Post by walterleo on Apr 30, 2018 12:04:32 GMT
www.lausch.com/Vickers_Vimy.jpg
On June 14th it will be 99 years that Alcock and Brown crossed the North Atlantic in an airplane non-stop. Two weeks before the Curtiss NC-4 flying boat under Commander Albert Cushing Read covered the crossing in 23 days going via the Azores. After that the British Airship R 34 commanded by George Martin Scott did a double crossing going west and east. But the honor of the first nonstop transatlantic crossing is with Alcock and Brown. Thanks to their courage and a huge amount of luck they survived the adventure in which nearly nothing worked as planned before.
Various pilots after that tried the crossing and failed due to the extreme challenging conditions on the North Atlantic. Lindberg succeeded with his flight east bound to Paris and Köhl, v. Hühnefeld and Fitzmaurice in a Junkers W33 flew westward from Ireland to Newfoundland the first time ever. Captain Köhl was fired by his airline the LUFTHANSA 1935 by political reasons beeing a convinced Catholic not likeing the new "Third Reich"
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermann_K%C3%B6hl
1936 Beryl Markham flew the east to west Atlantic crossing nonstop from England to Nova Scotia. Her book "West with the Night" is an extraordinary book in itself, Hemingway called it "a bloody wonderful book".
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_with_the_Night
Regular commercial crossings with passengers and freight started 1928 between Friedrichshafen to Lakehurst by the airship LZ 127 GRAF ZEPPELIN. A South Atlantic Service to Rio de Janeiro was added 1931.
After the LZ 129 HINDENBURG disaster at Lakehurst 1937 various commercial services were done only by flying boats, some of that flights using inflight refueling.
During the Second World War more than 9000 warplanes were flown over the North Atlantic by the British Atlantic Ferry Command. Their experiences and the technological advance of airplanes opened the way for regular commercial services with airplanes.
northatlanticaviationmuseum.com/atlantic-ferry-command/
The introduction of jet transport airplanes brought jet-service over the North Atlantic as a Tu-104A flew from Moscow to New York via London, Keflavik and Goose Bay on September 4th 1957.
That service existed several years and was designed for the needs of the Sovjet diplomats at the UN in New York.
1978 the COMET IV opened a direct nonstop service London New York. Since than more than 2000 jets cross the Atlantic every day.
But even 1990 a tragedy happened on a ferry flight between Keflavik and Gander. The two ATPL rated flight crews including the chief pilot, mechanics and their families disappeared after ditching their FAUCETT B 727-247. What really happened is still not fully understood, as they decided to ditch after 4 hours of flight, having presumably 6 hours of fuel when they took off from Keflavik. What is clear that they wandered off their planed track hundreds of miles. As they did not have a short wave radio, the Canadian ATC could not give them vectors as the Boeing´s VHF radios were still out of reach. If they had a long range navigation system onboard is not known, but strange it would be if they had tried the direct overwater crossing without one.
The airliner was still in the colours of AirMalta returning after a wet lease during summer 1990.
A relative of one of the pilots of that fatal flight relates interesting details:
www.gacetaleonciopradina.com/?p=1203
The Russian planners took a more cautious approach:
The Tu-104A has a no wind range of 3200 km (no reserves) with 7tons of (reduced) payload. Keflavik-Goose Bay is 2566 km Keflavik-Gander 2675 km.
Two weather ships were installed one halfway between Keflavik and Nassarsuaq the other one halfway between Nassarsuaq and Gander or Goose Bay and were providing not only the latest high altitude weather but also had powerful radio navigation beacons onboard.
The Tu-104A had HF radios and a well-trained radio operator. The Navigator (also well trained) could use an automatic astrocompass (DAK_DB), an automatic ground position indicator NI-50, weather radar with ground mapping and drift calculation. The compass system allowed easy great circle navigation. Last but not least they had also a LORAN. In reality the Tu-s were better off than the COMET IV´s navigational wise at that time but its shorter range needed careful planning and execution of every flight especially going west against the prevailing winds aloft.
In the next post I will show my FS9 enaction of a Tu-104A going from Gander to Keflavik.
On June 14th it will be 99 years that Alcock and Brown crossed the North Atlantic in an airplane non-stop. Two weeks before the Curtiss NC-4 flying boat under Commander Albert Cushing Read covered the crossing in 23 days going via the Azores. After that the British Airship R 34 commanded by George Martin Scott did a double crossing going west and east. But the honor of the first nonstop transatlantic crossing is with Alcock and Brown. Thanks to their courage and a huge amount of luck they survived the adventure in which nearly nothing worked as planned before.
Various pilots after that tried the crossing and failed due to the extreme challenging conditions on the North Atlantic. Lindberg succeeded with his flight east bound to Paris and Köhl, v. Hühnefeld and Fitzmaurice in a Junkers W33 flew westward from Ireland to Newfoundland the first time ever. Captain Köhl was fired by his airline the LUFTHANSA 1935 by political reasons beeing a convinced Catholic not likeing the new "Third Reich"
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermann_K%C3%B6hl
1936 Beryl Markham flew the east to west Atlantic crossing nonstop from England to Nova Scotia. Her book "West with the Night" is an extraordinary book in itself, Hemingway called it "a bloody wonderful book".
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_with_the_Night
Regular commercial crossings with passengers and freight started 1928 between Friedrichshafen to Lakehurst by the airship LZ 127 GRAF ZEPPELIN. A South Atlantic Service to Rio de Janeiro was added 1931.
After the LZ 129 HINDENBURG disaster at Lakehurst 1937 various commercial services were done only by flying boats, some of that flights using inflight refueling.
During the Second World War more than 9000 warplanes were flown over the North Atlantic by the British Atlantic Ferry Command. Their experiences and the technological advance of airplanes opened the way for regular commercial services with airplanes.
northatlanticaviationmuseum.com/atlantic-ferry-command/
The introduction of jet transport airplanes brought jet-service over the North Atlantic as a Tu-104A flew from Moscow to New York via London, Keflavik and Goose Bay on September 4th 1957.
That service existed several years and was designed for the needs of the Sovjet diplomats at the UN in New York.
1978 the COMET IV opened a direct nonstop service London New York. Since than more than 2000 jets cross the Atlantic every day.
But even 1990 a tragedy happened on a ferry flight between Keflavik and Gander. The two ATPL rated flight crews including the chief pilot, mechanics and their families disappeared after ditching their FAUCETT B 727-247. What really happened is still not fully understood, as they decided to ditch after 4 hours of flight, having presumably 6 hours of fuel when they took off from Keflavik. What is clear that they wandered off their planed track hundreds of miles. As they did not have a short wave radio, the Canadian ATC could not give them vectors as the Boeing´s VHF radios were still out of reach. If they had a long range navigation system onboard is not known, but strange it would be if they had tried the direct overwater crossing without one.
The airliner was still in the colours of AirMalta returning after a wet lease during summer 1990.
A relative of one of the pilots of that fatal flight relates interesting details:
www.gacetaleonciopradina.com/?p=1203
The Russian planners took a more cautious approach:
The Tu-104A has a no wind range of 3200 km (no reserves) with 7tons of (reduced) payload. Keflavik-Goose Bay is 2566 km Keflavik-Gander 2675 km.
Two weather ships were installed one halfway between Keflavik and Nassarsuaq the other one halfway between Nassarsuaq and Gander or Goose Bay and were providing not only the latest high altitude weather but also had powerful radio navigation beacons onboard.
The Tu-104A had HF radios and a well-trained radio operator. The Navigator (also well trained) could use an automatic astrocompass (DAK_DB), an automatic ground position indicator NI-50, weather radar with ground mapping and drift calculation. The compass system allowed easy great circle navigation. Last but not least they had also a LORAN. In reality the Tu-s were better off than the COMET IV´s navigational wise at that time but its shorter range needed careful planning and execution of every flight especially going west against the prevailing winds aloft.
In the next post I will show my FS9 enaction of a Tu-104A going from Gander to Keflavik.