Flying the Atlantic in Sixteen Hours

i

dified only by dim moonlight and the red radian

gh my log shows no record of our height at this stage. Meanwhil

o find a third layer of clouds, several thousand feet higher. This, however, was patc

n the heavens, and the Pole Star. With their help, and that of a cloud horizon that was clea

miles, at an average speed of 106 knots. We were slightly to the south of the correct course, w

he strength of the wind, and this had not occurred. Having found the stars and checked our position and direction, the urgent necessity to continue climbing no longer existed. Alcock had been nursing his e

HINE-A VICKERS-VIMY W

Vickers-Vimy, at its then height, was moving through a sea of fog, which prevented effective observati

i-darkness and tinging the cloud-tips with variations of silver, gold and soft red. Whenev

hine's starboard planes. I tried to sight on it for

on my alert consciousness as something extravagantly abnormal-the distorted ball of a moon, the weird half-light, the monstrous

ockpit. Twice during the night we drank and ate in snatches, Alcock keeping a hand on the joystick while

the radiator, and our thick clothing. Almost our only physical discomfort resulted from the impossibility of any but crampe

k, to stretch myself. For Alcock, who never removed his feet from the rudd

servers of night-bombing craft, their job completed, often suffered intensely on the homeward journey, from the effort of will necessary to fight th

been achieved. Our own object would not be achieved until we saw Ireland beneath us; and it could not be achieved unless we kept our ever

omplete the long journey, for Alcock had treated the engines very gently, never running them all out, but varying the power from half to three-quarter throttle. Our course

red and four thousand feet, we ran into a thick bank that projected above the lower layer of cloud. All around was dens

guidance, we lost our instinct of balance. The machine, left to it

Vimy. Unless there be outside guidance, the effect on the Augean canal in one's ears of the centrifugal force developed by a turn in a cloud causes a complete loss of dimensional e

pt up to ninety knots, while Alcock was trying to restore equilibrium. He pulled back the control lever; but apparently

heavier-than-air flight. The machine hung motionless for a second, after which it h

e was swinging as it dropped; but, still hemmed in as we were by the thi

olume, and instead of the usual 1650 to 1700 revolutions per minute, they were running at

t the machine was falling. How and at what angle it was falling, we knew not. Alcock tried to centralize the controls, but failed becaus

ousand, five hundred feet. I realized the possibility that we might hit the ocean at any moment, if the aneroid's exactitude had been a

surface of the ocean; in which case Alcock, having obtained no sig

ve been unavailing, however, for had we fallen into the sea, there would have been small hope of survival. We were on a steep slant,

red it. We were now less than a hundred feet from the ocean. The sea-surface did not appear below the machine, but

y the Vickers-Vimy maneuvers quickly, and it responded rapidly to Alcock's action in centralizing the control lever and rudder bar. He opened up t

appeared as if we could stretch downward and almost touch the great white-caps that crested the surface. With the

the spin left us facing America. As we did not want to return to St. John's, and earnestly wanted to reach Ireland, Alcock t