THE ATLANTIC CONTEST

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 201, 20 May 1919, Page 4

THE ATLANTIC CONTEST

To-day's messages show jthat British H. G. Hawker ancl Lieutenant-Commander Mackenzie, Grieve—are still -well fn the running for the honour of being first to fly the Atlantic. At the moment of' writing the position disclosed is that Hawker and his companion set out from Newfoundland at 1.55 p.m. on Sunday, while the American seaplane which has reached the Azores was not expected to resume its journey until yesterday. Probably, therefore, the British airmen left Newfoundland something like fifteen hours before the Americans left the Azores. According to particulars recently published in the Daily Mail, Hawker is attempting an unbroken flight of about 1900 miles right across $he Atlantic, from St. John's, Newfoundland, to the south-west coast of Ireland. His machine, a Sopwith aeroplane, driven by engines of 375 horse-power, is capable of doing one hundred miles per hour. Assuming a start of fifteen hours or more it is therefore possible that Hawker and his companion may travorse the breadth of the Atlantic before the American seaplane completes tho next stage of its journey from the Azores to Portugal. The British aviators .are attempting a greater feat than their American competitors, and a much greater one than the American seaplane .N.O. 4 has thus far compassed—a continuous' flight right across the Atlantic of 1900 miles as against the journey of about K'OO miles in which N.C. 4 reached the Azores. The conditions of the British enterprise' are such that news of its success or failure .is bound to arrivo very shortly.