HOW IT FEELS

Greymouth Evening Star, 18 December 1934, Page 12

HOW IT FEELS

SPEED IN THE AIR SAN FRANCISCO, Nov. 13. Even in this year of epoch-making flights, the performance of Captain Eddie Rickenbacker has startled America. He flew a 14-passenger air liner from Los Angeles, California, to New York, in 1.2 hours 3 minutes 50 seconds. There was one stop, at Kansas City, for fuel. The distance of the flight is variously stated as 2609 and 2650 miles, but in either case the average speed maintained was about 220 miles an hour. Rickenbacker, a World War ace and commercial airline official, had with him Silas Moorhouse and Calptain, Charles W. France as pilots, and three passengers—Roy W. Howard, newspaper publisher, Henry M’Lemore and James L. Kilgallen, newspaper men. And here, in the words of M’Lemore, is the story of the flight: — “You light a cigarette in Los Angels, and half a packet, later you flick it away in Times Square, New York. Down below you, during puffs, pass the Mojave desert, Grand Canyon of the Colorado, Pike’s Peak, the stubbled wheat fields of Kansas. In half a day, 12 hours, you blaze through, the brilliant dawn of California, an Arizona, sandstorm, Ohio's glaring sunshine, a drizzling rain in Pennsyl-| vania, to finally swoop down to rest] admidst the gargantuan diamond tiara that is Manhattan after nightfall. “Waffles and coffee for breakfast in Los Angeles., tender lion steak and mushrooms for dinner in New \ ork. That was yesterday, Thursday, November 8, for the six of us who, in the eerie light, of a Los Angeles dawn clambered aboard the giant. Dougins transport of the Eastern Air Lines, felt the big ship hammer down the, concrete runway, lift, and light but for New York. Twelve hours later the spotlights of Newark airport, drilled us in mid-air, and followed us until, three minutes 50 seconds later, we bounced lightly to a stop for a new coast-to-coast passenger aeroplane record.

THREE-AND-A-HALF MILES UP “How does it feel to rocket the 2650 miles from the Pacific to the Atlantic in half a. day? How does it feel to climb, climb, climb three and a half miles into the heavens, level I off, and span this country with but one stop —and that for only 12 minutes? Rickenbacker, the man in charge of the flight, will tell you that there is not any particular feeling; that it is no more than catching a subway for the Bronx, an elevated to the loop. So will Silas Moorhouse, chief pilot on the trip, and Captain Charlie France, who relieved him at the controls. “But what, about us three passengers? How did we feel when Captain Rickenbacker, his face wreathed with smiles, stuck his head out the cockpit door and said: ‘We’re going down that hill now, fellows, at about 255,’ or ‘We’re going upstairs a bit in a minute to about 17,500 feet to get over a few mountains,’ or ‘lf you can’t catch your breath, the oxygen tank is right up there in the cockpit.’ And how did we feel when, rid-ing-up there some three and a half miles off the earth, all we could see

out front was 125 miles of nothing and all we could see down below were the myriad jagged peaks of the Rockies’;

“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 of finding yourself up so high you could not get enough air. Yon would be leaning back in your big cushioned seat paying no more attention to breathing than you ordinarily do, and the next thing you know you would be gasping like a goldfish does when lifted out of a bowl. Your chest would tingle, and your toes vibrate as though touched with a live wire. And you would get up, half walk, half float, to the oxygen tank and plop the big red rubber mouthpiece to your face. You would take another and another, and then you would trip back to your seat as though you had had a ’shot' in die arm. "And riding up there by the moon has other advantages besides the oxygen, too. You can see so much. The Grand Canyon stretches out in front of you as though it is 50 miles away, but you can see down to the bottom of its deepest gorge, where the Colorado, a silver strip- no wider than your little finger, meanders around the curves. And you can see it all: not just a few miles. . . .

I A BAD THREE MINUTES I “For 12 hours the passengers, comforted by the assurance of the men in the cockpit and the unceasing hum of the mighty twin motors, felt no fear. But for three minutes they did. There was not any real reason for it, but they felt it nevertheless—a fear the more biting because of absolute helplessness. The three minutes and they i seemed like hours —came as the Douglas, hitting it up around 225 miles an hour, soared 17,500 feet above the very heart of the Rockies. Without warning, the piercing wail of a siren broke the silence of the cabin. Two red lights glowed on the cockpit dashhoard. The motors slowed down to a lazy whirl, and the monoplane began losing altitude, chunk by chunk. r “The three passengers looked I through the open door of the control i room and saw the co-pilot vigorously pumping a lever. They looked toward the earth, and saw a wicked, treacherous stretch, studded with mountains. The three passengers’ stomachs turned over, their faces whitened, their hearts skipped beats. For a minute they sat there frozen. Then just as quickly as they had quieted down, the motors roared again, and the ‘plane soared up and away. Actually the ‘plane was in no danger at all. What happened was this: The gas in the auxiliary tanks gave out, and while the pilot was pumping to produce a suction to start the flow of gas from the 400 gallons in the wings, the motors slowed down, and the ship dropped a bit. “But even if all the gas had been exhausted, Captain Rickenbacker explained to the three shaky passengers, the ship had so much altitude! it could have easily glided beyond thei mountains to a level landing place.' Oh, yes, the siren and the red lights were simply signals to warn the pilot it was time to switch to another tank. I “From there on it was like riding] on air, which, come to think about it, was just what we were doing.’’