Pilots to Re-Enact First Transatlantic Flight

June 16, 2005 — -- Ask 10 friends who was first to fly across the Atlantic, and chances are the most common answer will be Charles Lindbergh.

In fact, he was beaten by eight years. John Alcock and Arthur Whitten Brown, two British pilots, made the first nonstop flight, from Newfoundland to Ireland, in June 1919.

"We came across the Atlantic in 16 hours," Brown said years later, "but it wasn't a pleasant trip."

From their description, it was horrific. They got lost in sleet and darkness. They became disoriented and went spinning toward the ocean more than once.

They flew upside down at times. They crashed on landing. But the world fell in love with them.

"We had fog nearly all the way across," Brown said. "I saw the sky once, for long enough to fix our position by the stars."

Now, 86 years later, a group of dreamers is trying to retrace the steps of those two pioneers. They have built a copy of the Vickers Vimy biplane flown by Alcock and Brown and are waiting at the airport in St. John's, Newfoundland, planning to take off as soon as the weather cooperates.

The pilot is a man familiar to many Americans: Steve Fossett, the millionaire adventurer who flew around the world nonstop in a hot-air balloon earlier this year. But this project was masterminded by a California businessman named Peter McMillan. He cobbled together the resources to build the Vickers Vimy replica, saying a long-ago mission is relevant to the modern day.

"It really sent a signal to the world that ultimately airplanes would make it a smaller place," McMillan said.

"It's a pilot's challenge," said Fossett at a stop in Toronto on the way to Newfoundland. "This is flying airplanes the way they used to be flown."