First Atlantic flight - a question.

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iainpeden
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First Atlantic flight - a question.

Post by iainpeden »

While at the Udvar-Hazy centre (center?) recently I was chatting to some of their volunteers; one is coming over to the UK at the end of November and I said I’d show him around Duxford – so we’re meeting up.

I got the e-mail below from him today about Alcock and Brown’s first flight across the Atlantic and the story about Brown doing a “wing walk”.

Does anybody have any further information I can send back across the pond?
Thanks



Here’s some irony for you: a few of my NASM Docent colleagues have raised a question about a story that Brown had to do a wing walk on the Vickers Vimy, who, with Alcott, were the first to cross the Atlantic non-stop. It came down to one of us going to the London Science Museum to get the ground truth (bad pun), and since I already will be in the neighborhood, so to speak, I am elected. So, now instead of heading to Oxford as we planned, we’re going to South Kensington after we leave Cambridge. My wife is in favor since she wants to visit the Victoria and Albert Museum as well as the London Science Museum. South Kensington, here we come.

Below are the cross-assertions that I am now charged to investigate. Any insight into this lore?

Thanks,

Joe

Extract from Captain John Alcock and Lieutenant Arthur Whitten Brown (aviation-history.com)

“As far as Brown was concerned, the only possible way of avoiding a crash was to make a trip out onto the wings. He grabbed a knife and swung his legs out onto the nose. Seeing what he had in mind, Alcock stood up from his seat and tried to hold his companion back. Brown jerked himself free, and, in the blinding snow, he wriggled forward from strut to strut and from cable to cable, holding on with one hand. His left leg caused him difficulty, because it was still stiff from wounds he had received in the war.

“The limping lieutenant gradually removed the ice from the inlet connections and cautiously cleaned the inspection window of the fuel intake. The slip-stream tugged at him, and frost nibbled at the flesh on his hands. Brown cleared the air filters of snow--then he had to go back again, back and over the nose to the other wing and the other engine.”

From a NASM Docent:

“In Robert Harder’s new book, “First Crossing” ha debunks this assertion – ascribed to Alcock’s brother and repeated in a 1955 book by Graham Wallace—and notes it would have been impossible for Brown to accomplish this wing walking with his WW1 injuries and states there is no such gauge on or near the Rolls Royce engines and what Brown did was chip ice off the “Fuel Overflow Gauge” located on a strut three feet above their heads, difficult enough of course and painful for him with his left leg condition
(Mark Twain: There are lies, there are damn lies and then there are statistics)

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Archer
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Re: First Atlantic flight - a question.

Post by Archer »

Image
This is from their own book 'Flying the Atlantic in Sixteen Hours', published in 1920.

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iainpeden
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Re: First Atlantic flight - a question.

Post by iainpeden »

Thanks Archer - Joe also sends his thanks and asks if you have access to the next page.

(Could be a handy contact if you ever visit Udvar-Hazy!)
(Mark Twain: There are lies, there are damn lies and then there are statistics)

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Archer
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Re: First Atlantic flight - a question.

Post by Archer »

Here you go:
Image

Feel free to contact me via e-mail if you'd like to see more... that might be easier. Try jelle <at> vc10 <dot> net.

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