Curtiss NC-4

Crew of the NC-4 from left consists of Lt. E.F. Stone, USCG pilot; Chief Machinist's Mate (Air) E.S. Rhoades, USN Engineer; Lt. W.K. Hinton, USNRF Pilot; Ens. H.C. Rodd, USNRF Radio Operator; Lt. J.L. Breese, USNRF Reserve Engineer; LT. Comdr. A.C. Read, USN Commanding Officer and Navigator; and Captain Jackson of the base ship Melville. Once the accomplishment of powered flight became a reality, the urge was inevitable to improve upon the speeds, altitudes and distances of which aeroplanes were capable. From the earliest days, a crossing of the North Atlantic by air had been a cherished ambition, and only the outbreak of war in 1914 prevented competition during that year for the Daily Mail prize of 10,000 pounds offered in 1913 to the first aviators to accomplish a direct (i.e. nonstop) crossing. As recorded elsewhere in the series, the prize was ultimately won in June by John Alcock and Arthur Whitten Brown for their flight in a modified Vickers Vimy , but in the month preceding this, another Atlantic crossing, with stops en route, had been made by an American flying-boat, the NC-4. That this aircraft should have been of Curtiss manufacture was particularly appropriate, for Glenn Curtiss was a pioneer of seaplane design and his company's flying-boat America, was designed originally as a 1914 contestant in the transatlantic competition. On March 27th, the NC-1's right wing had sustained storm damage, and was given the wing from NC-2. The NC-2 whose engine layout had proved unsatisfactory was again cannibalized to supply parts for the NC-1, when its left wing was damaged by fire on May 5th, in a hangar at Rockaway, New York. The Journey Begins On Thursday morning, May 8th, NC-1, NC-3, and NC-4 took off from Rockaway for Halifax, Nova Scotia, on the first leg of the transatlantic journey. The flight was under the command of John Towers, who was also commanding officer and navigator of NC-3. NC-4 was commanded by Lieutenant Commander Albert C. Read, and NC-1 by Lieutenant Commander Patrick N. L. Bellinger. Offshore of Cape Cod, NC-4's center engine failed—she landed at sea and taxied to the Naval Air Station at Chatham, Massachusetts, for repairs. NC-3 and NC-1 arrived at Halifax without incident, but next morning serious cracks were discovered in their propellers, and a day was lost replacing them. The NC-2 in its original configuration. The third engine mounted as a pusher on the center nacelle. It was later modified with tandem engine pairs and found to be an unsatisfactory configuration. On the 10th, NC-1, and NC-3 continued their flight to Trepassey, Newfoundland, the jumping-off place for their spanning of the Atlantic. At Trepassey, a small fleet had gathered to support the transoceanic flight. When the NCs took off across the Atlantic, twenty-one destroyers would be on station at 50-mile intervals between Cape Race, Newfoundland, and Corvo, the westernmost island of the Azores. The destroyers were to serve as visual and radio navigation aids and communication links. They were also to provide weather intelligence, and if necessary, rescue service. The security of having twenty-one destroyers strung out between Newfoundland and the Azores may give the impression that the flight was a very simple affair. But in 1919, when aerial navigation across a great trackless sea was not yet an art, much less a science, when aircraft radio was primitive and unreliable, and when many flight instruments had yet to be invented, it was not easy to zero in on nine tiny islands scattered over several hundred square miles of ocean. If an eastbound pilot missed the Azores, his next landfall was Africa, hundreds of miles away. Repairs were completed on NC-4, but she was kept at her Chatham mooring by gale-force winds and rain. There was concern among NC-4's crew that, if Commander Towers received a favorable weather forecast, he would feel obliged to take advantage of it and "go" for the Azores without them. Newspapers were calling NC-