Sir Arthur Whitten Brown

<p>Arthur Whitten Brown was born on November 7, 1886, in Glasgow, Scotland, to American parents. An engineer by training, Brown worked for British Westinghouse in Manchester before enlisting in the British Army at the outbreak of World War I. Transferring to the Royal Flying Corps as an aerial observer and navigator, he was shot down behind enemy lines in November 1915, suffering severe leg injuries and being captured as a German prisoner of war. During his internment in Switzerland, Brown intensively studied aerial navigation, dead reckoning, and celestial star-sights.</p><p>Repatriated in 1917, Brown met pilot Captain John Alcock at the Vickers aircraft works in Weybridge in April 1919. The pair formed a partnership to compete for the <em>Daily Mail</em> £10,000 prize for the first non-stop flight across the Atlantic Ocean. Flying a converted World War I Vickers Vimy biplane powered by two 360-horsepower Rolls-Royce Eagle VIII engines, they took off from Lester's Field in St. John's, Newfoundland, on June 14, 1919.</p><p>The 1,890-mile flight was an ordeal of extreme peril. Dense fog obscured the ocean, disabling their airspeed indicator, and a blizzard coated the wings in heavy ice. Brown demonstrated superhuman heroism: when the engine air intakes froze solid, threatening engine failure over the freezing Atlantic, Brown crawled out onto the open wings in freezing winds six times with a pocketknife to chip away ice blocks. Navigating by glimpses of stars through cloud breaks, Brown accurately guided the Vimy to landfall at Derrygimlagh Bog near Clifden, Ireland, landing after 16 hours and 28 minutes. Days later, King George V knighted Brown and Alcock at Windsor Castle, opening the modern era of transatlantic aviation.</p>