Evening star., 1937-03-19
BY EDWIN c. MUSICK.
BY Radio to The Star.

BY Radio to The Star.
HONOLULU, March l9 (NANA.).
-TraverSing a wide-sWinging arc, the
Pan-American Clipper crossed the
eastern quadrant of the Pacific Ocean
last night on the first leg of a survey
flight for new aerial trade route to
New Zealand. Our flight was in sharp
contrast to the routine transport cross
ingS of the big Clippers now plying
steadily 5000 miles westward to the
Philippines and back again.
Ahead Of us last night, Capt. Ralph
DahlStrom of the Hawaii Clipper
sailed leisurely on his course with his
heavy load of passengers, mail and ex-
press, staying on a warm altitude
level and on a restricted track, as on
nearly hundred previous crossings.
The Pan-American Clipper, on the
other hand, explored wide area,
plotted wind shifts, recorded wide
variations in temperature at the vari-
Gus attitudes, swung back and forth
over three different courses, tested new
instruments installed for the advance
ment of ocean transport operation,
and, finally, in a test of the added
safety factors in the power plants, flew
the last third of the crossing on three
engines, setting the full brakes on one
entirely and making the landing at
Pearl Harbor on two engines instead
Of the usual four.
Many New Facts Learned.
Although we have been flying the
Pacific now for almost two years. with
more than year and a half of regu
lar scheduled service, there always is
much to be learned. This survey
flight project gives us an opportunity
for a wide range of supplementary
studies which are not available in the
same measure on regular transport
crossings These studies are particu-
larly important, for in transport flying
all oceans are similar.
Though few realize it, the Pacific
Ocean at the Midwinter season pre-
sents conditions identical with much
of the North Atlantic for high winds,
sleet, ice, snow and zero temperatures.
Even our tranS-Paciflc passengers
seldom know this, since, as result
of long experience. plus remarkable 4e
development in upper air weather
analysis and the uncanny ability Of
our long-range direction finders to
guard us closely on wide detour courses
far off the great circle line of flight,
our Clippers fly ideal" courses at
warmer levels and around the weather
areas, instead of through them.
Since our trans-Pacific route was
regularly established, however, our
training courses have been projected
in the use of the Pacific as an Atlantic
training laboratory, just as the trans
Caribbean, between North and South
America, provided practical school
for training in Pacific transport
technique. Such training flights be-
tween regular schedules of the Clippers
often have taken us a thousand miles
over the Pacific.
Last night, however, we actually
covered nearly 5000 flying miles, We
had excellent weather once away from
the coast of California, where we
passed through cold front at 10000
feet Thereafter, We changed our
altitude frequently and experimental
with series of interesting wind shifts,
the lines recording a complete 180
degree change from WeSt-northWeSt at
the take-off to eaSt-SOutheaSt when We
turned northerly this morning for our
Hawaii land-fall Flying her charted
course, the Hawaii Clipper experienced
scarcely half this wind change.
Use Double Radio Guard.
We also recorded temperature of
from plus to IS minus, centigrade.
The entire flight crew went through
an intensive postgraduate course in
All technical divisions of ocean trans
port flying, navigation, engineering,
meteorology and plotting We kept
double radio guard with our own con-
troll stations at Alameda and Honolulu,
simultaneously, and with the Matson
liners Lurline, $50 miles off the Golden
Gate, bound for San Francisco and the
Malolo, the same distance off Diamond
Head, bound for Honolulu. These
liners serve as regular Pan-American
weather stations and are equipped with
nitrogen balloons and special theodo.
lites for the analysis of weather from
the oceans surface up to $4,000 feet.
Six hundred miles off Honolulu we
set the brakes on our fourth engine
and found no lesSening altitude, the
only difference being six miles an hour
In speed. 1t is unnecessary for us to
use more than rs per cent of our avail
able horsepower to maintain our
schedule.
Although most interesting to us
Technically, there were few new sights
for us to report on this crossing,
since all but Junior Officer Holsenbeck
are veterans of at least 20 previous
crossings, and he was kept too busy
for sightseeing However, we let him
stand watch to sight our landfall, the
dark tip of the island of Hawaii above
heavy mantle of clouds, as we ap-
preached from the South.
All of us, however, got a tremen-
dous kick out of the surprise party"
at midnight, when, exactly in mid
ocean, the Pan-American AirWays
stations at Kingman Reef, Pago Pago
and far-of Auckland, 5000 miles
away, came aboard with sharp signals
OF welcome to the Pan-American Clip-
per, which, in two or three days, will
be Winging south to make the first
aerial link between Australia and the
United States.
tCopyright, 1887. by the North American
Newspaper Alliance, 1nc)
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