“They successfully petitioned the Weather Bureau to make predictions for the trans-Atlantic flights, and for the first time in history regular weather maps for aviation were made of the North Atlantic. “At the end of April, in 1927, the plane was ready for its factory test. Byrd planned to make his flight in May, which he figured was a good month. It happened that there were at the time several other planes preparing to cross the ocean. Byrd was in no race, however. Of course, it would have been nice to be the first man across the Atlantic, as he had been the first man over the Pole—but he encouraged the others who were preparing and made no effort to be the first to start. However, his plane was ready before the others. “Byrd, Bennett, Noville, who was going with them, and Fokker took her up for her first flight. Fokker was at the controls; the other three, passengers. Everything went smoothly. She took off well; her motors functioned perfectly. But as soon as the motors were turned off for the glide, they felt her nose dip. She was nose-heavy. When they tried to land, they knew definitely that she was nose-heavy, and zoomed into the air again to plan what they should do. However, they couldn’t stay up indefinitely—they hadn’t much fuel. Down they glided again. The wheels touched the ground. Fokker jumped. But the other three were caught. “Byrd felt the fuselage heave up. The plane went over on her nose, turned completely over. Something struck him with an awful impact, and he felt his arm snap. They had to get out of this! They were trapped in a mass of wreckage which might at any moment burst into flames and burn them to death before they had a chance to escape. Noville, beside Byrd, broke a hole in the fabric with his fist, and they crawled out. The wreckage did not burn. Someone had turned off the switches of all three motors. “Bennett? He was hanging head down in the pilot’s seat, unable to free himself. His leg was broken; his face bleeding. He was badly injured—so badly that for a week it was thought that he would never recover. But he did—of course. His iron nerve and grit pulled him through. But any thought of his going on the trip was out. This was a blow to Byrd. There was no man he would rather fly with than Bennett, Floyd Bennett, the cheerful companion, the willing worker, himself an expert pilot, and able to divine instructions before they were even given. Tough luck! “But tough luck, too, was the fact that the plane was almost irreparably damaged. Byrd set his arm on the way to the hospital, had them put it in a sling so that it would be out of the way, and went back to the factory to supervise the repairing of the America. It took over a month of work night and day to repair the damage that had been done, and re-design the nose so that the craft would be balanced.