Lieutenant John Cyril Porte and George Hallet with the Curtiss Aero-Hydroplane "America," 1914

This photograph advertised what might have been the first flight across the Atlantic Ocean by airplane. In 1914, British lieutenant John Cyril Porte and American mechanic George E. A. Hallett planned to set out on a transatlantic trip aboard the specially designed seaplane, America. The outbreak of World War I intervened, and the America instead joined the British Royal Naval Air Service.