Science Art: Fig. 2 from “Drawings, views and engine of the Levasseur transatlantic plane” in NACA Aircraft Circular #50, Levasseur 8 Transatlantic Airplane, 1927.

Fig2_LevasseurTransatlantic
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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.