Aeronautics: Great Circle

In a Junkers monoplane which once belonged to Charles A. Levine. three airmen took off from Juncal do Sol, near Lisbon last week to try the “uphill” route across the Atlantic, which only Coste & Bellonte have completed nonstop. The flyers were Willy Rody, a German who had spent his inheritance on the plane; Christian Johanssen, a German-naturalized Dane; and Fernando Costa Viega, Portuguese sportsman. Their plane, christened the Esa for Rody’s bride, reached the Azores, headed out over the Great Circle course towards Newfoundland.

Out of a grey, cloudy sky the Esa zoomed down over the S. S. Pennland, 395 mi. east of Halifax. It had taken 25 hr. to come this far. Observers estimated that bad weather had cut down the flyers’ speed to 80 m. p. h.—30 m. p. h. less than the economical cruising speed of their plane. Also, the length of time indicated they were flying blind. Their compasses must’have gone wrong; they carried no radio. But they seemed unconcerned, headed for fog-bound Newfoundland.

So quiet had been the Esa’s take-off that New York was startled to hear it was so near. But storms were still raging up & down the coast. Airports turned on beacons; anxious German, Danish and Portuguese consuls waited, wondered.