100 Years Ago: July 1924

[George Thomas Wilson]

100 Years Ago: July 1924

 

This is the 114^th entry in my series of short rehashes of century-old National Geographics.

 

 

This issue contains three articles, all about air flight in America.  The first article in this month’s issue is entitled “The Non-stop Flight Across America” and was written by Lieutenant John A Macready, U. S. Army Air Service, with photographs by Lieutenant A. W. Stevens.  [Note: Error – The cover claims “80 Illustrations” but the article only contains seventy-two.  If you include the eight illustrations from the second article, which has no illustrations documented, the total is eighty.]  Of those seventy-two illustrations in the article, sixty-eight are black-and-white photographs of which thirty-one are full-page in size.  The article also contains four sketch maps.  Three are weather maps of the U. S. in a set on page 4, while the last is a full-page map of the U. S. showing the plane’s routes and the route of the flight covered in the second article on page 6.  [Note: these maps were missed by Philip Riviere in his comprehensive scan of sketch maps.]

The crew left Long Island, New York, at 12:36 p. m., May 2, 1923, and arrived at Rockwell Field, California, at 11:26 the next morning – from one island in the Atlantic Ocean to an island in the Pacific – lunch in New York one day and lunch in San Diego the next day.  Most people probably thought that all one had to do to make the flight was to climb into the plane, start across, and trust to luck.  But transcontinental non-stop flights and endurance records were primarily made on the ground.  Success or failure depended largely on the work and preparation that was done before the plane took to the air.  First, a plane was chosen, and remodeled to fit the requirements.  The performance of the plane was determined for all conditions.  Wind and weather were studied, and the flight arranged accordingly.  The geography, topography, and elevations of the U. S. were ascertained, and a route adapted to pass over the most favorable territory.  The course was decided upon, laid out, and many maps made for use in flight.  Gasolines, oils, and maintenance accessories were tested and tried out, and the most satisfactory ones adopted for the project.  The problem of flying for fourteen hours in darkness required study and much thought, as it was entirely new.  Great application was necessary to keep one’s bearings throughout the long night.  After many tests and experiments the Army Air Service Transport T-2 was selected as the most logical airplane.  It was then necessary to ascertain if the plane could be remodeled to fit the required conditions, and after remodeling to find out what the plane could do, how much gasoline and oil the engine consumed, how much total load it could lift, how high it climbed with certain loads, how long it took to climb to various altitudes, and how fast it traveled.  All that required careful figuring.  There was a tremendous amount of engineering data and study that was necessary, and weeks were spent in work and consideration of all aspects of the problem.

A large portion of the public did not realize that there was a limit to the height that each plane went.  The limit depended on many factors, but the principal ones were the weight carried and the power of the engine.  Engines lost power as they ascended into rarefied air.  A 420-H. P. Liberty engine developed about 170-H. P. at 20,000 feet.  Many people did not know that wind affected the speed of the airplane.  An airplane’s speed was relative to the air.  That of the wind was added if the plane went with it and subtracted if flying against it.  If the air speed of the T-2 was 100 miles per hour and a twenty-mile-an-hour wind blew against the front of the plane, the speed across the ground was 80 miles per hour.  If a twenty-mile wind blew the plane from the rear, its ground speed would be 120 miles per hour.  In a transcontinental non-stop flight, the consumption and performance of the engine and airplane, elevation that the plane had to pass over, and the direction and strength of the wind were factors which were closely connected in their effects.  As each gallon of gasoline was consumed, the weight lessened, and the plane could go a little higher.  The route of travel could not have any elevations in the path which were higher than the plane could climb.  The ideal conditions for a flight of that nature were a clear sky, moonlight, and helping wind, with low elevation to cross, especially at night.  The obstacles were the long flight at night over strange mountainous country, the wind and weather, and the elevations.  Their own physical capabilities were also considered.  No one had ever flown for more than 26½ hours.  Bad weather in the daytime was no problem.  They would have started in a rainstorm, if the winds were right and the conditions at night were favorable.  They dreaded storm conditions over the mountains at night.  They took the best they could get, but they hoped for a full moon, clear skies, and a strong tail wind.

Sufficient moonlight existed only a few nights per month, a tail wind over a long distance was unusual, and a clear sky, especially in the eastern U. S., was less than a fifty-fifty chance.  The hoped for conditions as near to those as possible.  Ideal conditions never came in flying over a long stretch.  The wind-and-weather situation was a complicated problem. They received splendid assistance from the Weather Bureau.  They made three attempts at a transcontinental non-stop flight.  The first two were west to east and the final one from east to west.  Without considering wind and weather, New York was the logical point to start across the continent.  The elevations around New York low, and practically a direct route could be flown the entire distance to San Diego, as the high elevations did not occur until Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona were reached.  There, the altitudes were very great, but the airplane was lighter and could fly higher.  With a full load of gasoline, it was impossible to fly high.  The opposite conditions existed if a start was made from the Pacific side, as high mountains fringed the coastline, and the passes were few and far between.  It was necessary to fly a considerable distance north from Rockwell Field to find a pass in the mountains low enough to fly through, then fly a winding path following low topography and, in so doing, fly a considerable distance south.  The west-to-east route added about 300 miles to the flight.  Weather maps over a period of years showed an average wind speed in October, from west to east, of 22 miles per hour.  Taking that into consideration, the chief forecaster recommended that the direction of the flight should be west to east despite the additional travel distance.  Deciding the route was the next problem.  Topographical maps were studied and elevations of the different regions of the U. S. were considered with respect to the time of those localities from our starting point.

The next step was to prepare their maps, one ordinary political for each State over which they flew – thirteen in all.  In addition, large contour maps of the U. S. were made showing the entire course across the continent.  One of the large maps was pasted on the wall, in the rear of the cabin, and the other rolled up as a strip and carried by the pilot to check against the more detailed State maps.  Each 100 miles along the route was marked.  They first made up the big maps of the entire route and then transferred it to the State maps.  The route on those maps was marked every ten miles.  Cities, rivers, mountains, lakes, and railroads were the primary ground aids which permitted the pilot to check and keep his course.  Tests were necessary to determine the best gasoline and oil to use.  California gasoline was used on both flights.  For the east-to-west trip, it was shipped by express and truck from San Diego to New York.  Many oils were tested; there was a great difference among them in quality.  They arrived in San Diego ten days before the full moon with much work to do. A new engine needed to be installed, and the plane prepared for the long trip.  Telegraphic reports were received twice daily regarding weather conditions across the continent.  There was a full moon on October 5.  On October 4, they receive a weather report showing near ideal conditions for the trip.  They arrived at Rockwell Field just before dawn.  There were high fog clouds overhead.  After a coin toss to decide who would fly first, they started the engines to warm up, and block tested.  Everything functioned satisfactory; the blocks were removed and the throttle applied.  They had been doubtful about the takeoff, they had little margin.  The airplane hesitated and did not immediately move.  It began to move very slowly forward.  After a run of about a mile the airplane slowly lifted from the ground.  After circling the field twice to gain altitude they headed north toward Temecula Pass, 50 miles from San Diego.  Fog was encountered, but manageable.

From Temecula Pass the route was northeast of San Jacinto; then over a narrow stretch of mountains and foothills to Banning., at an elevation of 2,700 feet.  Banning was at the upper end of a valley which descended to below sea-level in Salton Sea.  Trouble would have been over if that high point could be negotiated.  Between Temecula and San Jacinto, the terrain sloped gradually up to the north.  At San Jacinto the ground extended into the fog.  After dodging foothills for an hour hoping that the fog would dissipate, and with little change of getting through the more rugged and higher country ahead, they decided to return to Rockwell Field and try for a world endurance record.  The endurance flight provided a means of securing reliable information regarding gasoline, water, and oil consumption, and data on the performance of the airplane when loaded, because it was necessary to reach an altitude of 6,800 feet at Santa Rosa, New Mexico, after nine hours of flying.  Also, they were unsure if they could land the transport with that load.  On returning to Rockwell Field, they dropped a message reporting the fog at the pass and the alternate mission.  San Diego was an ideal place to make endurance flights.  At night, they stayed within reasonable distance of a landing place, with a bright moon overhead.  The pilot sat in the nose of the plane, with the engine under his right arm.  An additional control was 10 feet in the rear.  Most of the space in the fuselage was taken up by a 180-gallon gasoline tank.  An additional 557 gallons were carried in the wing.  The pilots took turns of six hours each.  When six hours was up, the pilot would signal the shift change by waggling the plane.  The replacement would take control from the rear.  The pilot would crawl back to the rear, take over the control, and the replacement would crawl back to the front of the cabin and take over his shift.  The plan was that the pilot on break would sleep, but neither did.  They both stayed up the entire 35 hours, 18 minutes.  They were tired, but in good shape.

After October 10 there was practically no moon.  They would go again only if weather and wind were ideal.  All was in readiness to start on short notice, but weather reports were unfavorable.  The wait was trying for them; they were ready to go.  The moon became noticeable about October 28, and from that date on, the forecasts were watched closely.  The weather was unfavorable throughout the entire route.  On November 2 the forecast was favorable for Friday, November 3, but less favorable on Saturday.  They arrived at Rockwell Field in the darkness, at 5 a. m., with food and equipment for the trip. And found the plane on the line ready to start.  They waited for sufficient light for takeoff.  The weight of the plane was 10,850 pounds, 155 pounds more than the previous flight.  They flew straight out to sea, then turned gradually toward the coast.  Two complete turns around North Island and the non-stop flight to New York commenced.  The air was clear, in contrast to the previous attempt.  The T-2 climbed better than expected.  Temecula Pass was negotiated without difficulty, as were the higher mountains near Jacinto and south of Banning, California.  From an altitude of 2,400 feet at Banning, the country sloped down to below sea-level.  The T-2 passed the Salton Sea at an elevation of 2,000 feet, then a cut was made at Niland in an easterly direction to Colorado River, which was crossed, and the course continued to the Gila River.  The Gila was partially followed, crossed diagonally, and in short order, the Southern Pacific Railroad was picked up and followed.  As they approached Tucson, it became a struggle to climb, to cross over the high passes, mountains, and elevations.  The air was very rough and bumpy, with numerous air current which raised the airplane 100 feet or more and then let it down quickly.  Many times, it seemed the T-2 was not able to get over those high areas.  Apparently, just as the summit was reached, one of the air currents coming over the high elevation would raise the plane just enough to clear the top.

For long periods, the T-2 was flown within 40 or 50 feet of the surface, more altitude being impossible to attain.  That was especially noticeable over the large plains west of Demings, where a strong wind was blowing from the south, making the air rough and bumpy.  Flying under those conditions was very fatiguing, as much physical exertion was required.  At Deming the plane rose no higher than 5,200 feet.  An altitude of 6,800 feet was needed within a few hours.  After a half hour of continuing straight they diverted south and flew up another valley.  They flew over dry lakes and salt marshes in New Mexico, and then ancient lava beds.  Flying at a low altitude, they frightened several Indian tribes.  It appeared the airplane could not gain altitude, yet with each gallon of gasoline consumed, several feet of altitude were gained.  At the higher elevations near Tecelote, New Mexico, they were flying at 150 feet above the ground.  As they attempted to cross the range a downdraft almost made them crash.  At only 20 feet above the ground, they turned and flew back down the slope about ten miles to gain altitude and burn off some gasoline.  A second attempt about twenty minutes later without success.  After they burned off 40 more minutes of gasoline, the T-2 cleared the summit with 30 feet to spare.  Due to the delay, the sun was going down.  The night closed rapidly.  They followed the railroad track until it was lost in the darkness.  They flew for a half hour without knowing their exact position.  In a short time, the lights of Tucumcari, New Mexico appeared.  Clouds obscured the moon at times causing darkness making it difficult to observe the track.  A terrific south wind was blowing directly across the course.  Weather got bad and the clouds lowered near the ground.  They had to fly through them or low to the ground.  There were several isolated families in Oklahoma and Kansas whose slumber were disturbed by the roar of the huge monoplane passing within feet of their houses.

The tracks were lost in the darkness from time to time and the pilot flew solely by compass, estimating drift as best he could.  Then the headlights of a train were spotted, and they were able to line up over the track again.  Thunderstorms and lightning were all around.  It started raining; their morale was low.  It was pitch black.  There was a flash of lightning and the whole country would be lit up.  They were fortunate because several storms in the area spawned tornados.  At Pratt, Kansas, the railroad was left, and it was necessary to fly a compass course for several hundred miles.  Forty miles after leaving the railroad, the lights of Wichita, Kansas, were seen 10 miles to their right.  Reliance was placed on the compass from that point onward through the night.  All lights disappeared; apparently the people of Kansa retired early.  There were no large towns along the path of flight.  There was a cross wind approaching gale force, causing considerable drift.  The general line of flight was toward the Missouri River above its junction with the Mississippi.  The Missouri was reached at the indicated point, north of St. Louis.  The pilots changed at the Missouri.  The black night was over, and they were flying over familiar ground.  Twelve and a half hours had been spent in darkness, flying over New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Missouri, and Illinois.  A short distance beyond Terre Haute, the T-2 was rapidly losing its water supply due to cracked cylinder jackets on the engine.  The pilots changed again at that point.  The first crack appeared 400 miles out from San Diego.  It was not yet important but was closely watched.  When the other cracks occurred, the journey could not continue.  About 50 miles from Indianapolis the temperature began to rise very rapidly.  They poured drinking water, coffee, consommé, and all other liquids into the radiator, and, with those additions, the airplane was flown to the Indianapolis Speedway, where they landed.

A short time after landing they bought a newspaper.  “Transcontinental flyers make flight on soup,” was the headline.  They estimated that they could have continued to Fort Benjamin Harrison where far better repair facilities were available.  They took off for the fort but flying over Indianapolis to the post the engine again overheated very rapidly.  They had to throttle down and partly flew and partly glided to the fort.  As they reached the field the propeller stopped, frozen tight by the heat of the engine.  A good landing was made, and they jumped out in case of fire as white smoke poured from the engine.  Before leaving in another airplane for McCook Field, Dayton, the author telegraphed his mother to let her know he was safe.  Although tired at the end of the flight, neither pilot was in bad shape, but the physical and mental strain was far greater than in the endurance flight.  After a few days rest they started planning their next cross-country flight.  Because they had to fly around and waste gasoline to get over the heights in New Mexico, they looked at an east-to-west route.  Consulting forecasters they learn that during the last two weeks in April each year there was a weather condition called a Hudson Bay High, which reversed the wind direction across the continent.  Based on those facts, their next try would start on Long Island.  As their duration record had not been accepted by the International Association and two Frenchmen had captured the world’s duration record by flying for 34 hours, they decided to try again for the endurance record while in Dayton.  Their first try, during winter, got stuck in the mud on takeoff.  The second lasted eight hours and landed in a snowstorm.  Next attempt was in spring. A standard compression engine was put in the T-2, and on April 17 and 18, 1923, they stayed aloft for 36 hours, 5 minutes, landing at night guided by searchlight.  The flight was witnessed by Orville Wright.  Flying by moonlight was easy, but flying in the dark was highly undesirable.

On landing at night, they immediately took steps to have the engine changed and the plane made ready for the trip to New York.  The engine was not installed until noon, so they flew to Washington, since they could not reach New York before dark.  They met the chief forecaster and found that a Hudson Bay High had occurred, and a second one already existed.  There was little possibility for a third.  A few mechanical problems occurred on the flight to Washington, and some more cropped up on their hop to New York.  After landing at Mitchel Field, Long Island, they spent two days working on the engine.  Then it was a two-day wait for the right weather.  They could cross the continent in still air, but a prevailing head wind would prevent them from reaching San Diego.  They flew the plane from Mitchel Field to Roosevelt Field, as the former was too small for a fully-loaded takeoff.  At 11 a. m., they got word that the winds were favorable, but it was raining in Missouri.  They hesitated. They did not like the idea of low clouds and rain over the Ozark Mountains.  They had lunch at Mitchel Field and then headed to Roosevelt Field.  The first attempt at takeoff was a failure.  After rolling at top speed for almost a mile, the huge transport displayed no sign of rising into the air.  A second attempt was made.  Roosevelt Field was a plateau, about one mile square.  Hazelhurst Field was the same size, adjacent, and 20 feet below.  There was a row of hangars on the far side of Hazelhurst Field.  The big monoplane bounced and bounced but did not rise.  It was still on the ground when they came to the 20-foot drop-off.  Over they went and settled down, but not quite to the earth.  They were flying but could not gain altitude.  They thought they would hit the hangars but just cleared them.  The heavily loaded plane could hardly maintain itself in level flight.  For the first 20 minutes over Long Island, they could barely climb.  In fact, for the first few miles they barely cleared the poles and wires.

They were at 300 or 400 feet over Coney Island.  Their altitude when crossing New Jersey was about the same.  More altitude was gained over Pennsylvania.  Pennsylvania was difficult to navigate over because there were no straight lines to follow, and the air was misty and smoky.  The rivers, roads, and railroads wound in all directions.  The boundaries of farms and fields ran diagonally in various directions, unlike the north-south and east-west boundaries in the west.  At that point, the voltage regulator showed that the batteries were draining.  The regulator was repaired in-flight, a delicate operation.  They arrived at Dayton about dusk and changed controls.  It was somewhat misty around Dayton.  A short distance west the clouds began to form.  Their intent was to fly south of Indianapolis close enough to see the city lights in the distance, and then rely on their compass and wits to get them through the long night.  On their first attempt, from west to east, they traveled against light or time; now they were moving with the darkness, which made the nights much longer.  There was but one road between Indianapolis and Terre Haute on which they could see car headlights.  It paralleled their compass heading, so they used it as a reference.  They were flying low, at about 800 feet elevation.  No objects were visible except lights as the clouds cut off the moonlight.  They passed over Terre Haute.  It was on their course and recognizable.  The next distinct checkpoint on their course would be St. Louis.  They lost the lights of the highway and had nothing to check their compass.  After leaving Terre Haute, they notice a dim flicker of light.  It came regularly and seemed to grow stronger.  In a few minutes it was a large, white, ghostly ball, appearing and disappearing.  A little later, when they were 80 miles from Belleville, a shaft of whiteness appeared to come from some far-distant point.  They wondered if it was the giant searchlight at the dirigible hangar at Scott Field.

Shortly after, they could see the light from which that long beam came.  Although originally intending to pass north of St. Louis, the light was so inviting that they headed toward Scott Field.  They flew over Belleville and then pass south of St. Louis, toward the foothills of the Ozarks.  Only the suburbs of St. Louis were dimly noted as they passed.  They planned was to follow the Missouri River to Jefferson City.  The mist and clouds settled in, and rain began to fall.  When they were over the northern part of the Ozarks the lights became very few; finally, the last light disappeared.  When the lights all disappeared, there was nothing to do but watch and fly by instruments alone.  A pilot could fly by instruments for around 15 minutes, but after 20, his entire sense of balance was lost if there was no fixed point that he could see.  He would check the air speed, compass heading, and his bank and turn indicator, watching then all at the same time.  If the plane accelerated, the nose was pointing down, and when it slowed, the nose was pointing up.  When the compass started swinging, the plane was turning.  Without objects to pass, it was impossible to tell how many turns the plane made, and, while the compass was swinging, to tell if the plane was still turning.  The absence of a fixed point or lights would last for two or three minutes.  That period was a very trying one during the flight – in fact, the most trying one for the author.  The drizzle was continuous, and they were within 400 or 500 feet of the ground, in darkness and mist.  We indistinctly saw the lights of Jefferson City, passed slightly to the south, and headed straight by compass to Tucumcari, New Mexico, five States distant.  They were reportedly seen over Kansas City, but they did not come within 75 or 80 miles of the city.  A little after midnight they suddenly came out from under the dark, dismal clouds into the bright moonlight.  They could dimly see the section lines on the ground and could judge their direction and drift from them.

The author’s co-pilot, Kelly, took controls at that point, and flew the plane to Santa Rosa, New Mexico.  The breaking of day looked good to them.  The fields of Kansas merged into the grotesque buttes, little flat-topped plateaus, and eroded topography of New Mexico.  There was a period just before sunrise when the earth was in shadow, but the sky was light.  They noticed little cubes of earth arranged regularly.  Those were the adobe huts of the Indians.  It was Tucumcari, New Mexico, their first known point after the night.  They recognized it by the huts and the graveyard, for they had been over Tucumcari before.  They had delayed their start from New York for two hours to avoid being farther west than Tucumcari at dawn.  It was remarkable that they were at that point at that time.  The next little settlement was Santa Rosa.  They changed pilots there.  A railroad was occasionally seen in the distance.  The last they saw that railroad was shortly before they reached the Rio Grande.  They flew west, high above the river, and headed toward a winding, irregular pass leading to the summit of the rapidly ascending slope.  They intended to fly due west, to a point 20 miles south of St. John’s, Arizona, and then turn southwest.  While approaching that point, the ground was coming up beneath them, and the ground ahead was higher than the plane could reach.  That region had not been accurately surveyed.  Their contour map showed the region’s elevation at 8,000 feet; their altimeter read 10,000 feet.  It was useless to attempt the planned route.  The only thing they could do was to continue flying due west follow the lower positions of that high plateau.  They purposely left their course, by eased over to the left when opportunity offered.  After flying a considerable distance over that plateau, they swung left, hoping to get over the higher areas.  As they approached what they thought was a lava bed, they discovered it to be an immense forest of stately trees.

The T-2 could not negotiate the highest point or rim of the slope, but got within two miles of it, flying parallel just over the treetops.  For 75 or 80 miles they flew.  Finally, the longed-for opening in the higher ground to the left appeared.  They crossed though expecting fields and farms, but found canyons, ravines, and volcanic mountain ranges.  They decided to fly due west for the Pacific Coast, tending a trifle to the south.  They crossed the less high ranges and followed the ravines in a westerly direction until finally they crossed over a range and the desert laid before them – barren wastes of sand and rock.  They knew their approximate position, but not the exact position.  The switched pilot at that point.  Shortly after, they sighted the Santa Fe Railroad near Wickenburg, Arizona, northwest of Phoenix.  The hot, barren wastes of the desert passed beneath, and soon the muddy Colorado River could be decerned below.  The Colorado was crossed, the panorama changed, and green fields replaced arid sand.  Imperial Valley was a beautiful sight to them.  They quickly skimmed over it, crossed the dazzling whiteness of the mammoth wash, and then pointed the nose upward to climb the last high, rugged mountains between them and the Pacific coast.  They changed pilots just after crossing the mountains.  The T-2 was 8,000 feet high, and San Diego laid beneath them in the distance.  They wished to reach Rockwell Field and land in less than 27 hours.  Diving down 8,000 feet with power on, they reached San Diego, and swung down the main street, passing 100 feet above the tops of the buildings.  They could see people on the tops of the buildings waving at them.  They wasted no time.  They made one turn of North Island, to head into the wind, and landed exactly 26 hours and 50 minutes elapsed time from Long Island, New York.

Everyone was excited except the pilots.  They had been working in grease and dirt, without rest, for such a long time, they had not the opportunity to think about their accomplishment.  It seemed to them that they had just finished a hard test flight and were mighty glad that it was over.  They had been so busy with endurance flights, lack of sleep, and work on the project that neither of them had time to think about anything else, so they did not realize that they had done anything much out of the ordinary.  Telegrams were received from President Harding, General Pershing, members of the Cabinet, and other prominent people, sending their congratulations.  They also received $5,000, donated from a winner of a bet over their flight.  That present helped pay their personal expenses in connection with the flight.  The Government paid only a small part of the actual expenses, and both pilots would have gone into debt if not for the donation.  Honor was its own reward.  There was plenty of glory in connection with a flight of that nature, and considerable satisfaction in doing one’s duty as a soldier and accomplishing a feat considered by many to be impossible, but the glamor would fade over time.  The coffee and broth in their thermos bottles, filled in New York the previous afternoon, were still hot.  It was 26 minutes after 11 in the morning when they landed.  They had lunch at the quarters of Major Arnold.  The pilots were tired, but neither of them felt any bad effects from the trip.  No sleep was obtained during that or any of the other flights.  The pilot who was in the rear had plenty to do most of the time and had always to be on alert to take the controls in an emergency.  During every shift, the pilot in front would shake the controls and the one behind would fly for a short period, to allow the pilot up front to change his maps and rearrange things in the front.  Kelly had an engagement in San Diego that night and the author had one in Los Angeles.

The American Legion of San Diego held the banquet that Kelly attended.  The author attended a wedding in Los Angeles, his own.  It was certainly a good week for him.  They made the transcontinental flight, acquired $2,500 each, and he became a married man.  The pilots expected to get some leave in California, the author for his honeymoon and Kelly to rest up, but they received orders to fly the T-2 back across country stopping for demonstration of the plane enroute and arriving in Washington before June 1.  They started back without delay, arriving in Washington in time for the Shriners’ Convention, where the T-2 was placed on exhibition.  That finished the important flights of the T-2.  In 1924, it reposed in the Smithsonian Institution at Washington, where it belonged.  It did its work in excellent shape and deserved a good rest.  During their flights, the two pilots flew a total of five and one-half complete nights, the great majority was in total darkness, either without moonlight or during periods of cloud and storm.  On their first transcontinental flight, they crossed parts of six States at night and spent 12½ hours in darkness; on the second, they crossed parts of seven States at night and in darkness for 13½ hours.  On both of those flights they encountered storms and rain at night.  That was the condition that they most dreaded.  Two “Round the World” flights were in progress in 1924, and other noteworthy flights would be made, but it would probably be a long time before a plane flew continuously for such a long period of time over rough and rugged elevations.  Most long flights were merely a succession of short trips of a few hours’ duration each.  The pilot had the opportunity to rest, repair his plane, and pick his weather.  Both pilots flew across the continent four times in easy stages in the same year.  Non-stop flights were considerably more difficult.  They were grateful for the opportunity to attempt the task and very much pleased that they successfully accomplished their work.

 

At the bottom of the last page of the first article (page 83) is a notice with the heading “Index for January-June, 1924, Volume Ready”.  The one-line text of the notice states “Index for Volume XLV (January-June, 1924) will be mailed to members upon request.”

 

The second article in this month’s issue is entitled “Our Country Through the Airman’s Camera” with Lieutenant Albert W. Stevens, U. S. Army Air Service, listed in the byline.  The article is an editorial about the flight.  Lt. Stevens was one of the pilots on the survey; the other was Lt. Macready, the author of the first article.  It has the internal title: “America from the Air” along with an internal subtitle: “No Such Series of Airplane Views Has Ever Before Been Printed.”  The article contains eight black-and-white photographs although they are lumped into the illustrations listed on the cover for the first article.  Of those eight photos, five are full-page in size and one of those full-size photos serves as the frontispiece for the article.

A photographic survey of America from the air had been made recently by Lieutenant A. W. Stevens and Lieutenant John A. Macready, of the Air Service of the U. S. Army.  In many respects, that reconnaissance of the beautiful and inaccessible natural features of the U. S. is unique.  The route covered is shown on the map in the first article (page 6).  The airmen, over eight weeks’ flying, covered 10,000 miles, and made 2,000 photographs, from which more than 70 illustrations reproduced in this number of The Geographic were selected, together with descriptive text quoted from their diaries.  The range of photographic subjects included our greatest cities, our leading institutions of learning, our most majestic waterfalls, the impressive grandeur of the Rocky Mountains, the serene beauties of pleasant valleys, the marvels of the Grand Canyon, and the awesome desolation of out Southwestern deserts.  Lt. Macready flew the two cross-country flights document in the first article.  Lt. Stevens had made two trips of more than 1,000 miles each across Alaska by dog team in midwinter, encountering temperatures of 40 degrees below zero.  That was 22½ degrees warmer than he experienced during his recent flight with Lt. Macready when they succeeded in obtaining a picture at an elevation of 32,220 feet – the world’s photographic altitude record.  Lt. Stevens also held the world’s parachute record, having made a jump of 24,200 feet, nearly five miles.  Among Lt. Stevens pictures appeared in previous issues of the National Geographic Magazine were “Reelfoot Lake” (January 1924), and “Fighting Insects with Airplanes” (March 1922).  The Stevens-Macready photographic expedition obtained 2,000 negatives.  The illustrations of New England appearing in this issue were taken on previous and subsequent flights. The Lieutenants flew from Dayton, Ohio, to Washington, D. C., with the photos in this issue, together with Lt. Macready’s manuscript of his non-stop flight.

The photographic expedition started from Dayton, and used the following landing fields:  Iowa City, Iowa; North Platte, Nebraska; Cheyenne and Rock Springs, Wyoming; Vancouver, Washington; Red Bluff, Sacramento, Santa Monica, and San Diego, California; Las Vegas, Nevada; and Holbrook, Arizona.  One of the most vivid impressions gained by the two aviators was one which, unfortunately, could not be effectively transmitted to a photographic plate – a great city by night.  Speaking of their experience in flying over New York, Brooklyn, and Jersey City, Stevens and Macready said: “We come up the harbor at an altitude of a thousand feet or more; we may well imagine we are in another Eiffel Tower, with the advantage that we can carry the tower wherever we will.  Below is the Statue of Liberty, with its circle of flood lights around the base and the great torch gleaming above.  Ahead, on the left, are the lights of Jersey City, row on row, as far as the eye can see; on the right are the lights of Brooklyn and Long Island. A radiance bounded only by the waters of the Atlantic, and directly in front, glowing like a city that had burned and from which the smoke has risen, leaving only the red-hot embers, is Manhattan.”  The Stevens-Macready survey of the entire U. S. was a by-product of official orders to photograph the solar eclipse in the vicinity of San Diego on September 10, 1923, and, although weather made it impossible to obtain the photographs hoped for.  So, while that unique undertaking of Stevens and Macready failed in its primary object because of weather conditions, the collection of unrivalled photographs of America had enriched mankind’s knowledge of “The Land of the Best.”  Theirs had been a distinct geographic achievement.  The pictures reproduced in this Geographic the globe on which we live in a new aspect.  All of them warranted not mere passing notice, but would repay long and careful study, for each had features which were not apparent to the hasty glance.

 

The third and final article in this month’s issue is entitled “Man’s Progress in Conquering the Air” and was written by J. R. Hildebrand, author of “The Geography of Games,” “The Source of Washington’s Charm,” etc., in the National Geographic Magazine.  It has the slightly longer internal title: “Man’s Amazing Progress in Conquering the Air.”  The article contains twenty-eight black-and-white photographs, of which nine are full-page in size.  It also contains a full-page sketch chart of the airship “Shenandoah” on page 106.

Man never before achieved such rapid progress in any engineering problem as he had attained in his conquest of the air.  Since classic times he had dreamed of exploring the new world of the air; for centuries he tried to add a third dimension to his travels.  It was not until September 1908, that Orville Wright’s biplane rumbled down a creaky launching rail, wobbled a bit in the air, and cruised around Fort Myer, Virginia, for 57½ minutes.  Within fifteen years the Navy’s NC-4 crossed the Atlantic in the air [See: “The Azores, Picturesque and Historic Half-Way House of American Transatlantic Aviators,” June 1919, The Geographic]; an Army air squadron flew from New York to Alaska [See: “The First Alaska Air Expedition,” May 1922, The Geographic]; two Army birdmen spanned the continent by a non-stop flight from New York to San Diego [See: First article in this issue]; and our airmail planes had delivered letters in New York 26 hours and 11 minutes after they were postmarked in San Francisco.  Aviation progress was accelerating at an astounding rate.  Practically all the noteworthy records set in 1923, were surpassed in 1924.  Of the 55 recognized airplane and airship records as they stood on June 1, 1924, the U. S. held 41.  In 1923, a Navy aviator set a dizzying speed of 267 miles per hour; a Frenchman ascended a mile higher than Mount Everest; and two American military aviators set a new duration mark of more than 36 hours [See: First article in this issue].  Not only new records, but new instruments and methods of the prior 18 months blazed the path for future achievements which were but vague hope a few years before.  The American Navy successfully operated the largest craft that plied the air, the Shenandoah, and its evolved “vest pocket” and “folding” airplane for use with submarines.  Our military perfected the aerial torpedo, rendering the existing battleship design archaic; developed smoke screens, great sky-hung curtains to conceal attacks; and refueled planes while they shot through the air at speeds which outdistanced our fastest express trains.

In March 1924, two Army aviators flew from Dayton to Mineola without seeing the ground for 450 miles of the 575-mile trip.  That flight marked the successful testing of the earth-inductor compass, the turn indicator, and the inclinometer, instruments which enabled aviators to navigate amid the fog or above the clouds, independent of railroad, river, or highway landmarks.  Those three inventions, plus the radio and the process of refueling in the air, promised to cut the airman’s last mundane fetter and literally gave him complete freedom of the air so long as his plane and engine remained intact.  The rigid airship was developed by the Navy, of which the Shenandoah, acquired in 1923, was a type, bade fair to rival the airplane in providing the public with vehicles of air travel and parcel delivery.  The airship itself was not new [in 1924] – Zeppelins were conspicuous in the World War – but the use of helium for their inflation was an American modification which eliminated the danger of ignition and explosion.  And the U. S. possessed the only known supply source of helium.  A second adjunct which made airships practicable was the mooring mast adopted by the British and Americans.  The Shenandoah was America’s best-known vehicle.  While thousands had seen the country’s ‘crack’ trains and giant ocean liners; literally millions had watched that airship steal silently across the sky.  Its length,680 feet, was two-thirds that of the liner, Leviathan, yet its weight of only 37 tons was a tiny fraction of the Leviathan’s 50,000 tons.  To house it, and a bigger sister ship to come, a hangar was built in a clearing of the New Jersey woods.  It was 201 feet longer than the U.S. Capitol building, and just two feet less than the Capitol’s widest part, and more than two-thirds as high.  The sliding doors at one end weighed 1,300 tons!  Inside the airship’s covering were 20 great gas bags, with a volume equal to 700 freight cars.  Those were interspersed with 40 to 78 gasoline tanks and a complement of one-ton water tanks.

That equipment was supported by a metal framework which was a veritable maze of girders, struts, and beams; there were 3,000 struts alone.  It was for that framework that duralumin was used – an alloy so light and so strong that a girder 16 feet long could be balanced on one’s little finger but, if placed on blocks, could bear the weight of eight men.  The engines could drive the craft for more than two days and nights at 60 miles per hour, or for 90 hours at a speed of 50 miles per hour.  In one of its six cars was a photographic laboratory, where motion picture reels and photographs were developed and ready when the ship landed, or even thrown overboard by parachute at designated places.  Another car had a soundproof radio compartment with a powerful sending apparatus and telegraphic instruments.  The airship was the Pullman train of the skies, albeit fast and smoother, providing its passengers with dining-car food, comfortable berths, shelter from the elements, and unrivaled “observation platforms.”  The most astonishing mechanical contrivance on the Shenandoah was the newly installed water-recovery apparatus, which replaced the gasoline burden with an equivalent weight of water, and thus save the valving of precious helium.  Gasoline consisted of carbon and hydrogen.  When it was burned, it produced carbon dioxide and water.  The exhaust passed through a series of cooling tubes; the water condensed, and then was stored in a water tank.  That manufactured water compensated for the weight of the gasoline consumed.  Before that invention, as fuel burned the ship got lighter and rose, requiring the release of helium to maintain proper lift.  Helium cost [in 1924,] $81 for a thousand cubic feet.  The amount the Shenandoah had to valve on long trips was expensive.  On its famous St. Louis trip, it valved 200,000 cubic feet of helium.  The water-recovery device saved $16,200 on one of those trips – enough to pay for building, testing, and installing the device.

Visitors to Europe knew how airplane travel was taken as a matter of course.  In some European cities, where commercial airplane routes were subsidized, travel by air was common.  On that continent, 10,600 miles of airlines operated on regular schedules.  At many resort cities, “air taxis” awaited passengers’ call.  The dependability of the airplane was demonstrated notably in the U. S. by the air mail route from New York to San Francisco – the longest air service line in continuous operation in the world.  In 1922, air mail planes flew nearly 2,000,000 miles without a single loss of life; in 1923, they carried more than sixty-five million letters, traveled more than a million and a half miles, and completed all but 111 of the 7,847 trips attempted.  It was during those flights that the great white airway along the night route from Chicago to Cheyenne was tested and night flying shown to be practicable.  Five stations with aerial beacons were constructed.  Each beacon was a high-intensity arc searchlight mounted on a 50-foot tower, revolving three times a minute.  On a clear night, one could be seen at 130 miles distance.   At 34 emergency landing fields, large guiding lights were installed.  In addition to the obvious commercial value of speeding up business letters, it was estimated that $100,000 had been saved in a single month on interest on notes which otherwise would have been in mail sacks for two business days between New York and Chicago.  No chariot race, no horse race, no human race, ever furnished the sensation of seeing an airplane flash by at four miles a minute.  Eighty-five thousand spectators saw A. J. Williams average 243.6 miles an hour when he wo the Pulitzer speed classic at St. Louis, and H. J. Brow finished with a 236.5 mark.  In a speed duel at Mitchel Field, Brow reached 274.2 miles an hour and Williams averaged 266.  Steel nerves, instant judgement, and utmost precision were demanded of pilot who hurdled through space at such rates.

When asked, both pilots said that they seemed to lose consciousness for an instant at the sharp turns of the triangular course, where the centrifugal force jammed them dawn and apparently drained the blood from their heads for a few seconds.  The question later asked Rear Admiral Moffett, Chief of the Bureau of Aeronautics, U. S. Navy, was, “How fast will it be possible to go?”  He replied that humans could not stand sharp turns at speeds much greater than those reached, but for straightaways and wide turns the limit had not been reached and was not even in sight.  Perhaps, the most heroic test of an aviator’s grit and stamina was an altitude climb.  The earth faded below him as he ascended to regions where no human organism had breathed before.  Artificial oxygen compensated only in part for the suffering from the difference in pressure which he experienced.  Every muscle, artery, and nerve protested against the strange environment, and his vitality decreased as he went higher and higher.  The aerial dashboard of a modern plane was complex and, to the untrained eye, confusing.  It held ten or more instruments, such as the altimeter, the air-speed meter, a magnetic compass, a gyro turn indicator, a tachometer, various thermometers, and pressure gauges, not to mention the controls.  On the craft was, probably, a radio, used in direction finding, as well as for communications.  The internal combustion engine, developed by automobile manufacturers, made the airplane practicable.  The Wrights’ first engine, like the automobile engine of that day, generated only 12 horsepower for its 152 pounds.  In 1924, a 1,000-horsepower engine weighed only 1,700 pounds. A standard railroad engine of 1,020 horsepower weighed 229,433 pounds.  A major problem of the airplane engine was that it must keep going, without pause, at high speed, while the flyer was in the air.  Overheating was one of the effects.  This was solved by rotating the cylinders around the crankshaft – the reverse of how an automobile engine worked – allowing the cylinders to cool themselves.  That also saved the weight of water and radiators.

In a biplane fitted with that new type of engine, Henri Farman made early airplane history at Reims, in 1909, by flying 144½ miles – a new world record for distance.  Still the demand grew for greater speed and power, until that type of engine was eliminated due to fact that metals could not handle the centrifugal force.  The saving of fuel in the new design compensated for the weight of water and radiator needed for cooling.  In 1924, the engine makers were in fierce competition to shave off ounces and to add power units.  Experts agreed that the next step was to develop a motor which injected fuel directly into the cylinders and fired it spontaneously, like the Diesel engine.  That would eliminate fire hazards, and carburetor and ignition troubles.  To study that problem, a camera was developed which took photographs at a rate of 5,000 shots a second.  The ignition of a safety match took nearly a second, but the spark in an engine only took 1/500^th of a second.  That new camera could take 8 to 12 photos of the oil spark.  Next to the engine, the wings were the most important elements of an airplane.  A cross-section of a wing looked like a hockey stick. With the convex side upward and the peak of the curve forward.  When the wing sped forward, a partial vacuum was created behind the hump.  That vacuum created a suction, which accounted for two-thirds of the wing’s lifting power.  The air pressure under the concave surface did only one-third of the work. Until very recently, it was assumed that pressure was distributed fairly over a wing.  Fast flying, especially diving, tore off tips and upper surface covers at speeds supposed to be well within the safety factor.  The National Advisory Council on Aeronautics developed an instrument to measure the pressure in thirty or forty places on the wing surface.  When the instrument was installed on a plane flying at a rate supposed to generate a load of 50 pounds per square foot.  On some wing parts, the load registered 210 pounds.

Conspicuous on the Wright Brother’s first airplane were two large, ungainly propellers.  In 1924, many planes had a single propeller, which attained efficiency by strength and speed, rather than by its size.  When a plane traveled 200 miles an hour. The rim of the propeller was travelling 900 feet a second, only 2½ times faster than the plane.  The plane’s propeller’s efficiency was 8% greater than that of the marine propeller.  In most airplanes the propeller pulled the machine.  Its location in front of the body placed it directly ahead of the pilot.  When war demanded that airplanes be equipped with machine-guns, the location of the propeller in the direct line of fire raised another problem.  It was solved ingeniously.  A device linked the engine with the machine gun, so the bullets passed between the spinning blades.  The radio was as useful in flying as the telegraph was in train dispatching.  Weather reports were flashed to all important airfields twice daily, and radio sets in planes received further advice on long flights.  The radio had another important use in aviation, that of direction finding; especially in the Navy planes, when ground landmarks were lacking, and in land flights when landmarks were obscured, the radio compass was used for aerial navigation.  A romance of flying and a romance of engineering were combined when Lieutenants Lowell H. Smith and J. P. Richter, of the Army Air Service, had breakfast in Canada, flew to Mexico in time for dinner, and had their fuel replenished three times while they were in the air.  At more than 3,000 feet altitude, an airplane drew alongside another, which was flying 100 miles an hour.  The upper plane threw out a hose which was caught by one of the aviators in the plane beneath, who attached it to the gasoline tank, and takes on 75 gallons of gas.  Meanwhile, a third plane bore down upon the pair and took motion pictures of the strange air scene.  The flyers themselves had a bird’s-eye view of the natural grandeur of our Pacific coastal States.

Just before sunrise the airmen took off from Sumas, along the British Columbia order of Washington State, and soon passed Bellingham, with Mount Baker on the left.  Already they could see Mount Rainier in the distance.  The islands of Puget Sound looked like splotches from 4,000 feet.  Soon Seattle could be seen peeking through low clouds.  Southward they flew, past Mount St. Helens, and then Mount Hood ushered them into Oregon and the rolling farmlands of the Willamette Valley.  Below Eugene they received their first transfusion of gas.  Waving their aerial gas man goodbye, they gradually climbed the Cascade Range, over Diamond Peak, Mount Thielsen, and Crater Lake, and then entered the pass between the Trinity Mountains and the mighty Mount Shasta.  A jumbled mass of mountains, canyons, rocks, forests, bottomless pits, and turbulent rivers extended from Mount Shasta almost to Red Bluff.  At Sacramento, the flyers took their second charge of gasoline.  The sun was setting as the crossed the San Fernando Valley, and over the pass between the Sierra Madre and the Santa Monica Mountains the Lights of Los Angeles greeted them.  Southeast of Los Angeles, flying at 6,000 feet above San Juan Capistrano, they saw the lights of Los Angeles. Santa Monica, San Pedro, Long Beach, Santa Ana, Oceanside, Fall Brook, Escondido, and San Diego which were set off by lesser light points of many other towns and villages.  Only a few minutes more and the flyers landed in Tiajuana, Mexico, after flying 1,250 miles in 12 hours and 13 minutes, and performing three times a feat which, it was predicted, would make distance flying practicable.  For four years, airplanes, operating under their own power, had accompanied the fleet in its winter maneuvers.  In 1924, more than 100 land planes and seaplanes returned to Hampton Roads with a total of 180,000 miles of flying to their credit.  Fleet aviation required small combat planes, other planes for scouting, observation, and spotting gunfire, and still others for torpedo and bombing work.

The practical peace-time uses of the airplane had multiplied marvelously in the last few years.  A notable service the Navy performed was the mapping of the Mississippi Delta region as a preliminary to making our greatest inland waterway more Navigable.  Airplane of 1924 not only carried people and mail, they delivered motion-picture films and newspapers; they surveyed rugged coastlines and routes for new railroads; broadcast chemical dust over insect-infested crop fields; patrolled forests for fires; wrote smoke screens in the sky; located schools of fish; and took sightseers over the Alps.  The British Government had turned over the administration of central Iraq to the Royal Air Force, while French officials made colonial inspection trips in airplanes, and our own Marine Corps used airplanes for police work and garrison duty in Haiti.  Recently, in our own country, the first aerial stowaway was arrested, a mechanic used a plane for his honeymoon, and commercial concerns offered their aircraft to the Post Office as “strike-breakers” in the face of a threatened railroad strike.  National Geographic Society members had a special interest in aviation.  Indeed, the long-time members of The Society, looking back through their files at the early attention paid to aeronautics and the important findings first published in their Magazine, justifiably felt proud.  Their Geographic Magazine had been enriched by remarkable examples of aerial photography, and they had enjoyed aviators’ contributions to the literature of travel, such as Sir Ross Smith’s account of his London-to-Australia voyage [See: “From London to Australia by Aeroplane,” March 1921, The Geographic]; and Captain St. Clair Streett’s account of the U. S. Army Air Squadron flight from New York to Nome, Alaska, previously mentioned.

 

 

Tom Wilson