The Big Hop: The First Nonstop Flight Across the Atlantic Ocean and Into the Future

In this lively account, historian Rooney (About Time) explains that aeronautic technology made major leaps forward during WWI, propelling the nascent industry into the forefront of the postwar public’s imagination. Nearly a decade before Charles Lindbergh’s solo flight, this taste for aerial adventure reached a little-remembered crescendo with the race to become the first to fly nonstop across the Atlantic. In 1919, three teams of aviators took off from Newfoundland in an attempt to conquer the “Big Hop.” Newspapers around the world reported on the contest, fueled by a £10,000 prize (nearly $400,000 today) offered by London’s Daily Mail. Anxious for publicity, British aviation companies pushed pilots and navigators to enter the race, despite the dangers of their still rickety products. In open cockpit biplanes, the teams flew more than 2,000 miles through blinding fog, rain, snow, and treacherous winds. Only one made it: the first to embark, a converted Vickers Vimy bomber flown by Jack Alcock and Ted Brown. The second team ditched in the ocean halfway across; the third crashed—twice—during takeoffs; a fourth never left, having learned of the arrival of Alcock and Brown—who themselves nearly died during an out-of-control 5,000-ft. descent that they pulled out of a mere 50 feet above the water. Rendered in Rooney’s graceful prose, this makes for a breathtaking tale of bravery, perseverance, and fortune. (June)