The Transatlantic Air Race

[Dave Homewood]

I wonder if there was a documentary made about this. It sounds amazing, like The Cannonball Run of the air!! From the Press dated 5th of May 1969:

Transatlantic Race Begins

(N.Z.P. A. —Reuter— Copyright) LONDON, May 4.

The great Transatlantic air race started today when the niece of an air pioneer, Sir John Alcock, darted out of London’s Post Office tower headed for New York’s Empire State Building by tube, car, chartered flight, and helicopter.

But Miss Anne Alcock, aged 18, is not given much chance of winning the fastest time prize in the £60,000 contest organised by the “Daily Mail” to celebrate the transatlantic crossing of her uncle and Arthur Brown 50 years ago.

The reason is that Miss Alcock’s chartered flight does not leave until noon —about four hours after she officially started the race.,

Some 390 competitors are entered in the race which offers prizes amounting to £60,000, including awards for the fastest times in either direction and for the most colourful ways of getting there.

More than 100 entrants were scheduled to leave London today. Some, like Britain’s famed woman pilot, Miss Sheila Scott, plan to take their own planes, but most were to take scheduled flights. Among the others taking part today are the Olympic runner, Miss Mary Rand, who will specialise in sprinting from tube station to chartered plane, and the racing car driver, Stirling Moss.

Nineteen persons were scheduled to leave in the competition’s first hour. Miss Alcock was made a special licensed mail carrier before leaving today so that she could legally carry a letter from Britain’s Post-master-General (Mr John Stonehouse) to his American counterpart.

The Royal Navy is the odds-on favourite for the major prizes. It has entered three supersonic Phantom jets and seeks to set a new world’s point-to-point record between London and New York. The United States Air Force holds the record of five hours 20 minutes. It was set in 1958 by a Boeing KC135. The Navy’s planes will be refuelled in the air by Royal Air Force tanker aircraft.

Also In the race are the R.A.F.’s revolutionary Harrier “jump-jets.” Although considerably slower than the Phantom the Harrier’s vertical take-off and landing capability enables it to fly from the very heart of London and New York, thus saving valuable time. The Harriers are competing in both directions.

A New Zealander, Mr Neil Campbell Stevens, at present resident in Vancouver, Canada, is competing in the race. Mr Stevens will be flying a DH 82 Tiger Moth. The prototype of this aircraft first flew in 1931 and altogether 8300 of these planes were built, some of them in New Zealand and some in Canada. They were adopted by the Royal Air Force as an initial trainer and were still being used as such during the last war when they went out of production. The aircraft is fitted with a 130 h.p. Gypsy Major engine.

Extra fuel tanks will be fitted to Stevens’ aircraft to enable it to do a series of long hops from West to East. The animal kingdom has only one entrant competing against the Navy, Air Force, Olympic stars and the like— Tina, the chimp. The five-year-old chimpanzee, which stars in a British television commercial, is competing for the prize for the fastest time between New York and London in a subsonic plane.

[Dave Homewood]

There is more here including the results.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daily_Mail_Trans-Atlantic_Air_Race

[Dave Homewood]

Wow there is footage! I am amazed they chose a coal yard with the dust kicking up from the Wessex going all over the Harrier. What a trip, like a mini-Black Buck!



And it's still around!

[Dave Homewood]

Wow, this 23-minute documentary is utterly fantastic!! Such an exciting race and exciting film! I love it!



It's actually really like The Cannonball Run, or It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World! Does cool stuff like this ever happen these days in aviation anywhere?

[Dave Homewood]

Double Air Race Dash

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright) NEW YORK, May 7. :

A Massachusetts travel agent yesterday completed the first nonstop round trip from New York to London and back in the £60,000 transatlantic air race sponsored by the “Daily Mail”. Mr Vladimir Kazan, flying a single-engined Piper Comanche aircraft, left the Empire State Building about 8 a.m. local time on Sunday; and returned yesterday about 4 am., having stopped only for a cup of tea at the General Post Office tower in London and for four hours of sleep at Shannon Airport, in Ireland.

Mr Kazan, who is 45, made the first leg of his trip in 23 hours 35 minutes 58 seconds, the fastest time so far in the light-aircraft-male category. His return flight, including his four-hour respite at Shannon, took slightly longer—31 hours 32 minutes and 19 seconds. He was greeted on his return by Miss Sheila Scott, who had arrived the day before from London in her Piper Comanche. Miss Scott is the leading woman contender in the light-aircraft-female category, having recorded a time of 26 hours 54 minutes and 11 seconds from London to New York.

Miss Scott and Mr Kazan both followed the same flying pattern, keeping at an altitude of about 4000 feet and making refuelling stops in Shannon and Gander, Newfoundland.

A New Zealander, Mr Neil Campbell Stevens, suffered a set-back in New York yesterday when word was received from London that a friend had crashed his Tiger Moth while testing it and smashed its propeller. Mechanics are working to repair it, and Mr Stevens is reported to be hoping to set out today.

A 20-year-old British Army cadet tried to ignore a temperature of minus four degrees Fahrenheit in his nightmare crossing. After a 44-hour flight in which everything had gone wrong, Cadet David Wynne-Davis described it as “a fabulous experience.” Setting out from the Empire State Building on Monday, he expected to land his single-engined aircraft in England early yesterday, but in Reykjavik, Iceland, the aircraft was grounded for seven hours with generator trouble. Later the navigation and landing lights failed. The young contestant almost suffered from frostbite when the temperature inside the plane dropped to minus four degrees Fahrenheit.

“I was wearing plimsolls and thin trousers because I thought it would be good tactics for running round,” he said. “The heating equipment and generator failed soon after take-off from Greenland and my co-pilot and I soon began to feel the cold. We blocked up most of the ventilation holes, but it was very uncomfortable.” After leaving Iceland, bad weather forced them to land in Scotland, where they waited for an hour before continuing to London.

The smallest competitor in the race arrived in New York yesterday tired but elegant in a silver suit and matching shoes.

She is Tina, aged five, a 3ft tall West African chimpanzee and television personality on both sides of the Atlantic. Tina was unperturbed by a rousing welcome and a battery of flash bulbs as she reached the eighty-sixth floor of the Empire State Building to clock in with a time of nine hours 52 minutes. Tina had travelled to London Airport by Rolls-Royce, where she was bundled into the hold of a Super VC10 jetliner for the flight. At Kennedy Airport she rapidly dispatched six bananas and four cups of tea, served from a golden tea-pot, while the immigration authorities cleared her. After clearance she was raced to the Empire State Building in a chauffeur-driven limousine.

PRESS, 8 MAY 1969

[Dave Homewood]

R.N. Phantom Sets Record

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright) LONDON, May 8.

A Royal Navy jet made history yesterday by crossing the Atlantic in under five hours taking one of its crew to the lead in the transatlantic air race. The jet, a Royal Navy Phantom. took only four hours 53 minutes and 10 seconds to fly from Floyd Bennet field in New York to Wisley Airport, near London. It beat the previous point-to-point record set on Sunday by another Royal Navy Phantom in the race.

The first American-made Phantom did it in five hours, three minutes and 18 seconds, shattering an 11-year-old record.

Yesterday Lieutenant Hugh Drake took the lead in the race going from New York’s Empire State Building to London’s Post Office tower in five hours 19 minutes and 16 seconds.

He beat a passenger on the first Phantom, Lieutenant Paul Waterhouse, who had set the record of just over five and a half hours from tower to tower.

There is one more Phantom jet in New York. Lieutenant Drake said that given only reasonable weather the third Navy entry ought to do better than his record-breaking flight.

Among the other arrivals at the Post Office Tower yesterday was an American, Mr Ben Garcia, who had to come via a scheduled flight after Canadian authorities blocked his bid to fly his own plane over.

He said that had he been allowed to make his own flight, he would have taken a how-to-navigate book along with him.

“Doing is the best way of learning,” he said.

The New Zealander in the race, Mr Neil Campbell Stevens, was reported to be waiting in New York for favourable winds before setting out on his mammoth flight in a 1934 Tiger Moth. In one of the smallest planes to take part, Mr Stevens, aged 26, whose home is 15 Methuen Road, Avondale, Auckland, plans to fly via Newfoundland, Iceland, Greenland and Scotland to London. It will take him about 70 hours. The co-owner of the aircraft, Mr Robin Culpan, said that a mishap on Tuesday with the aircraft was not serious. “A friend of ours who was bringing the plane from Washington, where it had been modified, to New York had an accident on take-off,” he said. “The propeller was damaged,”

PRESS, 9 MAY 1969

[Dave Homewood]

Navy Phantom Sets Atlantic Record

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright)

LONDON, May 12.

The Royal Navy won in record time, a prince tore his pants, and an American entrant in the great transatlantic air race reached London in a “gay 90s” swimsuit and skis.

The week-long rush between the top of the General Post Office tower in London and the top of the Empire State Building in New York ended yesterday.

There was £60,000 in prizes for the winners in 21 categories, and a rich harvest of tall tales and publicity for the not-so-fast.

The Royal Navy waited until the last day for its best of three record-breaking efforts— 5 hours 11 minutes 22 seconds, by Lieutenant-Commander Peter Goddard, aged 32. The 4 hours 46 minutes and 57 seconds his Phantom supersonic jet was in the air was a record for a New York-to-London crossing, an average of 738 miles an hour.

A group of bowler-hatted British businessmen who flew to New York rushed back home with a prize and said they had also negotiated millions of dollars worth of export orders. “We’ve achieved more for British exports in five days than the Government has in five years,” said one of them.

Royal Loser
Among the losers was Prince Michael of Kent, aged 26, a cousin of Queen Elizabeth. The Prince was competing on a commercial airliner which was delayed for more than an hour at Kennedy Airport, New York. Prince Michael tore the seat of his white flannels on the door of the helicopter in which he completed his trip.

Mr Ben Garcia, the American transport contractor who switched to airliners after his light plane had crashed early in the race, arrived yesterday on his sixth unsuccessful try for a prize, dressed in a vintage swimming costume and skis screwed on to roller skates on his feet.

Like the Royal Navy winner, a Royal Air Force entrant, Squadron Leader Thomas Lecky-Thompson, has won £6000 for his time of 6 hours 11 minutes 57.15 seconds, recorded on the reverse leg in a vertical take-off Harrier jet.

Miss Nancy Kelly, of New York, won the £1000 prize in the women’s light plane section, having flown from New York to London in 22 hours 31 minutes and 57 seconds; and Miss Sheila Scott, of Britain, also won £1000 in the same section for her time of 26 hours 34 minutes and one second from London to New York.

In the men’s light aircraft section, Mr S. Wilkinson, of Florida, took the £1000 prize for his time of 20 hours 23 minutes and 31 seconds from London to New York. Miss S. M. Scribner, of New York, was first in the section for unsponsored personal entrants on the New York-to-London leg, with a time of six hours 55 minutes 48.43 seconds, and will receive £2500.

Mr W. Selph, of Sandy Hook, Connecticut, won the £4000 prize in the sub-sonic aircraft section from London to New York, with seven hours six minutes 24.47 seconds.

A New Zealander, Mr Neil Campbell Stevens, who now lives in Vancouver, reached the General Post Office tower in London last night 108 hours 14 minutes and 38.67 seconds after leaving the Empire State Building, New York, last Wednesday. Mr Stevens had planned to fly to London in his 1934 Tiger Moth from Monckton, New Brunswick, but a series of mishaps forced him to take a scheduled B.O.A.C. flight from Montreal last night to Scotland. However, he did reach London in a Tiger Moth, borrowed from a member of the Royal Aero Club. “I’m going to stay in London for about three weeks, and then I'm going back to Monckton to repair the plane and have another go at the flight,” Mr Stevens said today.

Renovating old aircraft is now the full-time occupation of this former Royal New Zealand Air Force and Trans-Australia Airline pilot. He has so far bought three old Tiger Moths from New Zealand and Australia for resale in America, where they fetch between $US5000 and $US6000.

PRESS, 13 MAY 1969

[errolmartyn]

The New Zealander in the race, Mr Neil Campbell Stevens, was reported to be waiting in New York for favourable winds before setting out on his mammoth flight in a 1934 Tiger Moth. In one of the smallest planes to take part, Mr Stevens, aged 26, whose home is 15 Methuen Road, Avondale, Auckland, plans to fly via Newfoundland, Iceland, Greenland and Scotland to London. It will take him about 70 hours. The co-owner of the aircraft, Mr Robin Culpan, said that a mishap on Tuesday with the aircraft was not serious. “A friend of ours who was bringing the plane from Washington, where it had been modified, to New York had an accident on take-off,” he said. “The propeller was damaged,”

PRESS, 9 MAY 1969

Stevens, along with his passenger Miss Ann Whitworth, was killed in a flying accident to Piper Navajo Chieftain N54357 at Whitianga on 2 Sep 74. A newspaper report at the time described them as being 'from Guernsey, England'. Stevens had about 3000 flying hours to his credit at the time. He held ratings on various Piper types and Beech 318, and Argosy.

Errol

[Dave Homewood]

Oh that is sad. I discovered that he was in a car accident while in the RNZAF in 1964, too.

paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/CHP19641013.2.6

I wonder how many Tiger Moths he ended up restoring in the end. Flying one across the Atlantic would have been an epic trip. Has anyone else ever achieved that? Did he succeed later?

[oj]

What about the Lockheed Blackbird? Whay year did it "publicly" break the record?

[Dave Homewood]

That was set five years later in 1974, OJ.

www.wired.com/2010/09/0901sr-71-blackbird-transatlantic-record/#:~:text=Noel%20Widdifield%20fly%20the%20Lockheed,record%20between%20the%20two%20cities.

[Chelsea57986]

In kind of the same ilk I have a book call Race across the World by John Smailes. It is the story of the 1968 London to Sydney marathon (in cars, and before you ask they shipped them to Perth from Mumbai). A riveting book about a race run on public roads that had controversy right till the last.

Look it up, a good read of something in the same ilk.

[Dave Homewood]

I was told last night there is actually a book about this 1969 Transatlantic Air Race, too.

[Chelsea57986]

Mar 16, 2022 16:37:42 GMT 12 Dave Homewood said:

I was told last night there is actually a book about this 1969 Transatlantic Air Race, too.

I imagine it would be a good read.

[Dave Homewood]

Thanks to Kevin Smith who kindly sent me a scan of the cover of his copy of the book, which he received for Christmas in 1970.