Evening star., 1937-04-10
CLIPPER GREETED
At PEARL HARB0R
Pan-AmeriCan Makes Hop
From Kingman in 7 Hours,
81 Minutes.
BY EDWIN C. MUSICK,
CAPTAIN, Pan-American CIipper.

HONOLULU, April 10 tby wire
lesS).-The Pan-American clipper
alighted on the waters of Pearl Har-
Dor at 80 pm. Qocal time) yesterday,
after an 1,100-nlile flight from tiny
Kingman Reef, in mid-Pacif1c, COM
pleting next to the last leg of our
round-trip trade survey flight from
San Francisco to Auckland, New
Zealand.
Today's flight was made under the
fairest weather conditions encountered
on the entire trip, and was accom-
pliShed without incident in 7 hours
and 81 minutes.
We received an overwhelming well
come, out of all proportion to our
aerial surveying work, which was pri-
marily to fly back and forth over a
mid-Pacific route, mapped to link
Auckland, Pago Pago and the Ha-
Waiian Islands by way of a weekly
flown airway to San Francisco, with
the purpose of checking from the air
on conditions observed in a three
year careful survey of the route from
the surface.
Natural Air Station.
Kingman Reef, the smallest OF sta
tions yet selected in the rapid de-
velopment of airways across the Pa
ciflc, appears on the basis of our
flight today to be natural mid
Pacific air station, and, with the full
meteorological service and radio di-
rorfin1, fr,1irn fo taI, Il
lis with astonishing precision, par
ticularly on yesterdays flight, is in
every way satisfactory as an airWay
stepping stone across the Pacific. We
found excellent landing conditions.
The route as we survey it from
Kingman to Pago Pago and thence on
to Auckland indicates the complete
feasibility of regular air service to
Australasia operating on four-day
schedule. AS our fight today demon
strated, the trip from here to King
man is easily confinable under all
conditions within the scope OF q short
day of flying.
We had passed the night aboard the
steamer North Wind, which has
served as a temporary fight station
for this survey, and shortly after our
take-of the North Wind reported to
us by radio that she had up-anchored
and was steaming toward this port,
which will require five to six days of
steaming over the same route which
We made today in less than eight
hours.
We kept in constant radio contact
with the North Wind throughout the
first two hours Of fight and then
switched for our bearing reports to the
Pan-American radio station at Moko-
puu Point here. We spent most Of the
day under cumulus clouds at an aver
age altitude of 1000 feet.
Surface Closely Observed.
We observed the sea surface closely
throughout the flight in the hope OF
reporting definitely on unconflrmed
navigational reports that the airline
over this section of the Pacific lies
across series Of shoals never accu-
rately charted by surface shipping. We
twice sighted areas of white caps,
seemingly breakers, but, owing to the
rough sea, weather conditions may
have been solely responsible for this
observation and q final check In re-
gard to possible shoals must wait
upon the day Of regular air shutting
over the airway between here and
Kingman Reef.
A pleasant harbor sight as we came
down for a landing was the Pan-Amer-
ican Anyways trans-Pacifc Hawaii
clipper, which, on regular scheduled
service between the United States and
the Philippines, was in dock, having
landed this morning after an overnight
fight from San Francisco with pas
sengers, mail and express.
With our landing here, the next i'm
portant stage in creating q new air.
ways to the antipodes is q careful
Recommendation Of the hundreds Of OBJ
servations made concerning weather,
landfalls and harbor approaches and
carefully checking these tn the light
Of findings OF various surface surveys.
Copyright, 1887, by the North American
Newspaper Alliance. lncJ