Richard Bak - The big jump: Lindbergh and the great Atlantic air race

This book is printed on acid-free paper.

Copyright 2011 by Richard Bak. All rights reserved

Photo Credits: Page 13: First Across Association; pages 16 left, 25, 33, 55, 59, 86, 104, 117, 124, 135, 137, 173, 180, 182, 212: Library of Congress; page 21: Vickers; page 26: New York Public Library; pages 42, 52, 114, 120, 150, 155, 159: Muse de lAir et de lEspace; page 65: Sikorsky Archives; pages 94, 167, 188: Smithsonian Institution; pages 95, 235: Record Flights ; pages 108, 217, 221, 256: National Archives; page 241: Skyward ; pages 243, 247: LIllustration .

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Published simultaneously in Canada

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:
Bak, Richard, date.
The big jump : Lindbergh and the great Atlantic air race / Richard Bak.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-471-47752-5 (hardback); ISBN 978-1-118-04376-9 (ebk);
ISBN 978-1-118-04377-6 (ebk); ISBN 978-1-118-04378-3
1. AeronauticsCompetitionsHistory20th century. 2. Transatlantic flightsHistory20th century. 3. AeronauticsUnited StatesHistory20th century. 4. AeronauticsHistory20th century. 5. Lindbergh, Charles A. (Charles Augustus), 1902-1974. 6. Air pilotsUnited StatesBiography. 7. Air pilotsBiography. I. Title.
TL537.B35 2011
629.13092dc22
2011010967

To the memory of my father,
Edward Joseph Bak

Acknowledgments

While the pursuit of the Orteig Prize by Charles Lindbergh, Clarence Chamberlin, Richard Byrd, Charles Nungesser, Ren Fonck, Paul Tarascon, and others is the focal point of this narrative, the race to be the first to connect New York and Paris by air plays out against the broader backdrop of North Atlantic flight, from the initial crossings in 1919 through the flurry of attempts in 1927 and concluding with the first Paris-to-New York flight in 1930. To more fully present the French side of the story, a viewpoint typically given short shrift in the many accounts of Lindberghs epochal flight, my research necessarily involved locating and deciphering materials that challenged my meager foreign-language skills. I consider myself fortunate to have found Carolyn Miller, an archival researcher fluent in French, who expertly and expediently translated many documents for me. My daughter Rosemary also translated several items, often on short notice, proving that her year of study in Marseilles still held value. Additionally, librarians, archivists, curators, booksellers, historians, and aviation aficionados on both sides of the Atlantic contributed in various ways to the completion of this work, and to each of them I offer my deepest thanks. My editor, Hana Umlauf Lane, and my literary agent, Jim Donovan, both deserve some sort of prize of their own for their patience. Finally, thanks to Wiley Senior Production Editor John Simko for his forbearance and attention to detail.

Prologue

Instant Fameor Flaming Gasoline

The barrier was both physical and psychological, and cost more than a few lives. Flying over water was far more dangerous than flying over land, where any flat space was a suitable landing field for a 1920s craft. The Atlantic had its stepping-stones like the Canadian coast, Bermuda, the Azores, England, and Ireland, but for the big jump the pilots poised at the edge of the water, like small children waiting for somebody else to stick a toe in first.

George Vescey and George C. Dade, Getting Off the Ground

In the early-morning gloom, all eyes were on the little monoplane with its distinctively burnished cowling. As the nine cylinders of the Wright Whirlwind engine issued a powerful, monotonous roar, the young pilot inside the cramped cabin weighed the risks of trying to leave Long Island, New York, under less than ideal conditions against those of waiting an additional day. By then his rivals in what reporters, oddsmakers, and the rest of the enthralled public were calling the worlds greatest air derby likely would be ready for departure as well. Like all airplanes attempting to make the big jump across the cold, treacherous expanses of the North Atlantic, his machine, with nearly a ton and a half of fuel on board, was essentially a flying gas tank. In this situation, with a single engine straining to lift the overloaded aircraft off a sticky, unpaved runway, nobody would have faulted him for postponing his departure until the sun dried out the field and the air.

Its less a decision of logic than of feeling, was the pilots explanation. The kind of feeling that comes when you gauge the distance to be jumped between two stones across a brook. And if he had gauged wrongwell, that was the advantage of going it alone. He had no one to answer to except himself.

He buckled his safety belt and pulled down his goggles.

What do you say, he said. Lets try it.

The wheel blocks were kicked out. A handful of men pushed against the wing struts to free the plane from the ooze, then ran alongside to help send it on its way. After a hundred yards the last of the helpers dropped off and the fishtailing craft was moving on its own, churning through the muck in the general direction of the ambulance parked ominously at the end of the runway.