Re: Airplanes - Engines - Aircraft Testing Field

Posted by JWL On 2019/12/5 11:35:45

In 1919 the Navy mounted a mission to fly a squadron of four airplanes across the Atlantic. The aircraft were Curtiss NCs (Navy Curtiss) and were powered by Packard-built Liberty engines. Only one of the squadron completed the crossing, NC-4. The first crossing of the Atlantic by an aircraft.

The engineering officer on that airplane was James Breese. Later on, Breese settled in Santa Fe and established a business making controllers for oil burners used to provide heat to homes and businesses. He was a customer of my father because of the respect he had for the engines that carried him and crew across the ocean.

NC-4 survives and is on display at the Navy's air museum in Pensacola, Florida.