TRANSATLANTIC AEROPLANE FLIGHTS
The development of the heavier-than-air machine is so recent and is still advancing so rapidly that we dare not give more than a brief outline of its progress here. The more important advances are familiar to most of us and a record of achievements to-day will be hopelessly out of date to-morrow. The war gave a tremendous impetus to flying. Pilots were trained by the thousand. Machines grew in speed up to 150 miles per hour. Huge bombing machines were built, with a wing spread of over 125 feet, and weighing ten to fifteen tons. These were capable of carrying a load of four to five tons. The first flight across the Atlantic was made in June, 1919, by the United States navy flying boat NC-4, which flew to Newfoundland, then to the Azores, and from there to Lisbon, Portugal. The trip was finally completed by a flight to Plymouth, England.
The first nonstop flight was made in the same month by a Vickers Vimy bomber which, with a favoring wind of thirty miles per hour, made the trip in less than eighteen hours at a rate of 120 miles per hour. To-day all-metal aeroplanes are being flown successfully. Plans are under way to build aeroplanes for service at extremely high altitudes, where greater speeds are possible owing to the tenuity of the air and the consequent lowering of head resistance. These machines are to have inclosed bodies in which air at normal pressure will be maintained by means of blowers. The blowers would also furnish the engines with air necessary for proper combustion of the fuel.
We are not going to give a history of the progress of aviation since the invention of the Wright biplane, but instead we shall look briefly and in a very elementary way into the principles underlying the flight of heavier-than-air machines.