Alcock and Brown

[Vasco dePilot]

Avoiding the myths means learning the facts.

This article just advances many of the myths. It’s important to learn the facts. The two factual records of the flight were written by Alcock (a brief report published in September 1919) and by Brown (in a co-written report published in February 1920). From these two pieces of verifiable history, many writers have embellished and created their own interpretation of the crossing. I strongly encourage you to read “Yesterday we were in America” by Brendan Lynch which is carefully based on the two reports referred earlier and also fully referenced for other details.
They were brilliant aviators ( particularly Alcock who held the control wheel for 16 hours and 28 minutes in and this without a trimming system, autopilot or artificial horizon).
Most important, Brown did not climb out on the wings and clear ice from the engine intakes. This myth originated with Graham Wallace’s book published in 1955.
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Originally Posted by echobeach

This is utterly brilliant. I was very disappointed not to be able to read the rest of that article in fly past. It’s topical
given the efforts of the impressive single engine flights to cross the Atlantic on the private forum. This flight with the kit they had to hand then is somewhat humbling. A sextant !!

I hope I will be forgive for posting this paragraph from my google search. The ‘right stuff’ comes to mind.

At 5.00pm they had to fly through thick fog.[14] This was serious because it prevented Brown from being able to navigate using his sextant.[14]
[15] Blind flying in fog or cloud should only be undertaken with gyroscopic instruments, which they did not have, and Alcock twice lost control of the aircraft and nearly hit the sea after a spiral dive.[14]
[15] Alcock also had to deal with a broken trim control that made the plane become very nose-heavy as fuel was consumed.[15]

At 12:15am Brown got a glimpse of the stars and could use his sextant, and found that they were on course.[14]
[15] Their electric heating suits had failed, making them very cold in the open cockpit.[14]

Then at 3:00am they flew into a large snowstorm.[14] They were drenched by rain, their instruments iced up, and the plane was in danger of icing and becoming unflyable.[14] The carburettors also iced up; it has been said that Brown had to climb out onto the wings to clear the engines, although he made no mention of that.[14]
[15]