Title: White Bird
Description: the flight
Description: the flight
DirkPitt - May 1, 2004 08:48 AM (GMT)
In 1919 Raymond Orteig offered a prize of $25,000 for the first nonstop aircraft flight between New York and Paris. By the mid 1920’s, airplanes had finally developed enough to make such a flight possible. The first aviators to go for the prize paid with their lives.
The French made an attempt at the prize. Charles Nungesser, France’s second highest ranked war ace (second only to Fonck, and considered a better flier), teamed up with Francois Coli and the two prevailed upon the airplane builder Pierre Levasseur (of Antoinette fame) to equip a plane he was building for the French Navy for a trans-Atlantic flight. The plane, the PL-8, was an open-cockpit biplane with a detachable undercarriage and a watertight fuselage that could float on water. It was Nungesser’s plan to eject the undercarriage after takeoff and land in New York Harbour on the fuselage. Nungesser painted the plane white and called it L’Oiseau Blanc (The White Bird), putting his trademark skull-and-crossbones-in-a-black-heart emblem on the side of the plane.
Nungesser and Coli took off from Le Bourget Field (they claimed they were flying the more difficult east-west direction out of patriotism, but the simple fact was that they had no money to transport the plane to New York) on May 8, 1927, Joan of Arc Day and the anniversary of the beginning of the flight of the NC boats. Candles were lit all over France and prayers were uttered in churches as the entire nation turned out to watch the plane fly over the coast of Normandy toward America.
The weather reports were discouraging—at Roosevelt Field, Clarence Chamberlin, engineer of the Wright engines, heard reports of Nungesser’s takeoff and of the weather over the Atlantic, and muttered, “I don’t see how Nungesser can make it.” A report was sent to Paris, resulting in a detailed front-page story, that Nungesser and Coli had landed safely near the Statue of Liberty. France erupted in joyous celebration, but the report proved false, which made the later disappointment even greater. The White Bird was never seen again, and it was all the U.S. State Department could do to dispel rumours that American weatherman had withheld weather information that would have delayed the flight. No part of the wreckage of the White Bird has ever been found.
Charles Lindbergh receiving the Orteig Prize from Raymond Orteig
The French made an attempt at the prize. Charles Nungesser, France’s second highest ranked war ace (second only to Fonck, and considered a better flier), teamed up with Francois Coli and the two prevailed upon the airplane builder Pierre Levasseur (of Antoinette fame) to equip a plane he was building for the French Navy for a trans-Atlantic flight. The plane, the PL-8, was an open-cockpit biplane with a detachable undercarriage and a watertight fuselage that could float on water. It was Nungesser’s plan to eject the undercarriage after takeoff and land in New York Harbour on the fuselage. Nungesser painted the plane white and called it L’Oiseau Blanc (The White Bird), putting his trademark skull-and-crossbones-in-a-black-heart emblem on the side of the plane.
Nungesser and Coli took off from Le Bourget Field (they claimed they were flying the more difficult east-west direction out of patriotism, but the simple fact was that they had no money to transport the plane to New York) on May 8, 1927, Joan of Arc Day and the anniversary of the beginning of the flight of the NC boats. Candles were lit all over France and prayers were uttered in churches as the entire nation turned out to watch the plane fly over the coast of Normandy toward America.
The weather reports were discouraging—at Roosevelt Field, Clarence Chamberlin, engineer of the Wright engines, heard reports of Nungesser’s takeoff and of the weather over the Atlantic, and muttered, “I don’t see how Nungesser can make it.” A report was sent to Paris, resulting in a detailed front-page story, that Nungesser and Coli had landed safely near the Statue of Liberty. France erupted in joyous celebration, but the report proved false, which made the later disappointment even greater. The White Bird was never seen again, and it was all the U.S. State Department could do to dispel rumours that American weatherman had withheld weather information that would have delayed the flight. No part of the wreckage of the White Bird has ever been found.
Charles Lindbergh receiving the Orteig Prize from Raymond Orteig