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Concept
Transatlantic flight
Summary
A transatlantic flight is the flight of an aircraft across the Atlantic Ocean from Europe, Africa, South Asia, or the Middle East to North America, Latin America, or vice versa. Such flights have been made by fixed-wing aircraft, airships, balloons and other aircraft.
Early aircraft engines did not have the reliability nor the power to lift the required fuel to make a transatlantic flight. There were difficulties navigating over the featureless expanse of water for thousands of miles, and the weather, especially in the North Atlantic, is unpredictable. Since the middle of the 20th century, however, transatlantic flight has become routine, for commercial, military, diplomatic, and other purposes.
The idea of transatlantic flight came about with the advent of the hot air balloon. The balloons of the period were inflated with coal gas, a moderate lifting medium compared to hydrogen or helium, but with enough lift to use the winds that would later be known as the Jet Stream. In 1859, John Wise built an enormous aerostat named the Atlantic, intending to cross the Atlantic. The flight lasted less than a day, crash-landing in Henderson, New York. Thaddeus S. C. Lowe prepared a massive balloon of called the City of New York to take off from Philadelphia in 1860, but was interrupted by the onset of the American Civil War in 1861. The first successful transatlantic flight in a balloon was the Double Eagle II from Presque Isle, Maine, to Miserey, near Paris in 1978.
In April 1913 the London newspaper The Daily Mail offered a prize of £10,000 (£ in ) to
the aviator who shall first cross the Atlantic in an aeroplane in flight from any point in the United States of America, Canada or Newfoundland and any point in Great Britain or Ireland" in 72 continuous hours.
The competition was suspended with the outbreak of World War I in 1914 but reopened after Armistice was declared in 1918. The war saw tremendous advances in aerial capabilities, and a real possibility of transatlantic flight by aircraft emerged.
Official source
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