Abstract
Mercury, the seaplane upper component of the Short-Mayo composite aircraft, arrived at the airport of Boucherville near Montreal on July 21 at 12.20 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time, having flown from Foyne, County Limerick, in a little more than twenty hours. The actual time from shore to shore, Foyne to Cape Baulewn, Newfoundland, was 13 hours 29 minutes. Considerable rain and head winds were experienced during the flight, the machine arriving at Montreal with only about eighty gallons of fuel left. After refuelling, she took off for New York, reaching there about two hours later. Captain Bennett, the pilot, and Mr. Coster, the wireless operator, stated that they had experienced no unexpected difficulties during the journey, and had used their automatic pilot quite successfully as necessary. The machine carried a cargo of newspapers, newsreels, and photographs, principally of the royal visit to Paris. The newspapers were on sale in New York on the day following their publication. The successful finishing of this flight represents the completion of one of the experiments upon the problem of launching aircraft with excessive loading, due to the necessity for carrying considerable fuel and oil for long-distance flights. Other methods such as catapulting, topping up with fuel while in the air, etc., are being developed, and have been mentioned in NATURE as they have occurred.
Article PDF
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Atlantic Flight with 'Pick-a-Back' Start. Nature 142, 201 (1938). https://doi.org/10.1038/142201c0
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/142201c0