The Waterbury Democrat., 1934-11-09

Nov 8, for the six of us who, in the eerie light of Los Angeles dawn, clambered aboard the giant pug-nosed Douglas transport of the Eastern Air Lines, felt the big ship hammer down the concrete runway, lift it's legs, and light out for New York. Twelve hours later the spotlights of Newark airport drilled us in mid-air and followed us until, three minutes and fifty seconds la ter, we bounced lightly to stop for
 a new coast-to-coast passenger plane record.
 HOW does 1t feel to rocket the 265O miles from the Pacific to the Atlantic in half a day? How does it feel to climb, climb, climb, three and half miles into the heavens, level off, and span this country with but one stop-and that for only twelve minutes?
 Captain Eddie Rickenbacker, America's greatest war ace, and the man in charge of the flight, will tell you that there isn't any particular feeling; that it's no more than catching subway for the Bronx, an elevated to the Loop. So will Si Morehouse. chief pilot on the trip, and Captain Charlie
 France who relieved him at the controls.
 They Got Every Thrill But what about we three pas sengers, whose votal hours in the air wouldn't equal months fly ing time of the captain, Si, or France?
 To tell you the truth, it was a
 grand feeling "a hair-raising
 mixture of exhilaration, wonder.
 amazement, comfort, thrills, and
 fear. It was an experience not to be
 forgotten, that finding yourself up SD high you couldn't get enough air, You'd be leaning back in your big cushioned seat paying no more attention to breathing than you or d.narily do, and the next thing you knew you'd be sort of gasping like a goldfish does when lifted out of | a bowl. Your chest would jingle. and your toes sort of vlbrate as though touched with live wire. And you'd get up, half walk, half float, to the oxygen tank, and plop | the big red rubber mouthpiece to your face. You'd take big swig of | the cool, tasteless gas. You'd take another and another. And then you'd trip back Co your seat as l though you'd had shot in the l arm.
 And riding up there by the moon has other advantages beside the oxygen too. You can see so much
 The Grand Canyon stretches out l in front of you. It's fifty miles ] away, but you can sec down to the bottom of it's deepest gorge, where the lazy Colorado, silver strip on wider than your little finger meanders around the curves. And
 YOU can see it all; not just a few l miles. Off to your left is its begin ming, and far to the right, almost
 merging with the horizon, is its | ending.
 Three Minutes of Fear For twelve hours the three pas | sengers felt no fear. But for three
 minutes they did.
 l The three minutes-and they
 seemed like hours--came as the
 Douglas, hitting it around 225 l miles an hour, scared 17,500 feet | above the very heart of the Rock 1 ies. Without warning. the piercing
 vail of a siren broke the silence of the cabin. Two red lights l glowed on the cockpit dashboard The motors slowed down to lazy | whirl, and the monoplane began
 losing altitude, chunk by chunk. The three passengers looked through the open door of the con-
 trol room and saw the co-pilot
 vigorously pumping a lever. The
 three passengers looked toward |, the earth and saw a wicked treacherous stretch so studded
 with mountains that bird would
 have had difficulty in making 3
 landing. The three passengers
 stomachs turned over, their faces
 whitened, their hearts skipped beats.
 ] Hike Riding on Air
 For minute they sat there
 frozen. Then, just as quickly as they had quieted down, the motors
 roared again. and the plane scared up and away.
 Oh yes, the siren and the red
 lights were simply signals to warn
 the pilot it was time to switch to
 another gas tank.
 1 From there on out it was like
 riding on air. Which come to think
 about it, was just what we were l doing