The White Bird - Operational History - Transatlantic Flight

Transatlantic Flight

Nungesser and Coli took off at 5:17 a.m., 8 May 1927 from Le Bourget Field in Paris, heading for New York. Their PL.8-01 weighed 5,000 kg (11,000 lb) on takeoff, extremely heavy for a single-engined aircraft, barely clearing a line of trees at the end of the field. Gathering an escort of French fighter aircraft, Nungesser and Coli turned back, and at low altitude, immediately jettisoned the main undercarriage.

The intended flight path was a great circle route, which would have taken them across the English Channel, over the southwestern part of England and Ireland, across the Atlantic to Newfoundland, then south over Nova Scotia, to Boston, and finally to a water landing in New York.

Once in the air, the biplane was escorted to the French coast by four military aircraft led by French Air Force Captain Venson, and sighted from the coastal town of Étretat. A sighting was made by the commanding officer of the British submarine H.50, who recorded the note in his log, that he observed a biplane at 300 m altitude, 20 nautical miles southwest of the tip of Needles on the Isle of Wight. In Ireland, an aircraft overhead was reported by a resident of the town of Dungarvan and a Catholic priest reported a sighting over the village of Carrigaholt, then no further verified reports were made.

Crowds of people gathered in New York to witness the historic arrival, with tens of thousands of people crowding Battery Park in Manhattan to have a good view of the Statue of Liberty, where the aircraft was scheduled to touch down. Rumors circulated that L'Oiseau Blanc had been sighted along its route, in Newfoundland, or over Long Island. In France, some newspapers even reported that Nungesser and Coli had arrived safely in New York, evoking a wave of French patriotism. L'Oiseau Blanc had been carrying a sizable load of fuel, 4,000 litres (1,056.7 US gal), which would have given them approximately 42 hours of flight time. After this time had passed, with no word as to the aircraft's fate, it was realized that the aircraft had been lost. In France, the public was scandalized by the newspapers such as La Presse which had printed false reports about the aircraft's arrival, and outrage was generated against the companies involved, with demonstrations in the streets.

In the immediate aftermath of their disappearance, an international search was launched to find Nungesser and Coli. Aviation Digest sponsored well-known pilot, Floyd Bennett to search the area between New York and Newfoundland for nine days. The Canadian government search and rescue organizations also sent out two search aircraft (one of which crashed). Searchers including the French Navy, the U.S. Navy, and the Royal Canadian Navy that scoured the route, including Labrador, the northeast coast of the U.S. and the area around the St. Lawrence River. Subsequently, with no sign of the aircraft, further search efforts were abandoned.

Twelve days after Nungesser and Coli's departure, Charles Lindbergh, flying solo in the Spirit of Saint Louis, took off from New York on his own famous journey. After a flight of 33 hours, 30 minutes, he received a hero's welcome when he arrived in Paris, even as the French mourned the loss of Nungesser and Coli.

Read more about this topic:  The White Bird, Operational History

Famous quotes containing the word flight:

    When we are high and airy hundreds say
    That if we hold that flight they’ll leave the place,
    While those same hundreds mock another day
    Because we have made our art of common things ...
    William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)