Opportunities in Aviation

by Arthur Sweetser; Gordon Lamont

The start of the American fliers was made after a series of tests of the seaplanes which covered a period of almost two months. At the outset it was decided to fly three out of the four NC planes, on the theory that one of the machines would probably prove to be weaker or less easy to handle than the others. The NC-2 proved to be the unfortunate sister in this case, and because of some defects in the arrangement of her engine-bearing struts she was dismantled and left behind.

With the decision to start three planes simultaneously, the navy made it clear that, although it hoped all three seaplanes might complete the trip, allowance was made for one or two machines to give up the flight if they found themselves in trouble.

The NC-1, and NC-3, and the NC-4 all proved to be up to expectations, and, with increased engine power, showed that they could take-off the water with a load of twenty-eight thousand five hundred pounds. After the necessary tests had been made on Jamaica Bay, Commander Towers said on May 4th that the start would be made a little after daybreak, May 6th. There remained only the task of filling their hulls with one thousand eight hundred gallons of gasolene.

Early in the morning of May 5th, while mechanics were pumping gasolene into the tanks of the NC-1, a spark from an electric pump fell into a pool of gasolene and set fire to her whole right side. In a moment the heavily "doped" linen wings, with seasoned spruce spars, were a mass of hot flame. 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.

She was ready the next morning, with fresh wings from the discarded NC-2, but the flight was postponed on account of a heavy northeast wind, reported all the way to Halifax. 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. Some alarm was felt during the night by the failure of destroyers to find her. She appeared the next morning off the Chatham breakwater, "taxi-ing" under her own power.

While her sister ships, the NC-1 and the NC-3, were flying to Trepassey the NC-4 waited at Chatham. 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. Her average for the 320 miles was 85 nautical miles an hour, about 20 miles an hour faster time than either of the other two machines had made.

Four days later she left Halifax for Trepassey in a last-minute effort to catch her sister planes. It seemed certain that she could not get there in time and would be forced to follow on the course a day later. Just as she flew into Trepassey Bay, on May 14th, the NC-1 and NC-3 were preparing to take-off. They postponed their start until the next day. In the mean while repairs were rushed and adjustments made, and she was ready to start the next afternoon, when all three planes started a little after six o'clock.

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 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. She landed in Horta after fifteen hours and eighteen minutes of flying, in which she averaged 78.4 nautical miles an hour for the flight.

The machine was nearly five hours ahead of the schedule laid down by the Navy Department.