The Big Hop by David Rooney: How the Mail got Atlantic air travel off the ground

For travellers today, a flight across the Atlantic is routine, perhaps even a chore. But just over a hundred years ago, when powered flight was still in its infancy, it was far from clear that such an undertaking would even be possible.

Aviation was very much a minority activity pursued by a few intrepid souls, possibly due to crashes being more commonplace.

Aeroplanes were flimsy crates, cobbled together from wood and fabric. They looked as though they would struggle to safely make it from one side of a paddling pool to the other, let alone fly non-stop for almost 2,000 miles over the Atlantic.

But in 1909, the Frenchman Louis Bleriot piloted the first aeroplane to cross from continental Europe to England, winning a prize of £1,000 from the Daily Mail. Alfred Harmsworth – Lord Northcliffe, the energetic founder and proprietor of the Mail – had been interested in flight for some time; he was alert to the possible military threat it presented but frustrated by the British government’s apparent inability to see the danger.

One aviator recalled: ‘The official and social world considered the aeroplane a toy, aviators reckless madmen, and any married man who left the ground a sort of criminal.’

Northcliffe thought differently and had been offering a series of prizes for various aviation feats, so as to stimulate British airmanship and plane construction. In 1913, the Mail announced a prize of £10,000 (the equivalent of £1million today) for the first flight across the Atlantic Ocean and there was a great deal of interest.

Preparations were interrupted by the First World War but resumed after it.

Much of historian David Rooney’s excellent book about ‘the Big Hop’, as American newspapers called it, consists of colourful biographical sketches of the aviators who took part in the competition and thrilling accounts of their efforts, but he’s also very good on the challenges faced and the historical context. And there are some fabulous photographs.

The shortest route across the ocean was from Newfoundland, the easternmost land in North America, to Ireland’s west coast, and flying from west to east took advantage of the prevailing westerly wind, which would have an impact on speed, fuel, consumption and flight duration.

In 1919, four teams from Sopwith, Martinsyde, Vickers and Handley Page sailed to Newfoundland with their disassembled aircraft packed in crates.

The contest was entered in a spirit of friendly competition. The rival aviators dined together, went to the cinema together, played cards together. They were also almost stereotypically decent chaps.

After a successful test flight, one pilot cabled London with the message: ‘Machine absolutely top-hole.’

They set off on their epic, gruelling journey with lucky mascots in their cockpits – open to the elements – and wrapped sandwiches in their pockets.

Suffice to say that there is the most extraordinary drama and jaw-dropping bravery. The New York Times wrote that ‘none but men with hearts of oak would take the risks they take’.

The Mail threw a party at The Savoy for the winning pilot and navigator – Captain John Alcock and Lieutenant Arthur Whitten Brown.

It was attended by more than 300 guests. Winston Churchill, then secretary of state for war and air, presented the prize and announced that the men were to be knighted.

Earlier, one newspaper had published an assessment of the heroic failure of another team but its rousing words could equally be applied to the whole endeavour: ‘How pitiful our daily precautions, our comfortable provisions against penury and old age, our damnable prudence, in the light of such a spirit as was in these men. They have not glorified a country; they have enriched mankind.’