everal attempts to cross the ocean by air. On
March 19th it was reported from England that the unfortunate Sopwith
machine with its lucky team of Harry G. Hawker and Lieut.-Commander
Mackenzie Grieve had started from England for Newfoundland. At the
same time announcement was made that naval officers had been
conferring over their Atlantic flight plans, and that a start would be
attempted some time in May.

As a matter of fact, a great deal of work had been done in secret by
Commander John H. Towers, Lieut.-Commander Albert C. Read, and
Lieut.-Commander Patrick N.L. Bellinger. As early as February 24th a
conference was held in Washington and a date of May 15th or 16th for
the flight from Newfoundland was set. This date coincided with a full
moon over the North Atlantic, and the machines started May 16th from
Trepassey.

There were really only three routes open to pilots anxious to make the
first crossing of the Atlantic. There was the flight straight from
Newfoundland to Ireland, a matter of about one thousand nine hundred
miles of straight flying, with the possibility of favoring winds.
There was the Newfoundland-Azores route which the Americans took, and
the route from Dakar, French Senegal, to Pernambuco, Brazil, which
French fliers attempted. In addition there was the possibility of
flight from Ireland to Newfoundland, given up by Major Woods, pilot of
the Short biplane, after his forced landing in the Irish Sea.

The great question of a flight straight across the Atlantic was that
of fuel consumption. Could a machine be devised which would carry
enough fuel to fly across one thousand nine hundred miles of water?
The Sopwith Aviation Company designed their machine for such a flight,
but sent it out to Newfoundland to catch and take advantage of the
prevailing west winds across the North Atlantic. The story of the six
weeks' wait for favorable weather, and the desperate take-off to beat
the American plane, the NC-4, at the Azores, make it appear doubtful
whether such winds are to be relied upon.

The American planes took advantage of those winds in their flight to
the Azores, that much is certain. But they were well protected with
destroyers, were not pushing their planes to the limit, and did not
depend upon favoring winds. That the NC-1 and the NC-3 reached the
Azores, but did not make safe landings in the harbor after their long
flight, is one of the fortunes of flying which must not reflect upon
the American