ALMOST DISASTER

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22405, 12 August 1947, Page 5

ALMOST DISASTER

MOUNTAIN MISSED PILOT FALLS ASLEEP NEXT FLIGHT OVER POLES (N. Z. I?. A.—Router— Copy light.) CHICAGO, Aug. 10. Triumphant, but haggard from a lack of sleep, Captain W. Odom landed at Chicago after having gone round the world faster than any man before. A huge crowd welcomed him at Chicago aerodrome, including his wife, two children, his parents and Mr. Millon Reynolds, who sponsored the flight. Captain Odom had been virtually without sleep since he left Chicago three days before and fatigue nearly caused disaster between the Anchorage, Alaska, and Edmonton, Canada, when he fell asleep for 1 hour 40 minutes while in flight. “Made Me Sick in Stomach” “I was flying at 20,000 feet and when 1 awoke I had dropped to 16,000 feet and was heading straight at a mountain peak. It made me sick in my stomach for a few minutes.” Captain Odom had no other sleep, except “capnaps,” mostly while standing up during his short refublling stops at Gander, Paris, Cairo, Karachi. Calcutta, Tokyo, the Anchorage and Fargo. He lived on sandwiches, scrambled eggs and Benzedrine pills. The late Mr. Wiley Post in 1933 flew a single-engined second-hand aircraft which had inferior navigation facilities However, his route took him over 15,596 miles, whereas Captain Odom flew 19,645 miles. Ex-Bomber Ferry Pilot Captain Odom, who is six feet two inches tall, is aged 27 years and neither drinks nor smokes. During the war he flew the North Atlantic route as a copilot for American Export Lines, captained R.A.F. bombers for delivery hops from Canada to England and made 102 flights over the Burma “Hump.” He first wanted to be a flyer at the age of 13 years when he met the late Mr. Wiley Post, who gave him an autographed piece of Post’s famous plane. Captain Odom’s new ambition is to fly around the world the hard waycrossing both poles.