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The "Dawn to dusk" transcontinental flight across the United States was a pioneering aviation record established June 23, 1924. It marked the first crossing of the North American continent within the hours of daylight. The record was set by 1st Lt. Russell L. Maughan, a U.S. Army Air Service test pilot at McCook Field, Dayton, Ohio, the site of the Air Service Engineering Division and its major flight-test center. ==Concept and flight plan== The plan for the flight was conceived by the Air Service's Assistant Chief, Brig. Gen. Billy Mitchell in 1923. The Air Service since 1919 had been regularly establishing endurance, distance, altitude and speed records in airplanes to promote favorable publicity and public support for the funding of the U.S. Army War Department's Major Project Number 4, the Lassiter plan for the expansion of the Air Service. The year before Lt. James H. Doolittle had flown a DH-4 from Florida to San Diego in a single calendar day, making just one stop in Texas for fuel. Mitchell wanted to not only improve on both the time and distance involved, but to have the stunt highly publicized by having it takeoff and land during daylight at major urban centers. The military purpose of the flight would be to demonstrate the utility of rapidly moving air units from one side of the nation to the other, a capability that the Army and Navy did not possess. The original calculations for the flight were that in early summer, including twilight, 20 hours of daylight were available for a westbound flight. By averaging an hour, the distance of from New York to San Francisco could be covered in 16 hours 40 minutes. Mitchell had struck a deal with Curtiss Aircraft to purchase 25 new PW-8 fighters, patterned after the R-6 Racer, if Curtiss would help modify one of the prototypes for use in the project. The D-12 engine on the PW-8 produced and Mitchell's intended modifications were to enable it to make the flight at full throttle power setting. If the armament and unnecessary equipment were also removed from the XPW-8, additional fuel capacity could be installed to extend its range, and larger oil tanks for engine cooling. The flight plan calculated four stops of 30 minutes each for refueling. McCook Field, Ohio; Saint Joseph, Missouri; Cheyenne, Wyoming; and remote Salduro Siding, Utah, were selected as refueling points, following a recently established mail route. Maughan was chosen to make the flight because he was an experienced test pilot and a combat veteran accustomed to dealing with in-flight emergencies, and because he had already established speed records in 1922 and 1923. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Dawn-to-dusk transcontinental flight across the United States」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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