Part 14 (2/2)

”Maybe you don't realize what wonderful navigating this was. But anybody who has navigated a plane by dead reckoning knows that it was a feat that called for great skill.

”n.o.body was prouder of what Byrd and Bennett had done than the men who had worked so hard to make the trip a success, and who had stayed behind at Spitzbergen, without glory or reward except in knowing that they had been a necessary feature in the success of that journey. The whistle of the Chantier blew a shrill whistle of welcome. The men ran to greet Byrd and Bennett, and carried them in triumph on their shoulders. Among the first to greet them were Amundsen and Ellsworth, whom Byrd had beaten in the race to be the first to cross the Pole by air. But they shook hands with vigor. They were glad that it was Byrd who had beaten them, if it had to be anybody. Byrd affects people that way. He's just as well liked after successes as before them. That's the sort he is.

”They were pretty glad to see him when he got back to the United States, too. There were plenty of whistles blowing, plenty of ticker tape, and parades for the returning hero. But d.i.c.k Byrd stayed modest through all of it. In the first place, he never gets fussed. He isn't a southern gentleman for nothing. And in the second place, he realized that the shouting wasn't so much for him as it was for the thing that he did. He had brought the United States the honor of sending the first men over the Pole. And the United States was applauding the deed, not himself.

But he seems to have forgotten that if it hadn't been for his years of planning, striving and struggling the deed never would have been accomplished.

”Well, d.i.c.k Byrd had accomplished his life's ambition. But it didn't mean that he was ready to quit. There were new fields to conquer. How about flying the Atlantic? He'd always wanted to fly the Atlantic.

Anything that was all adventure appealed to him. So when they hoisted anchor at Spitzbergen after the flight across the Pole Byrd said to his companion Bennett, 'Now we can fly the Atlantic.'

”The plan to fly the ocean had its origin in the same motives that the North Pole flight had. Byrd wanted to make America aviation conscious; and he wanted to make American aviators conscious of the benefits of careful planning. Dozens of lives had been lost in unsuccessful trans-oceanic flights-the lives of young men full of the love of adventure, who made hasty plans, or no plans at all for spanning the ocean-who had no qualifications except a great ambition to see them through the great grind that was before them. Byrd wanted to show all fool-hardy young flyers that care, care, and more care was needed in their preparations. He had to prove to the United States, too, that if care were exercised in these flights, they were not necessarily dangerous. All this Byrd had to prove. And in the meantime he'd have the time of his life, steeped in the adventurous sort of work that he craved.

”So Byrd and Bennett started their plans. The first step, of course, was the choosing of the plane. Opinion was in favor of a single-motored plane for a cross-Atlantic flight, since a single-motored plane would have a greater cruising range; offer less resistance in the air; and be less complicated to handle than a multi-motored craft. But Byrd held out for the tri-motor, the same type of plane as the Josephine Ford, which had carried him over the Pole. There was this to say for it: if one motor stopped, the other two would still function; and it might be the solution to the problem of what kind of plane would cross the Atlantic in the future, when planes ran on regular schedule. They wanted a bigger plane than the Josephine Ford, though. So they had one designed with a wing spread of 71 feet, which meant that they got an increased lifting power of about 3,000 pounds. That enabled them to take along about 800 pounds of equipment above what they actually needed, to show that a pay load could be carted across the water in a plane.

”They needed plenty of equipment, though. There was a special radio set, rockets to shoot off as signals if anything went wrong; two rubber boats for the crew; and emergency food and equipment of all sorts for forced landings; and even a special apparatus for making drinking water out of salt water so that they would not go thirsty. In fact, they could have survived for three weeks in case of an accident. They? Why, Byrd decided that besides himself and Bennett, they would take along pa.s.sengers, also to prove something-this time that pa.s.sengers could be carried across to Europe by plane.

”They successfully pet.i.tioned the Weather Bureau to make predictions for the trans-Atlantic flights, and for the first time in history regular weather maps for aviation were made of the North Atlantic.

”At the end of April, in 1927, the plane was ready for its factory test.

Byrd planned to make his flight in May, which he figured was a good month. It happened that there were at the time several other planes preparing to cross the ocean. Byrd was in no race, however. Of course, it would have been nice to be the first man across the Atlantic, as he had been the first man over the Pole-but he encouraged the others who were preparing and made no effort to be the first to start. However, his plane was ready before the others.

”Byrd, Bennett, Noville, who was going with them, and Fokker took her up for her first flight. Fokker was at the controls; the other three, pa.s.sengers. Everything went smoothly. She took off well; her motors functioned perfectly. But as soon as the motors were turned off for the glide, they felt her nose dip. She was nose-heavy. When they tried to land, they knew definitely that she was nose-heavy, and zoomed into the air again to plan what they should do. However, they couldn't stay up indefinitely-they hadn't much fuel. Down they glided again. The wheels touched the ground. Fokker jumped. But the other three were caught.

”Byrd felt the fuselage heave up. The plane went over on her nose, turned completely over. Something struck him with an awful impact, and he felt his arm snap. They had to get out of this! They were trapped in a ma.s.s of wreckage which might at any moment burst into flames and burn them to death before they had a chance to escape. Noville, beside Byrd, broke a hole in the fabric with his fist, and they crawled out. The wreckage did not burn. Someone had turned off the switches of all three motors.

”Bennett? He was hanging head down in the pilot's seat, unable to free himself. His leg was broken; his face bleeding. He was badly injured-so badly that for a week it was thought that he would never recover. But he did-of course. His iron nerve and grit pulled him through. But any thought of his going on the trip was out. This was a blow to Byrd. There was no man he would rather fly with than Bennett, Floyd Bennett, the cheerful companion, the willing worker, himself an expert pilot, and able to divine instructions before they were even given. Tough luck!

”But tough luck, too, was the fact that the plane was almost irreparably damaged. Byrd set his arm on the way to the hospital, had them put it in a sling so that it would be out of the way, and went back to the factory to supervise the repairing of the America. It took over a month of work night and day to repair the damage that had been done, and re-design the nose so that the craft would be balanced.

”May 21st was set for the christening of the plane. The christening-was changed into a celebration of the successful flight of Lindbergh.

Bennett was pleased with Lindy's achievement, since Lindy had proved the very things that Byrd himself had set out to prove-that with careful preparation, the ocean could be spanned; and that a successful ocean flight would stir the imaginations of the people, making them more conscious of aviation and its strivings. Then, too, Lindbergh cemented relations.h.i.+ps between France and the United States, which was one of Byrd's purposes in flying to France instead of to England, or any other country.

”Well, after the ocean had been crossed, there was no need for hurry.

Not that Byrd had been in a rush; but there was a great deal of criticism concerning the delay of his trip. n.o.body knows how these things start, or why. It seems that it should have been Byrd's, and Byrd's business alone, as to when he chose to cross the ocean. After all, it was his life being risked, and his glory if the flight were successful. But a great many people in the United States felt that there must be some ulterior motive in his not starting immediately; and that he had been bested by a mere boy when he let Lindbergh be the first man to conquer the ocean.

”But Byrd didn't care. He knew what he was about. He was a southern gentleman, and he said nothing to his defamers. And he went on completing his preparations. Chamberlin, with his pa.s.senger Levine, broke the world's record for flying to Germany, in a remarkable flight.

Byrd hailed their success.

”Then at last, on June 29th, early in the morning the weather man reported that weather conditions, while not ideal, were favorable. d.i.c.k Byrd decided to delay no longer. He called together his crew, and met them on the field at 3:00 o'clock in the morning. It was a miserable morning, and a light rain was falling. By the light of torches the crew was putting the finis.h.i.+ng touches on the huge' America. There she was, atop the hill that they had built for her, so that she would get a good fast start. And a good fast start she needed, all 15,000 pounds of her.

Think of the speed they had to get up in order to lift that bulk from the ground! They'd have to be going a mile and a half a minute!

”Bert Acosta was at the wheel; Noville, recovered from his serious injuries in the trial crash, sat with his hand on the dump valve, by means of which he could dump a load of gasoline if they didn't rise into the air; Bert Balchen, the young Norwegian relief pilot and mechanic, was busy with the spare fuel.

”The engines were warmed up. The great s.h.i.+p was ready-no, not quite ready. But she was eager to be off. The America broke the rope that held her, and glided down the hill on which she had been held. It was a tense moment. Would they be able to get this great hulk into the air? Along the ground she sped, gathering momentum. Her wheels lifted. There was a shout. She had cleared the ground. But the danger was not over. They must fly to at least 400 feet. Then the America showed her metal. She climbed on a turn, and they were flying at an alt.i.tude of 400 feet. They were off!

”On they sped to their destination at last. The wind was behind them, helping them; the weather was disagreeable, and slightly foggy, but this did not bother them. They reached Nova Scotia easily. But when they got there they got a horrible shock. They had run into a fog. But what a fog! One so thick that they couldn't see the land or ocean under them.

And they flew for 2,000 miles like this, absolutely blind, with black towering clouds ahead of them, below them, and when they ran through them, all around them.

”The strain was terrible. In addition, Byrd calculated that they had used more fuel than he had expected, because of climbing so high to get over the clouds, and they might not have enough to take them to Europe.

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