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First Attempt Made Twenty Years Ago To Fly Atlantic Ocean With Dirigible

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The dirigible America (above) challenged the Atlantic in 1910 with a crew headed by Walter Wellman (left). The craft was rescued (below) at sea by the mail steamer Trent on the fourth day out after a perilous voyage at an average speed of twelve miles per hour.
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ATLANTIC CITY, Nov. 13. (AP)-Dimmed by the passing years, man's first attempt to fly the Atlantic was recalled October 15 on the twentieth anniversary of the take-off. The flight was made in the dirigible America, starting at Atlantic City and terminating 1000 miles at sea, October 18, 1910, when the crew of six forsook their craft for the royal mail steamer Trent.

It was nine years later that the ocean was conquered by navy fliers in the NC-4 and Capt. John Alcock and Lieut. Arthur W. Brown, first to span the water non-stop.

Members Of Crew

Walter Wellman, veteran explorer and newspaper man, headed the America's crew which included Melvin Vaniman, chief engineer; P.M. Simons, navigator; J.K. Irwin, wireless operator; A.L. Loud and Jean Aubert, assistant engineers, and a kitten as mascot.
Their craft, a far cry from today's monster air liners, was made of silk and cotton gummed together to form a cigar-bag 228 feet long and fifty-two feet in diameter.

Carried Long Cable

On the under side was a car 156 feet long in the bottom of which was a seventy-five foot steel tank for gasoline. Below it was hung a life-boat used in flight as sleeping quarters.

Suspended from the rigid bag was a novel device called the equilibrator, 300 feet of steel cable from which dangled thirty steel tanks filled with gasoline and a "rat tail" of forty wooden blocks.

This device, dragging in the water, was thought vital to successful flight but Wellman, after the rescue at sea, branded it as "the fatal mistake of the venture."

The equilibrator was believed necessary to ground the wireless to maintain the ship on even keel and to lighten the load when gas seeped from the envelope or shank in cool air.

Rescued By Ship

Starting from Atlantic City, powered by two engines of eighty horsepower each, the ship averaged twelve miles an hour, though it had a maximum speed of twenty-six miles an hour and for three days zig-zagged towards Europe until the dangling equilibrator, tossed by the waves, gave promise of tearing the America asunder.

At dawn the fourth day the Trent was sighted and signalled to stand by. The America was maneuvered close to the ship. The lifeboat was dropped and was nearly capsized by the thrashing equilibrator.

Crew Transferred

The crew was transferred. The dirigible, free of the weight, mounted the skies as an aerial derelict, and was lost at sea.

Wellman, now nearing his 72nd birthday, lives in New York. Vaniman, undaunted by the first failure, built the Akron, and was killed July 2, 1912, when it exploded over the Atlantic on a test flight.

Of the rest Wellman has no definite knowledge. Irwin, he believes, is in the naval service, Aubert in Los Angeles, Loud untraced and Simons, and Englishman, is somewhere in Great Britain.