Word: fonck
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...motors were roaring. M. le Capitaine René Fonck had thrown away his last cigaret,* waved his last diffident adieu and sat at the controls. By him sat Lieut. Lawrence W. Curtin, aide to Rear Admiral William A. Moffett of the U. S. Navy Bureau of Aeronautics. The S-35 lumbered forward. The crowd raced beside...
...Lieutenant Curtin later told the coroner, "and obtained a speed of about 70 miles an hour. At this point, one of the wheels (the right-hand one) of the 'dolly' collapsed. ..." To spectators it seemed that the "dolly" twice bumped heavily, failed to leave the ground. Captain Fonck said afterwards: "I intended to stop the plane but I was afraid it would tear into the crowd of automobiles. . . ." The crippled monster reached a gully at the runway's end, turned a cartwheel, right wing down, and vanished from sight...
Instantly a 40-foot flag of gasoline flames shook itself up from the gully, furbelowed with black. Captain Fonck and Lieutenant Curtin were found struggling to their feet, 20 yards from the inferno they had escaped before it burst. The flames had their way for hours. Then, certain cinders, a Koran, a crucifix, indicated where Charles Clavier and Jacob Islamoff had burned behind jammed doors. There was no angry inquiry as to why the "dolly" had not been finally tested. Pilot Fonck, Lieutenant Curtin, Designer Sikorsky and his aids, were all exonerated by the coroner of criminal negligence. Some "fanatics...
...Paris, an investigation was begun into an astonishing message received by M. Fonck four stormy days before the disaster, a message signed by Commandant Weiss of the French Air Force saying "Abolutely start the flight, even if you drop in the ocean." But sorrow predominated over scandal...
...first important announcement from Westbury was: another attempt at the flight, in another Sikorsky, by the Messrs. Fonck and Curtin, for Hotelman Raymond C. Orteig's $25,000 prize, yes; for the advancement of aviation and French American amity, by all means; but mostly, in memory of the charred sacrifices- Operator Clavier, Mechanic Islamoff...