FIRST AIR CROSSING OF THE ATLANTIC - JUNE 17, 1922

On March 30, 1922, admiral Gago Coutinho and naval captain Sacadura Cabral leave Lisbon on board the Fairey "Lusitânia" aircraft. After a flight of about 62 hours (with three stopping places), they arrive in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on June 17, therefore covering a distance of 8283 km. Although their journey had lasted 79 days, the actual flight time was just 62 hours and 26 minutes. During their transatlantic flight, the two pioneers suffered a few technical problems with their aircraft, which caused some delay before arriving to their destination.

Photo kindly provided by the Portuguese Air Force.
The original aircraft can be seen in Lisbon, at the Navy Museum.

Gago Coutinho and Sacadura Cabral were the first to cross the South Atlantic Ocean by air. This remarkable event also proved the efficiency of the new navigation methods and instruments invented by the two Portuguese air pilots: a precision sextant, based on the sea navigation sextant, that allowed navigation without visual reference to the real horizon by measuring the height of the celestial bodies at any time and from any latitude without the major errors encountered until then; and the Direction Corrector (named after the two pilots "Corrector de Direcção Coutinho-Sacadura"), a small device aimed at calculating the winds direction and strength.

This invention revolutionized air navigation at the time.

© Dulce Rodrigues