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Wright-Bellanca monoplane was sold to the Columbia Aircraft Corporation of New York which had been recently organized by wealthy New Yorker Charles Levine who intended to use it to establish new record flight attempts.
  April 12th, 1927 Clarence Chamberlin and Bert Acosta took off from Roosevelt Field flying the W-B 2 on an endurance flight that established a new world record of 51 hours, 11 minutes, landing on April 14th, to surpass the former record by 6 hours.  Encouraged by the new endurance record, Levine decided to enter the plane in the 425,000 Orteig prize contest for the first non-stop flight from New York to Paris, France.  Levine's daughter christened the Plane THE COLUMBIA during a small ceremony at Curtiss Field, Gsrden City, Long Island.  There is evidence that Bellanca probably assisted in the preparations for this flight but Charles Lindberg took off first in May 20th, 1927, reached Paris successfully and won the prize.
  Undaunted, Levine decided to better Lindberg's flight by flying a greater distance, and with a passenger.  Accordingly, the Columbia Bellanca monoplane with Wright J-5 engine took off on an Atlantic flight June 4th, 1927 with Clarence Chamberlin flying and Levine as passenger, destination Berlin, Germany.  On June 5th they were forced down, out of fuel, near Eisleben, Germany, after flying 3,930 miles in 42 hours.  20 gallons of benzol was obtained and they took off for Berlin but had been misinformed about directions so were forced down, again out of fuel, near Kottbus.  Unfortunately they landed in soft ground, the wheels sank in, causing the plane to stand in its nose and damaging the propeller.  Since a new prop was required the flyers did not reach Berlin until June 7th where a warm reception awaited them.  After flying visits to several European cities they sailed for home and arrived in New York on July 18th.
  The exceptional performances of the Columbia won financial backing for Bellanca to form The Bellanca Aircraft Corporation, which at first operated in some abandoned shipyard buildings at Arlington, Staten Island, New York where he soon had orders for planes to keep his facilities busy for months, many fully paid in advance.
  During that year the duPonts decided to enter aviation and approached Bellanca about taking over his business with the possibility of a new factory and flying field at New Castle, Delaware.  Bellanca agreed and the expansion move got under

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