This is from a government report – from the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, a precursor to NASA – on L’Oiseau Blanc, an aircraft used in an unsuccessful attempt to fly from Paris to New York.
The U.S. took a keen interest in what the French were trying to do. Two weeks after the plane vanished (with two World War I heroes aboard), Charles Lindbergh met with more success flying in the opposite direction.