From hot air balloons to gliders.

From a world of muscle and wind power to the world of mechanical “muscles” powered by oil.

 

Deadalus & Icarus

And Greek mythology

The origins of the signs of this aspiration go back to the time of the mythical King Minos and the Minoan civilisation, centred around the year 2000 BC, on the Mediterranean island of Crete and the surrounding area. Minos had commissioned Deadalus to design a labyrinth to contain the Minotaur. To prevent the knowledge of this labyrinth from spreading, the king locked Deadalus in a prison-tower, together with his son Icarus.

Given the sea and land surveillance set up by Minos, Daedalus could not leave Crete by sea or land. The only option was going by air. For that reason, holding an unmatched genius, he used bird feathers and wax to make two pairs of wings to fly: one for himself and the other for his young son Icarus.

 

The wings he created proved to be effective but, despite his father’s warnings, Icarus’ unmeasured ambition, trying to get closer to the Sun, melted the wax that glued the feathers together and so he had a tragic fall, near the island now known as Icaria.

Some consider this story to be an allegory, parallel to that of the Creation in the Old Testament. It would encourage prior and careful evaluation of the long-term consequences of human inventions and actions.

 

Balloon / Aerostat 1709 Bartolomeu de Gusmão

Image of Bartolomeu de Gusmão, Portuguese Jesuit priest, born in the colony of Brazil, presenting the prototype of the aerostat (balloon) to the court of King John V.

The event took place between August and October 1709.

This monarch, the promoter of the construction of the Mafra Palace, was the son of Peter II (at the time of the Methuen Treaty) and father of José I.

A “patent request” was made to the King but, apparently, through the influence of third parties or his own disinterest, it was not granted.

 

Painting of the Brazilian Bernardino de Souza Pereira – Paulista Museum.

 

Alberto Santos Dumont

Brazilian aeronaut and inventor

Alberto Santos Dumont was a key figure in aerostation and aeronautics. In 1898 he moved to Paris and became deeply involved in this world. That same year he had his first airship built: the No 1. Following a series of experiments, some more successful than others, with various dirigible balloons, Santos Dumont gained immense world fame when he won the prize of 100,000 francs offered by the French oil magnate, Henri Deutsch de La Meurthe, on 19th October 1901. The prize was promised to the first aerostat that managed to circumnavigate the Eiffel Tower by its own means, leaving and returning from the Saint-Cloud airfield (the Aero-Club’s aerostation site), making the journey in a maximum of 30 minutes. The airship used was the No. 6, 633 m3, equipped with a 20 hp “petroleum” engine.

 

Photo courtesy of the Smithsonian Institution (SI Neg. No. 85-3941).

 

Otto Lilienthal

The father of glider flight

The famous experiences with manned glider that reached our days were those of Otto Lilienthal.

This German, born in 1848 in Prussia, had technological training and experience in his youth, in an environment where technology, science, and teaching were well regarded and where the consequence of the knowledge acquired was economically and socially relevant.

In 1870, he was a soldier in the siege of Paris by the North Germanic forces and witnessed the escape of the French balloons over the siege.

In 1889 he published a book with the translated title “Bird flight as the basis of flying art”. Otto Lilienthal helped to change the way the German elites and public viewed the subject, demonstrating the practical feasibility of the thing and giving it respectability.

Otto’s life path prior to the practical demonstrations gave him an ethos or status that made it easier for the actual value of his work to be acknowledged.

 

Challenge for Naval Supremacy in the Atlantic

 

In the four centuries leading up to the First World War, naval dominance of the Atlantic determined who dominated its shores. The most powerful fleet dictated who was in charge.

The arrival of Germanic military submarines seriously threatened that power.

 

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, British naval supremacy in the Atlantic was already being challenged. As a result of this and other disputes, European “coalitions” were formed, known as “Entente” or “Alliance”,  with the UK and Germany on opposite sides.

From 1900s, the display of forces from these “Coalitions” was noticeable in the Azores, especially in the port of Ponta Delgada. The presence of Russian warships (1900s) and German and American naval squadrons (1908) here were signs of the power and ambitions of these powers.

In 1914, the First World War formally began. Britain tried to buffer or contain the German Empire with a naval blockade. The latter, to overcome it, adapted submarine technology, which it had been developing since the 1850s, to long-haul freighter production.

This is how the submarine Deutschland appeared in 1916. This submarine merchant freighter (from Norddeutscher Lloyd and Deutsche Bank) made two voyages in 1916 to the USA, before being integrated into the Imperial German Navy in 1917 and renamed U-155.

 

In April 1917, the USA entered the War, and the control of the Atlantic was vital to its outcome. Steam propulsion had made ships less dependent on stopping at this archipelago, but a hostile Military Base on the islands could make their free movement very difficult. For that, the USA needed to install a Naval Base in Ponta Delgada. For Portugal, the authorization needed a military and political justification; a real threat.

According to the Azorean newspapers of the time, this submarine, the U-155, during the night of July 4, 1917, at two o’clock in the morning, fired several shots on the outskirts of this Azorean city and was scared away by the response of the American charcoal ship (Orion) moored at the bottom of the harbour quay.

Shortly afterwards, the Portuguese formal authorisation for the installation of the American base was given.

 

Submarine U-155

The one that allegedly attacked Ponta Delgada, at two o’clock in the morning of the “Fourth of July” of 1917.

 

65 m long submersible, which could displace 1440 tons, manned by up to thirty people and with an autonomy of 12,000 nautical miles. It was equipped with 6 torpedo tubes and two 150 mm bridge cannons with a range of almost 14 km.

The effectiveness of this submarine was proven by the sinking of 43 ships between 1917 and 18.

 

 

American Air Base in Ponta Delgada

1918

(U.S. Naval Base N.º 13 and 1st Marine Aeronautic Company)

 

In times of war, a Military Base can be a confrontation zone. This one was not; on the contrary. It generated great positive transformations in the city and on the island.

 

First Airport in the Azores

Ponta Delgada

Navy hangar (bottom left) and its platform, ramp and crane. Among other purposes, it served for the maintenance and repair of the Grumman G-21 Goose and Gumman G-44 Widgeon seaplanes.

The urban front of the city was completely transformed in the following decade.

 

Inter-war aeronautics

Demand for “long-haul” Atlantic flights

 

1918 – 1939

The fight for “endurance” and mechanical reliability, for flight safety image, for cargo capacity, and for the granting of Stopover Rights in the Azores.

 

 

Ponta Delgada, Azores, and the Aviation World

1918 – 1945

In this generation the world changed dramatically.

The air conquest of the North Atlantic required a stopover in the Azores. The major “leaps” took place between 1927 and 1939. For that reason, during the Second World War, the Azores were Portugal’s “geopolitical gravity centre”.

 

Crossing the Atlantic

The first American international aeronautical affirmation

 

The Atlantic crossing with the Navy Curtiss (NC) aircraft squadron, departing from Rockaway (NY/USA) and bound for Plymouth (UK), with a stopover in Halifax, St. John’s, at the Naval Base of the Azores. It made stopovers in Halifax, St. John’s, the American Naval Base of Ponta Delgada, Lisbon, and Ferrol. There was an unscheduled stopover at Horta.

Departure on 8th May 1919.

 

On 1st April 1913, Lord Northcliffe, owner of the Daily Mail newspaper, announced a £10,000 prize to be offered to the first pilot or team to make a non-stop flight over the Atlantic, with an aircraft heavier than air (not balloon or airship).
The First World War interrupted this challenge but it was renewed the year it ended. The conditions for competitors were as follows:

• The flight had to be between Britain and North America (USA, Canada, or Newfoundland);
• The flight had to be non-stop;
• The flight had to last a maximum of 72 hours.

The US Navy knew that candidates would already be lining up and that these would receive huge international acclaim, not only for the achievement but mainly for being the first.

The US Navy might not be able to meet the conditions of the prize but it could be the first to cross the Atlantic. And they did so, with great news coverage, highlighting the fact that they were the first. If they had waited another month they would have been second.

 

News of the American aeronautical feat soared.

The news quickly reached the Navy commands in Washington, which distributed it to the American and European press and radio.

The photographic and cinematographic apparatus that was mobilised to cover the event was unprecedented. This operation could be much more than a demonstration of aviation capability; if successful, it could be a demonstration of a new world power – perhaps of a new order.

With the Paris Peace Conference in progress, the news of the American achievement could notably influence its results and the final configuration of the Treaty of Versailles.

The Azores, Lisbon, and Portugal rode this wave of media promotion. The image of the recent sinking of the Portuguese Expeditionary Corps at La Lys would in part be erased by the glow of the event that the victors of the war came to share on Portuguese territory.

The Azores were far from the heart of Europe and America. But from the moment aeronautics gained muscle, they would be at the centre of air connections between continental Europe and North America. And in those weeks the world learned about it.

 

NC-4 in the city of Horta

(May 1919)

 

The Mid-Atlantic (American) Naval Base might not be on this island but there was a sheltered harbour and a foreign community operating the transatlantic submarine cable stations. Shortly after the arrival of the NC-4 the (heroic) news could already be spread on both sides of the Atlantic.

 

Arrival at Ponta Delgada

The first aircraft to come from North America by air

 

The Navy Curtiss NC-4, with a crew of 6, commanded by Lieutenant-Captain Albert Cushing Read.

It was in Ponta Delgada between 20th and 27th of May 1919.

 

 

On the left, in front of the S. Pedro Church, was the American Admiralty installed in a building that, after being expanded, was transformed into the Hotel S. Pedro.

As the photo shows, the Admiralty had a privileged view of the artificial harbour and even had its own pier.

In the vicinity, to the east of the Admiralty’s belvedere, there was the São Pedro Fort.

 

 

Dominance of the air and the sea in the North Atlantic

The American Naval Base in Ponta Delgada and its Aeronautical Company

 

By this period British naval supremacy in the Atlantic was being challenged. Therefore, the first world confrontation was already a possibility waiting for an opportunity.

Atlantic “supremacies” had their periods. The Portuguese had been there and been challenged, and so had the Castilian/Spanish.

 

German naval squadron in the port of Ponta Delgada, between 23rd July and 1st August 1908.