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Show STARTS FLIGHT British Pilot and American Ameri-can Navigator to Cross Atlantic. LEAVE ST. JOHNS 1 Will Attempt to Win Daily Mail's $50,000 Prize. I ST JOHN'S. N. F, June 14. The1 Vickers-Vimy biplane started on its trans-Atlantic flight at 4.13 o'clock! this afternoon, Greenwich time. Tho Vickers-Vimy machine carried two men. Captain Jack Alcock. a Erlt-isber, Erlt-isber, as pilot, and Lieutenant Artuur Whitten Brown, an American, as navigator. navi-gator. The Vickers-Vimy machine which -tai led on a trans Atlantic flight todav has a Wing spread of only 67 feet and j is equipped With tWO ?.') hOTSCpOWer Rolls-Royce motors, said to be capable of developing a speed of more than oe hundred miles an hour. The capacity' of the gasolene tanks was recently en-larged en-larged to 865 gallons and the lubricating lubricat-ing oil tanks to .' gallons, which i believed be-lieved sufficient to carry the plane 224 miles unde r normal weather con e;itons A wireless telegraph set cap-. cap-. ble of sending and receiving messages mes-sages over comparatively long distances dis-tances is part of the plane's equin ment. Captain Jack Alcock, the pilot, was among the British ptoneers in aviation He obtained his flying certificate in 1912 and joined the Royal Naval Mr Ice Immi dlatel upon the outbreak of the war He acted as an instructor instruc-tor at first, but was later sent to the Turkish front, where he held the r -c -ord lor long distance bombing raids. He was later captured by the Turks and held prisoner until the armistice I was signed I Life Saving Parachutes. LONDON, Friday, June 18. (British (Brit-ish Wireless Service.) Compulsory fitting of life-saving parachutes to all airplanes of the Royal Air Force has been decided upon by the government and instructions to this effect will be issued soon by the air council Wh ih er the order will be applicable also to British 1 ommc rcial airc raft has not yet been decided, but it is probable that j training machines at least will be com-i pelled t" carry some form of life saving sav-ing appliances. |