The Washington times. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1902-1939, 1927-10-18
Ruth Elder and Co-Pilot Worried
By Oil Leak But Keep Courage

some concern over the oily evil
dences of something being wrong.
/ asked him again about the
excess amount of oil, hut he
assured me it was old Oil
which had been thrown off earlier
in the flight, either by running
the motor at too high a speed.
or by not allowing sufficient room
in the oil tank for expansion
before we left Roosevelt Field.
l felt relieved for the moment
and hoped 1t was that. But we
began talking of the oil again and
when we discussed how carefully
Mr.. Porter, our faithful engineer,
had checked the oil and all gas
tanks before our departure, we
We're sure that could not be so.
However, we decided we must be
all right after Porter's calculation.
Then we made another check on
our drift and presuming ourselves
to be at approximately the turning
point on the steamship lane, we
changed our course to SO degrees
magnetic. We had both been un.
der a mental strain for a while,
but now felt relaxed once more.
Nevertheless, we both began to
wonder when we might sight some
steamers. Referring to our charts
of steamers We believed that with
in the next three hours we would
sight two or three westbound
steamers, as we had their positions
before leaving.
Tried to Be Cheerful
We flew for some six hours with.
out sighting a vessel and because
we still had a head wind out of
the northeast, we presumed we
were still to the right of the steam
ship lane.
We did not believe this to be any
great disadvantage as we thought
that we would possibly have to
take a more southerly route to the
edge of the storm area, which had
its center at 45 degrees north, rs
degrees west. The sun went down
at 1927 and for two hours before
shutdown we had been climbing the
ship very steadily and had reached
an altitude Of approximately 5000
feet.
We both tried to be as cheerful
as possible, and talked about every
thing but oil. But some force
drew my eyes to the oil splashes
every once in a while and l could
see they were getting heavier.
Also / could see that George saw
they were getting heavier. All
the cheerfulness was bluff on both
sides
Served Some Sandwiches
Up to this time neither Of us
had eaten anything, nor had we
wanted anything. Then. l pre-
sumo for the purpose of taking
my mind off the oil because after
all suppose George thought a
girls nerves could not be trusted
il she knew there WIS trouble)
George suggested to me that l go
in the rear and serve some sand
wiches and beef broth and then
for me to take a nap.
We both felt that we would have
the hardest part Of the flight dur
ing the night, which would soon
come on and we both wanted to
be on the alert.
I worked back to the rear and
united one package of sandwiches
and served George a small amount
of beef broth and a drink of cof-
fee and then went forward to the
wheel.
Unable to Get Sleep
George llnwrapped his Swiss
cheese sandwich and 1 chose a
chicken sandwich. / took one bite
which was. all cared for and I
noticed that George was making
a big face and had thrown three
quarters Of his sandwich over
board.
We were not hungry. We liked
the air better. We had q big
laugh over all the fun that had
been made Of us by our friends