Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1931-07-02
Continued From First Page. }

Continued From First Page)
and Newfoundland When We ran into
! fog en- the last part of the ocean cross
| ing it was just plain hard flying. Fly
ing by instrument, you know, at $4,000
feet Once in while it would show
just enough OF a hole for Gatty to get
sight. And then We slipped down
through that hole and found ourselves
| over Wales, safely across the Atlantic.
We would have patted each others
backs if we had not been the length OF
| the plane apart.
The next highlight. SO far as tough
| flying was concerned was between Ber-
! lin and Moscow. The distance was 925
miles according to our charts. We left
early in the morning and pretty soon
crossed the border into Poland. There
we had absolutely the dirtiest flying Of
our whole experience on this or any
other flight. The ceiling simply closed
down OH us and forced us right down
on the tree tops. We had to fight wind
and rain as well as fog. Landmarks
| slipped by SO fast that we had trouble
J checking the course, and, OF course,
! anything like celestial observation was
| impossible. The drift indicator held
out though. and from 1t we hit our
mark on the nose through dead reckon
! ing
One of the highlights in the trip
which gave us no end of concern was
| the flight between IrkutSk and Blago-
yestchenck through the widest country
We have ever seen. For hours We flew
a bare 25 feet above the trees and III
, the strange country. which was wholly
unknown to us. strange apparitions
loomed in the mist ahead. Two or three
times We thought the end had come
and pulled the ship up sharply until
the angle Of climb became dangerous.
We got through without Stubbing our
toe. however, and wound up the day
begged down on the water-soaked field.
Our sleep at Blagovestchenck, on the
hardest of Soviet beds. was somewhat
spoiled by the worry of wondering
| whether the tractor would arrive on
time to pull the Winnie Mae to flrmer
ground and If 1t did whether the Rus
slams could do it without breaking the
already taxed landing gear.
Blind for Four Hours.
The last really dangerous section Of
the journey was the water hop from
Siberia to Alaska. We fiew first across
the Okhotsk Sea. 1t was just getting
| dark as we started out and 1t began to
rain. We soon found ourselves incloSed
| in fog so thick that, we did not see 4
thing outside the airplane for four
hours.
When 1t began to get light. the
nights are short there you know. We
pulled up two large layers Of clouds
and stayed there. We knew there were
mountains ahead on the Kamchatka
Peninsula, but we managed that all
| right. We saw a mountain loom up
between the layers and we followed
that down to the water and few along
| just skipping over the waves at an
altitude of about rs feet.
So there We were over the Boring
Sea and 1t was more fog. We simply
| had TO fight our way through it, We
did not know just how We were going
10 get down to land in case We got to
Alaska, for the fog hid everything below
us, but we figured that it would be bet-
ter TO crack up in Alaska II we were
going to crack UP than 60 into the
! sea. 1t was one Of the crucial spots
OF the trip. We might have played
it safer and waited at Khabarovsk for
better weather, but We might have
waited six months.
But since we made IL all right,
guess our Judgment was good
AZ we slipped along ever the water