CROSSING AMERICA IN A DAY.

Otago Witness, Issue 3672, 29 July 1924, Page 44

CROSSING AMERICA IN A DAY.

NERVE-RACKING EXPERIENCE. {From Gcb Own Correspondent. ) SAX FRANCISCO, June 30. Hurtling- like a comet through the clouds, in the wake of a great. red sun that had already sunk below a misty horizon, Lieutenant Russell Ma ugh an, intrepid dawn-to-dusk American aviator, winged his way oyer San Francisco Bay at 9.44 o’clock at night—second to “cross the line’’ in his race with the sun. Three minutes later he had brought his plane to a safe landing at Crissy Field on part of the site where the \\ orld’s Fair was held in San Francisco in 1915, Though Lieutenant Maughan lost his rare with the sun, he accomplished what others had termed impossible. “It can’t be clone,” they said, but the plucky Maughan “did it.” A tick of a clock was the signal that sent the plane piloted by Lieutenant Maughan on his unparalleled race. He left Mitchel Field at Mineola, in the State of New York, at 2.59 a.m. eastern standard lime, hoping to fly to San Francisco before the sun sank into the Golden Gate. Though Maughan made the journey across the American continent faster than any mortal ever before had made it, his race appeared a losing one, but in actual flying time he beat the sun. At times actual victory seemed in sight for the daring aviator, but eventually the great yellow disc with which he was racing drew steadily away from him, leaving him to wing his way across, mountains and deserts in the ever-deepening dusk. Two hours and ten minutes before Maughan’s plane appeared over Crissy field the sun had dropped triumphantly out of sight into the Pacific. Maughan’s actual flying time was 18 hours 44 minutes, while his elapsed time was 21 hours 49 minutes The sun had required only 19 hours 38 minutes for the same journey—and it had not. stopped for fuel. According on a basis of actual flying time Maughan was the faster. It was 9.30 p.m when word was passed to the crowd of more than 20.000 persons which awaited —in absolute silence—Maughan’s coming, that he was over Richmond on San Francisco Ray. There followed a breathless 15 minutes Then at 9.44 p.m. the plane was sighted, breaking through the thin fog which hung over the field. There was a mighty shout Maughan dipped low and then circled the field, flying three times around it. After flying so long in darkness, it was explained, the searchlights blinded him, and he was forced to remain aloft for three minutes before he could stand the glare. Then he swooped gracefully to earth, at the far end of the aviation grounds. The crowd, until that moment orderly and easily controlled, broke past the guards and pressed round the plane. A way was broken, and, with Maughan still in the seat, the machine was taxied to a spot reserved in front of the air officers’ headquarters. Officers helped Maughan from his plane, and he smiled and posed beside the machine for the small army of photographers. A big searchlight across the field was playing on Maughan and formed a. pathway of golden light for him direct to the doors of the officers’ quarters. Though Maughan plainly showed his fatigue as he talked, he smiled into the mob of faces as they pressed about him, clamouring and shouting. For a moment his sunken, bloodshot eyes twinkled merrily as he was lifted from his plane, and he jestingly remarked, “Well. I had a good time, anyhow.” Then he started passing out letters, mail that had been given him the same morning in New York for delivery in Sian Francisco on the night of the same day. Men rushed from the flying field and rescued the hero aviator from the crowd which threatened to carry him off his feet. They raised him to their shoulders and carried him to the officers’ quarters. Meanwhile, Maughan was the personification of modesty, and made little of his remarkable feat, declaring that many of his comrades could equally perform the long trip within the time he had done it. Never once, from the moment he hopped off from Mineola field, was Maughan in serious trouble. The engine of the sturdy little plane roared incessantly as he swept over cities and wheat fields of the Middle West; the towering pinnacles of the Rockies. and, finally, the snow-clad Sierras, before gliding down into the Sacramento Valley on the last lap of his race. At time's it appeared as though the very elements had entered into league with his rival to destroy the puny plane that dared pit its strength against the sun. But. despite the storms and rains that overtook him, buffeting the plane and drenching the pilot, the tiny fleck against the sky buzzed bravely on its course. This was Maughan’s third attempt to cross the country by day, the last one being made in 1923. and ending in failure at Rock Springs, Wyoming. Maughan is an unassuming man, not 30 years old.