WHERE LINDBERGH BLAZED THE TRAIL

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 166, 31 July 1937, Page 15

WHERE LINDBERGH BLAZED THE TRAIL

Flying Efficiency

JpfULLY forty per cent of the flying in America is done at night, writes Oliver K. Whiting in The Listener. T took the evening plane from Chicago to Kansas City, following the Lindbergh route which crosses to California over the Grand Canyon and the Boulder Dam. It was a marvellous experienee. When I 'arrived at the flying ground there were ten or twelve giant Douglas planes lined up outside the hangar. T'ach was separately illuminated by floodlight and coloured porters were brsy loading luggage and mail. The planes with their neat row of cabinports aglow with light look like yachts riding at anchor. They leave on their nightly errands throughout the year, with passengers and freight for the ends of the farthest State. For the workers there it was mere routine, bnt I found it a tbrilling sight. A loudspeaker directed the passengers to their respective ships:-— "No. 1 plane will leave in five minutes — Now York." "No. 2 plane is leaving now — Salt Lake City." "No. 3 plane connecting Kansas City and Mexico." • "No. 4 plane Los Angeles and.San Francisco." And so, these vast liners of the air take off into the silence of the night, and dawn will find them separated by tbousands of miles — some in the tropics and some in the frozen north. Whenever possible, the American likes to address you by name, and I am bonnd to say it creates a friendly feeling. There was an attractive air hostess awaiting us. "Good evening, Mr Whiting, I see you have got your eamera, now if you want to take any night snapshots I snggest you sit in the forward seat. Here is an illustrated map of the route; it will show you the points of interest. Ohl And that's the inevitable little packet of chewing gum." I had scarcely got comfortably settled in my seat when, punctnal fo the minute, the engines broke into a roar and away we went, luggage, passengers and mail, eight tons of .metal, neat and trim, streaking through the splendour of the evening sky. Once we came down very low indeed and I could read the iHuminated advertisemenfs on the buildings below, but for the most part we flew at a considerable height, and whole cities would become clusters of light like twinklinv iewfiU. sprinkled on a carpet of midnight blue. Our hostess served a splendid dinner. I was able to write several letters. Behind me two coupies were

playing bridge. And so we. sped on through the night tiH the light* of Kansas City blinked beneatb our wings. The next day I took the moriung plane for the Canyon. For abont tho first two hundred miles . we covered a flat tableland, dotted at intervals witk lonely cattle ranches and later ihe de*ricks of innumerable ofl weils. And so at last we reached the Eio Grande. Socnetimes you can see herds of buffalo, -and we got our first giimpgs of the Eocky Mountains; a pnrple haze fringing the Arizona desert. From this, point on the greater part of the pt^u. lation is Indian; we could pick out » their quaint little villages scattered 1 all over the plain. Just outside Winslow is a landmark I shall never forget, Here, two thousand years ago, a huge meteorite fell, making a circular erates six hundred feet deep and almost a mile in diameter; and there it is to-day. We wero told it is xieh in valuable •mafji.!^ platinum and so on, and Twiui-ng opera^ tions have been in progress there fos several years. • I had aTranged to leave the *plans at the desert field of Winslow, and wae aUowed to hear our pilot's radio telephone conversation with the air pori . i . ' Hello Winslow. Hello WinslowWe are now flying at eight thousand feet, ten miles east. Ceiling nnlisnked, I have passengeni for the Grand Canyon, continuing by train. Will' be landing in five minutes. What'e yout wind and weather i' 'Winslow calling Sky Chief — ^wind ten miles per hour. South-west. Tem* perature 98. Weather all clea*'. Some distance back we had overtaken the Transcontinental train. She had left New York three days before ns and there she was, crawling along ia the heat below. We f ollowed np the line for a few niiles and landed alongside the desert halt where she stops to pick up water. In due course her two great engines pulled in slght and, with their warning cattle bells clanking, drew alongside oue 'plane. These spectaenlar feats of flyisg go on night and day; across the misty mountain peaks and through the seorching desert sun; passed that greatest ot man's engineering works the Boulder Dam, and on over- the Eockiea and the vast Grand Canyon itself, oue of the earth's most colossal scars iu her battle with Nature. But it is all routine work to-day, and anyone may *fly wher© Lindbergh blazed the .trail,