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Aviation History
1952
1952 - 2312.PDF
2 FLIGHT 29 AUGUST 1952 First to fly the North Atlantic The story of the conquest of the richest air route in the world — the North Atlantic — begins in 1919 when two British airmen, Sir John Alcock and Sir Arthur Whitten-Brown, made the first non-stop crossing in an aeroplane. They proved beyond a doubt that it could be done, that the tempestuous ocean could be flown, but the prospects of ever conquering its stormy, uncertain weather the year around were not encouraging. Nothing daunted, Imperial Airways, a predecessor of B.O.A.C., made east to west test flights across the Atlantic in July, 1937, with the flying boat Caledonia. The taming of the North Atlantic had begun in earnest. The following year another project was tried successfully. This was the British Mayo Composite, the upper component of which made a record flight from Foynes to New York via Montreal, and was the first aircraft to make the crossing with a load of freight. In August, 1939, less than a month before war broke out, Imperial Airways began a transatlantic air mail service from Southampton to Canada and the United States with two flying boats. They flew 50,000 miles without incident. The amalgamation of Imperial Airways and British Airways into a single public corporation — the British Overseas Airways Corporation — did not take place until after the B.O.A.C. TAKES GOOD CARE OF YOU
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