIII` engines. Also working at Vickers was Brown whose skill at long-distance navigation was well known. Brown was asked if he would navigate, to which he readily agreed. Both men their support crew and aircraft sailed to Canada. At 1.43 pm on 14 June 1919, from Lester`s Field, St John`s, Newfoundland, the two men took off. Flying at an altitude that varied from just above sea level to 10,000 feet the `Vimy` carried 865 gallons (3,900 litres) of fuel. For part of the journey, the air-speed indicator iced up and Brown had to estimate the speed of the aircraft to plot their course. That they did not run out of fuel or miss landfall is a testament to Brown`s skill at navigation. The flight lasted 16 hours and 27 minutes during which they encountered heavy fog, freezing wind, snow, severe turbulence and ice. Four times Brown had to leave the safety of the cockpit to walk along the wings to clear ice that was building up in the engine intakes. At 8.40 am having flown 1890 miles, (3040 kilometres,) they touched down near the town of Clifden in County Galway, Ireland. The plane touched down, taxied for a few hundred feet and then flipped up. What Allcock had thought was a green field was in fact Derrygrimla Bog. Though the nose of the plane was crushed and broken, both men were unhurt. The news of their arrival quickly spread and they became national heroes. Vickers was naturally ecstatic at the safe arrival of men and plane, their plane. Both men were knighted by King George the Fifth. The £10,000 prize was awarded to them by the Secretary of State for Air, none other than Winston Churchill, but both Allcock and Brown insisted that £2,000 of prize be given to Vickers and Rolls-Royce to be equally distributed amongst all those people who had worked on the aircraft, engines and the flight. Just five months later, on December 18th 1919, Allcock was killed when the plane he was flying crashed near Rouen, France. He was pulled from the wreckage alive but suffering from a fractured skull. He succumbed to his injuries several days later having never regained consciousness and was buried in Manchester. Brown died suddenly in his sleep on 4 October 1948 following an accidental overdose of Veronal, a sleeping drug, aged 62. The Vickers `Vimy` of Allcock and Brown can be seen in the Science Museum, London.
Posted on: Thu, 18 Dec 2014 08:50:44 +0000
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