by Alec Brew
In 1927 Courtney attempted an East – West crossing of the Atlantic, trying to attract the interest of major shipping companies in the use of flying boats for high-speed mail and parcel carriage.
He had already been involved in one attempt at a transatlantic crossing, but in the opposite direction. After the War many of the major aircraft manufacturers had turned their attention to the pre-war Daily Mail prize of £10,000, offered for the first non-stop flight across the Atlantic, which had been held in abeyance during the War years. One of those interested in winning both the money and the prestige was Boulton & Paul Ltd of Norwich.
The company set about converting its P7 Bourges bomber into an airliner suitable for making the first West – East crossing. The revised aircraft was designated the P8 Atlantic and construction of it was well underway in the first months of 1919, the company being aware that rival manufacturers like Sopwith, Martinsyde, Vickers, Handley Page and Short Bros were also preparing aircraft.
17. Captain Frank Courtney (second left) about to test-fly the Boulton & Paul Bolton at Mousehold Aerodrome, Norwich, in 1922. The chief engineer of Boulton & Paul, JD North is hatless with his hands on his hips.
The volume of the P7 fuselage was increased by building up a fairing on the upper surface until it was flush with the upper wing, giving the fuselage an overall depth of 6 feet 6 inches. The central portion of this was filled with fuel tanks for the Atlantic flight, with a cabin for a navigator and second pilot at the forward end. The pilot was given a fully enclosed canopy, a very advanced feature of the day, and the power was provided by two 450 hp Napier Lion engines mounted on the lower wings. These gave sufficient power to enable the aircraft to maintain height after an engine failure (or half engine power) after two hours of fuel had been used up, a safety feature with which the other contenders were not blessed.
Frank Courtney was booked to make the first flight of the P8 Atlantic, but he was not to make the Atlantic flight itself. Major K Savory was to be the first pilot for that, Captain AL Howarth the second pilot, and Captain JH Woolner the Navigator. With the Sopwith and Martinsyde contenders for the Daily Mail prize already in Newfoundland, time was in short supply, and when the P8 Atlantic was ready for its first flight, in April 1919, things were rushed.
A number of dignitaries had come down from London to view the first flight, and they were anxious to catch a train back as preparations for the flight went ahead. Courtney and the aircraft’s mechanic, Cecil Browne, who would also be on the flight, were urged to get a move on. Yielding to the pressure, Courtney ran up the two engines individually but neglected to run them up together. As the aircraft roared into the air for the first time, at Norwich’s Mousehold Airport, a fuel-flow problem, which would have been revealed by running the engines up together, caused one of the Lions to suddenly cut, and the Atlantic crashed. Both Courtney and Browne emerged unscathed from the broken nose of the aircraft, relieved, but much wiser men. It is not recorded whether the dignitaries did in fact manage to catch their train.
18. The Boulton & Paul P8 Atlantic just before its first flight at Mousehold, in 1919.
19. The Boulton & Paul Atlantic after its first flight take-off crash.
Four aircraft actually attempted the Atlantic flight, Harry Hawker ditching his Sopwith Atlantic halfway across; the Martinsyde Raymor crashing on take-off from Newfoundland; and the Short Shamrock ditching 12 miles out from Holyhead on the way to start an East – West attempt from the Curragh. It only remained for the Vickers Vimy of Alcock and Brown to carve their names in the annals of aviation history by making the first successful non-stop crossing.
The aircraft Courtney chose for his East – West crossing was the twin-engined Dornier Wal flying boat, fitted with Napier Lion engines. The Wal was a monoplane, more normally fitted with 300 hp Hispano-Suiza or 360 hp Rolls-Royce Eagle engines, carried in tandem in a nacelle above the 103.2 feet span wing, which itself was supported on struts well above the fuselage. Dispensing with wing-tip floats the Wal was fitted with Dornier’s well-known sponsons, which projected from the fuselage sides, and bestowed excellent sea-keeping qualities on the design.
20. Courtney flying his first Wal, G-EBQO, named Whale, the aircraft that the Amundsen/Ellsworth Expedition had forced-landed on the ice. It was reconditioned by the Dornier company before being sold to Courtney.
Before Courtney’s first attempt the Dornier Wal had already been used in four transatlantic attempts. The first was in April 1924, when an Italian team of Lieutenants Antonio Locatelli, V Crossio, C Marescalchi and Rissili had set out in an Italian-built Wal from Pisa in an attempt to make the first East – West crossing by a heavier-than-air aircraft. They flew via Marseilles, Lausanne, Strasbourg, Rotterdam, Brough and Reykjavik in Iceland where they caught up with the American team of Douglas World Cruisers, which was in the process of making the first round-the-world flight, in easy stages.
They agreed to fly in company with the Americans to Greenland, but after take-off it soon became clear that the Dornier was too fast to stay with the slow Douglas seaplanes, and Locatelli sped on. He flew into very bad weather and decided to land on the sea, about 200 miles east of Cape Farewell, to wait it out.
Force-landing a flying boat on the open ocean, even one as sturdy as the Dornier Wal, is always a risky business, and Locatelli and his crew were soon aware that they had made a mistake. The seas began to pound his aircraft to pieces, and it was soon unable to take off. They drifted helplessly, hoping for rescue, and once they were overdue a search was initiated. Two American cruisers, Richmond and Raleigh, searched 12,000 square miles of ocean, and on the third day a light was spotted by Richmond from a distance of about 10 miles. The four men were taken on board the warship, but the flying boat could not be salvaged. It was set on fire, sinking shortly afterwards.
In 1926 another Wal was prepared to fly the Atlantic, also east to west. The pilot was Ramon Franco, whose brother General Francisco Franco would later achieve much greater fame. His crew were Captain Julio Ruiz de Alda and Pablo Rada. On 22 January they took off from Huelva, near to where Columbus had departed and headed for the Canaries. They were delayed at Las Palmas until 26 January when they took off for the Cape Verde Islands. From there they flew to the island of Fernando de Noronha, 540 km from the Brazilian coast. They landed by a ship 20 miles short and taxied the rest of the way. On 31 January they completed the first crossing of the South Atlantic by aviators using the same aircraft all the way.
In 1927 there were to be two more attempted crossings in Dornier Wals before Frank Courtney’s. A Uruguyan team of Larre Borges and Captain Ibara in a Wal with two 500 hp Farman engines left Pisa on 20 February 1927, on the first stage of a round-the-world attempt. They flew via Alicante and Casablanca, but on the way to Agadir, on the Morrocan coast, a broken oil pipe caused them to attempt a forced landing. They came down in a trough of the waves, were hit broadside on and the Wal was carried onto the beach where it was smashed.
The following month the Portuguese crew of Sarmento Beires, Jorge de Castilho, Manuel Gouveia and Dovalle Portugal, left Lisbon on 3 March, in a Wal powered by two 450 hp Lorraine-Dietrich engines. They flew via Casablanca, Villa Cisneros and Portuguese Guinea, where they had difficulty getting off the water with a full load. They finally got away on 11 March, and crossed to Brazil with a stop at Fernando de Noronha.
Frank Courtney’s 1927 attempt was organised with undue haste, which was soon to show. After flying for nearly 1000 miles from Plymouth towards the Azores, Courtney was forced to turn back to Lisbon, because of failing equipment. He had to abandon the attempt until the following year. There had now been five attempted Atlantic crossings using Dornier Wals, two had succeeded and three had failed, two after disastrous forced landings. The adverse odds did not deter Frank Courtney, however.
His second attempt in 1928 was a better organised affair, bankrolled by a wealthy Canadian named Elwood Hosmer, who insisted on going along on the flight, nominally serving as steward. A brand new D
ornier Wal was purchased from the factory, which had been established at Pisa in Italy to bypass restrictions on German aircraft production. A Canadian registration was obtained, G-CAJI. The Napier company again loaned him two Lion engines, and the Marconi Company provided the radio equipment.
There were to be two other crew members, Hugh Gilmour, an experienced marine radio operator from Marconi, and a flight mechanic named Fred Pierce. The flight would be directly from Pisa to Lisbon, where Gilmour would join, and then via the Azores to Newfoundland.
A preliminary flight test revealed a major problem, the signals from the radio direction finder (DF) could not be heard above the sound of the engine ignition noise. After a great deal of head scratching, a simple but ridiculous solution was adopted. Courtney would throttle back the engines to idle, and glide the flying boat while the radio operator took his bearing, it being found possible to do this against the small amount of interference remaining.
With this problem solved they were ready to go, and left Pisa in mid-June for the thirteen-hour flight to Lisbon. Here they waited for Gilmour who, when he finally arrived, announced that he had never been in an aircraft before! Flying the Atlantic on your first flight might not be unusual these days, but in 1928 it was extraordinary. However, Gilmour was only concerned with the quality of the radio equipment, and did not seem at all concerned that he might be one of the first crew to fly the Atlantic on the Azores route, east to west. Nevertheless, he was given a few practice flights to familiarise himself with the use of the equipment in the air, and in particular the eccentric direction-finding procedure.
21. Courtney’s second Dornier Wal, G-CAJI, at Pisa, ready to start its flight to America, via Lisbon. Courtney is standing in the cockpit.
Finally, they left Lisbon early on 28 June and set course for the Azores, cruising at 10,000 feet. Everything went well, even the direction-finding, with regular bearings being taken on the station at São Miguel island. After a flight of thirteen hours they landed in Horta harbour, hoping to continue to Newfoundland after refuelling. Unfortunately, two problems arose, firstly two wires in the DF loop had come adrift, and the constant-speed drive of the air-driven transmitting generator had broken. Obtaining a replacement by ship would take weeks, so they set about making one with the primitive facilities that were available. After three weeks of trial and error they finally made one that did not fail, and were able to continue their journey.
They left Horta early in the morning against a moderate headwind, but beyond the islands of Flores and Corvo the wind strengthened. Gilmour managed to raise a ship about 400 miles ahead of them, which was buffeting through a 35 mph westerly gale with the barometer falling rapidly. With the elements against him Courtney turned back, and sped back to Horta in half the time, landing wearily after a twelve-hour flight.
He decided in the light of that experience that an evening take-off would be preferable, so that they would definitely arrive in Newfoundland in daylight. On 1 August at 5 pm they took off again on what was to be G-CAJI’s last flight. At 6.30 pm they passed Flores and Corvo once more, with the sun setting behind ominously black clouds on the horizon ahead.
Courtney had never flown the Dornier at night or in a thunderstorm, but he was confident of his abilities. He told his crew to fix down everything they could, fasten their seat belts and hold on tight. He flew into the storm at 1500 feet, low enough, he hoped, to avoid the worst of the updrafts, but far enough above the stormy waters to give him a margin of error.
The storm was a violent one, with torrential rain and occasional hail battering the aircraft. There was almost continuous lightning, and the altimeter showed several hundred feet of height changes. Concentrating on the Reid turn indicator to try and keep the Dornier level, against the abrupt changes of attitude, Courtney found the big flying boat as easy to fly in such conditions as he might have hoped. He settled down for a long battle against the elements, which in fact went on for two hours.
They then emerged from the storm, beneath an overcast sky. Courtney told Gilmour to wind out his aerial and to start searching for Newfoundland stations. It was just before midnight, and they were eight hours into the flight, just over half the distance to their destination. With no warning, disaster struck.
Suddenly, one of the Lions began backfiring, and then there was an orange glow on the windscreen. Pierce shouted that the rear engine was on fire. Courtney looked back and all he could see was the terrifying sight of a flood of burning fuel pouring from the rear engine, and a long trail of black smoke and fiery sparks. Courtney cut the switches and put the nose down. He headed for the safety of the surface of the sea, in a dive as steep as he dared, hoping he could pull out once he could see its surface.
Pierce remembered that the only cut-off for the gravity tank was up in the nacelle, and with the propellers still turning, fuel was still being pumped into the flames. He struggled out onto the aircraft’s hull, and reached up into the small access hole between the two engines. He was still desperately turning off the fuel cock, buffeted by the slipstream, when they hit the water. Gilmour had rapidly wound the aerial back in and sat philosophically waiting the worst. Hosmer had a small cabin right beneath the blazing engine. He stayed there, out of the way, as long as he could, but the raging heat had soon driven him forward.
Courtney had seen the surface when they were at about 200 feet, and skimmed the breakers, which were glowing red from the flames of the burning aircraft swooping over them. With hard left rudder he set the flying boat down, expecting a fierce crunch, but the hull slid quietly onto the water. Before he could breathe a sigh of relief they ran right into a huge wave, which brought them to a halt with a shattering crash.
There was no time to congratulate themselves for their safe arrival on the sea. The flames that had been trailing aft were now playing around the engine nacelle, consuming odd pools of fuel and threatening to explode the ten main fuel tanks below. Pierce squirted their little 2-pound fire extinguisher into the flames, with no visible effect. Then all they could do was cling to the outside of the hull, drenched in spray, waiting for the explosion. They felt utterly helpless, but after ten minutes or so the flames died down. Pierce’s incredibly courageous act in turning off the fuel cocks had probably saved them.
Courtney returned to the controls, and began sailing the flying boat into the wind using the rudder and ailerons, while Pierce and Gilmour launched their sea-anchor. They rode out the rest of the night, the sea-anchor keeping them into the wind, and the steady sea-keeping qualities of the Dornier’s sponsons keeping them upright.
22. The burnt-out Napier Lion engine of the Wal, photographed in mid-Atlantic, while the crew were awaiting rescue.
At dawn they decided to try and take-off using the forward engine. Courtney started the remaining Lion and opened the throttle to try a test run. If everything went well, they would then jettison some fuel and take-off. No sooner had the aircraft began moving than Pierce shouted in alarm. The damaged engine was rocking so badly it was threatening to fall from its damaged mountings and through the hull. Courtney quickly switched off the engine, and they resumed floating, Gilmour sending out distress signals.
Their first SOS had been picked up by the liner Cedric, which organised communications with other shipping, and the Shell tanker Achatina and other ships headed for them. At 4 pm the German liner Columbus reached the position they had broadcast, but the wind and Gulf Stream had by then carried them miles away. Worst still, their small battery was by now nearly dead, so that they could no longer send signals. All they could do was sit tight and hope one of the ships would find them.
It was growing dusk when the liner SS Minnewaska sailed into view, and they were taken on board with their small bag of mail. There was no means of salvaging the Dornier, so that was left to drift in mid-Atlantic. Four days later they arrived in New York, and were surprised to be greeted with a hero’s welcome.
Even G-CAJI made it across the ocean. The Italian freighter Valprato came across it a
nd took it on board. Two days later it docked in Montreal. Unfortunately, the aircraft’s structure had been so damaged when the freighter’s crew had lifted it, that it was a write-off. At least Napier got their engines back, one rather damaged. They discovered that the fire had been caused by a backfire igniting fuel leaking from a copper fuel line crystalised through vibration.
23. The SS Minnewaska arriving to rescue Courtney and the Wal’s crew.
24. TheMinnewaska’slifeboat approachingthe Wal, which hadbeen drifting for19 hours.
Elwood Hosmer, who had bought the aircraft, and very nearly lost his life, proclaimed that he had never had so much fun! Frank Courtney, his services soon no longer required as a freelance test pilot because companies such as Armstrong Whitworth and Boulton & Paul took on full-time test pilots, moved to the United States. He continued a distinguished career there, most notably concerned with the airline use of flying boats, and as a World War Two ferry pilot.
He was to fly the Atlantic many times, in both directions, and later went on to work for Convair. He finally retired to La Jolla, California, when he was 65 years old, after 43 years in the aircraft business. Dornier Wal flying boats were also to make many more Atlantic crossings, pioneering Lufthansa, services which featured mid-Atlantic refuelling points and even catapult launches from ships.
