Two Americans Spend 30 Days In The Air

Northern Advocate, 30 April 1940, Page 7

Two Americans Spend 30 Days In The Air

The magnitude of events in Europe has tended to obscure some really important items of news from other parts of the world. Especially is this so in matters of flying, for one of the really most remarkable events in the history of aviation, has passed practically unnoticed. This was the record endurance refueling flight set up by two Californian airmen, Wes Carroll and Clyde Schluper. These two young men took up a light seaplane from Long Beach, California, on September 29 last and did net land again until a month later, on October 29. Details of the flight given by courtesy of the Champion Spark Plug Company, show it as an epic performance and one marvels not only at the stamina of the plane and its engine but of the two members of the crew also. Millions of Sparks. Cooped in the narrow cockpit of their small seaplane, they spent over 726 hours in the air—3Q days and 30 nights of continuous flying. During that time, 150,000,000 sparks were required from the spark plugs to keep the eneine functioning nerfectly over the distance of 55,000 miles covered by the plane. Refueling was accomplished by means of a fast car and ground-crew of three, who stood in the back seat of a speeding car and hooked cans of petrol on to a rope lowered from the plane. As the cans held only three gallons. 40 such operations had to be performed each day. This flight broke all previous endurance records, eclipsing the previous record pf 653 bouts, held by a large transport plane, by ovdr three clays.