Conquest of the Air - World War I & Airplanes

The first world war, brought about the magical development of all kinds of new airplanes. Necessity not only mothered invention but forced it to squeeze what previously had taken a half century of progress into four years. While seaplane inventor Glenn Curtiss worked with the navy to improve military seaplanes, the Dayton-Wright factory turned out the famous DH fighting planes for the airforce under the supervision of Orville Wright, co-inventor of the first practical airplane. The second initial H stood for Havilland, the DH plane was designed by Geoffrey de Havilland, the famous British airplane inventor.

First Transatlantic Airplane Flights

In 1919, the first transatlantic flights began. The NC4 airplane, under Lieutenant Commander Albert Cushing Read and crew, left Trepassey, Newfoundland, on the 16th of May and in twelve hours arrived at Horta, the Azores, more than a thousand miles away. All along the course the navy had strung a chain of destroyers, with signaling apparatus and searchlights to guide the pilots. On the 27th of May, the NC4 took off from San Miguel, Azores, and in nine hours made it to Lisbon, Portugal.

First Non-stop Transatlantic Flights

On the 14th of June, 1919, the Vickers-Vimy Rolls-Royce biplane, piloted by John Alcock and with Arthur Whitten Brown as observer-navigator, left St. John's, Newfoundland, and arrived at Clifden, Ireland, in sixteen hours twelve minutes, having made the first non-stop transatlantic flight.

The British dirigible R34 (airship), with Major G. H. Scott in command, left East Fortune, Scotland, on the 2nd of July, and arrived at Mineola, New York, on the 6th. The R34 made the return voyage in seventy-five hours.

In November, 1919, Captain Sir Ross Smith set off from England in a biplane to win a prize of ten thousand pounds offered by the Australian Commonwealth to the first Australian aviator to fly from England to Australia in under thirty hours. [ p]

Commercial Airplane Use & Flights

The first air service for United States mails was inaugurated during the war, between New York and Washington. Transcontinental passenger service was started soon after the war ended, when a regular line between Key West and Havana was established. French and British companies began to operate daily between London and Paris carrying passengers and mail. Airship companies were formed in Australia, South Africa, and India. In Canada airplanes were soon being used in prospecting the Labrador timber regions, in making photographs and maps of the northern wilderness, and by the Northwest Mounted Police.