Teachers' notes

In 1919, two British fliers, John Alcock and Arthur Whitten Brown, were the first people to fly across the Atlantic. They sat one in front of the other in their two-seater aircraft. They had to shout to be heard above the noise of the engines; sometimes they passed each other messages written in a notebook. Their flight lasted 16 hours.

Nowadays, thousands of people fly across the Atlantic every day in aircraft which can carry up to 400 people. It takes just 7 hours. 

Your task is to find out about Alcock and Brown's flight. Then prepare a script so that you and a partner can act out their flight - not in 16 hours, but in five minutes. Can you capture the drama, the danger and the excitement? 

Use Long Flight to find answers to these questions.

• What happened before the flight?
• What did they do during the flight?
• How did the aircraft work?
• How was their flight reported?