Crossing on the Airpacket, "Caproni"

The Record of a One Day Trans-Atlantic Journey in 1920

ROBERT C. BENCHLEY

THIS being the open season for aircraft predictions, I am perfectly ready and willing to be quoted in a little aircraft prognostication of my own.

Representatives of aircraft concerns have painted the possibilities of trans-oceanic flight in giant planes, soon to supersede the present pokey method of boating on such snails as the Leviathan (neé Vaterland). As an accredited representative of the traveling public, which public will register as passengers on these gigantic trans-Atlantic birds (I claim no credit for originating the simile likening an airplane to a bird. I have seen it somewhere before, but it struck me at the time as being well worth using again) I would like to prophesy what a journey across the water will be like, let us say on the good ship Caproni, of the Nimbus Line, sailing from Hangar No. 57 at the foot of 22nd Street, Hempstead, L. I., at 10 A. M. on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays, and returning, leave Biarritz at the same hour on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, with a stop-over privilege at the Azores—if desired.

Let us picture to ourselves, dear reader (I may call you "Dear Reader," may I not?) the gay scene in Hempstead at the departure of the plane. Travelers, carrying fleece-lined aviation suits over their arms, and adjusting their goggles are scrambling up the gang-plank, or leaning over the rail talking to demonstrative friends who are grouped about the hangar.

"DON'T get air-sick," shouts a witty bonvoyager from a pile of crates, and this sally is received with screams of laughter from the bystanders and a general waving of handkerchiefs, The ship's officers make much to-do of racing about, strumming the various wires and tapping the struts, ordering people away from the radius of the propeller, testing the graphaphone records to see if they run all right, and, in general, doing just what you would expect officers to do before the sailing of an airplane.

Add to all this the confusion of stewards worming their way through the crowds bearing, to the various staterooms, gift boxes containing fruit, electrically heated gloves, and carrier-pigeons. Then, if it is not too much of an imposition, add to this the crashing of the ship's band playing the national air (there is something that could be done with the play upon words hinted at there: "National Air"— . . . "National Air-ship" . . . get it? But I am too busy to bother with it now. I have got to get this ship off or we shall never have any story), the deafening clatter of the cranes hoisting freight on board, and finally (please add just this one thing more) the incredibly loud and overwhelming burr of the ten Liberty motors running wide open. And, when you have all of these noises added together, including the genial hum of tea brewing in the galley, you have the sailing of the Caproni, for all practical intents and purposes, reproduced before your very eyes and ears.

As the great monster of the air (practically a repetition of the bird simile, but unavoidable) rises above the tree-tops, there is a chorus of "good-byes" and "bomb voyages," while some of the more irrepressible travellers drop pennies from a great height, which, owing to the inexorable ratio at which falling bodies increase their speed, are, by the time they reach the earth, able to penetrate a derby hat and make quite a jolly dent in the skull of some wellwisher below. Then, when our good ship is but a speck in the sky, the crowd will turn and go home, all except a few people (like my sister), who will maintain that they "can still see Edna—who is now the third from the right, by the post."

Continued on page 112

Continued from page 44

But, in the meantime, what will have been occurring on board the mighty monarch of the clouds? (That isn't necessarily a reference to a bird. A monarch of the clouds might be a queen bee. Oh, yes, it might!) There has been much rushing to staterooms to don the special aviation veils and special accoutrements, such as oxygen feed-bags, thermos health-belts, and electrically heated outing-suits. Carrier-pigeons will be released, to take back to New York such messages as: "Am having a fine time. Please send my Spring suit, on the guest-room bed, to the tailors." "Ten minutes out of sight of land, and not air-sick yet. Pay up." "Be sure to write soon. My Paris address will be care of the American Express Co., Rue Scribe."

BY this time, the Caproni will be plowing her way through a bank of cumulus-nimbus and the fog horn will be hooting miserably. This will cause the more timid passengers to congregate in the smoking-room and tell stories of the most terrible airplane accidents that they ever heard of. The seasoned travellers will, however, have secured their chairs from the deck-steward and will be wrapped in their high-altitude suits gazing across the rail into the clouds. The electric heating attachments behind each chair, to be adjusted to the suits, will doubtless cause confusion at firet. Stewards passing with trays of boullion will probably trip over the connecting wires; some unscientific persons (those who now allow toast to burn on an electric toaster) will unquestionably blow out a fuse or become overheated and forget how to turn off the current; and wires will get crossed, resulting in some cold-blooded gentleman's heat being diverted to a stout and suffocating lady in the next chair; but all this will be straightened out in time. Remember how inconvenient and confusing subway travel was when it was first instituted? And now look at it!

There will be much speculation, among the novices at air-travel, as to the efficacy of the parachutes which are secreted under each bunk. These will be used, in case of accident, to convey the passengers safely through 20,000 feet of sky and back to the earth. According to the printed instructions, tacked up beside the wash-stand, parachutes are to be donned from the back, unlike a pajama top or a dress-waist coat, and the services of the parachute steward (who can be summoned by three rings on the bell labelled "Hot Water") will be required to fasten the clamps at t£e back. Once adjusted, the use of the parachute is simple. Just mount the rail of the ship, light a cigarette, straighten the necktie—and step off. The chances are more than even that the thing will open up before you have gone very far and that it will deposit you on the tip of one toe—on the water. If it doesn't work, you have a clear case against the airship company.

THEN there will be the customary things to be detected, by the sharper eyes on board. We may be called to the rail at any time to see what someone insists is a spouting eagle, off the starboard quarter. In the meantime, on the other side of the deck, a little group of serious drinkers will be supporting each other's assertions that the dingy spot on the edge of that cloud-bank is a German Fokker machine still at large and trying to make things nasty for self-respecting air-travellers. Schools of barn swallows, or even ruby-throated grossbeaks, will entertain the little folks by following in the wake of the ship, and snapping up the crumbs that are thrown out from the galley.

The various cloud formations will probably cause a lot of misapprehension among near-sighted passengers, who will constantly be sounding the "alert," to warn the rest that the ship is headed straight on to the chalk cliffs of Dover, or the decorative walls of Constantinople, and oughtn't someone to go and tell the Captain?

The Captain may well be pictured as pacing the decks and conversing with the more socially-possible people, assuring them that never, in the ninety-two crossings that he has made, has he seen the air so "bumpy," and that he thinks that they ought to be in sight of the yellow church steeple at Biarritz by four-thirty.

IN the smoking-room the gay dogs among the passengers will congregate about the altimeter, to settle the pools on the day's altitude and distance runs. The trip taking only one day, there will be only one pool, and this will, of course, be won by an offensive, undersized little man who wears horn glasses and cloth-topped shoes. (This, I can swear, is absolutely certain to happen.)

And then, as the smell of cooking from the Grand Hotel in the Azores is wafted up to the Caproni, there will be a general scrambling to the near side of the ship in order to be the first to see land. Those who scramble too far will have the privilege of making individual landings in advance of the rest of the ship's company, but special clothing should be worn for this.

I do not claim for this brief glimpse into the future that it embraces all the phases of trans-Atlantic air travel as they will develop in the next seven years. But it is the best description that will ever come from my pen about such a trip, for I'll never go up in one of the darn things in order to write a better one. No, indeed! The earth that was good enough for George Washington is good enough for me.