Word: eielson
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Wilkins. Fairbanks, Alaska, kept its radio ear cocked. But after the message (TIME, April 12) saying that Captain Wilkins and Pilot Eielson had brought their freight-laden monoplane Alaskan safely to earth 560 miles northward at Point Barrow, the Arctic air yielded no more news of them...
...smash into a wire fence three weeks ago, repairs had been swiftly made on her propeller, fuselage and landing gear. Tuned to a new perfection, loaded with 3,000 lb. of freight* and 290 gallons of extra gasoline, she responded with a twelve-cylinder roar to Pilot Carl B. Eielson's cry for "Contact!" Ice on the runway had melted, leaving about a foot of slush which the Alaskan churned high in the air as she shot forward. Lifting slowly but easily, she circled to a height of 1,000 feet over the landing field, then squared off north...
Next, when Chief Pilot Carl Ben Eielson stepped into the Alaskan's cockpit and signaled "Contact!" for a test flight, the craft bucked and plunged, struggled amain with roaring cylinders, but could not rise from the clinging snowfield. Overhead there was perfect flying weather, bright and clear. Eielson ripped the throttle wide open. The Alaskan roared forward, kicking up a small blizzard, and at last crept clear and aloft?only, when she landed after a brisk spin, to crash into a buried wire fence at the end of the field, smashing her propeller, landing gear and fuselage. No Pole flight...
Knowing Capt. Wilkins for a persistent and resourceful man (he plans to live in the polar regions largely on what game can be shot), and knowing Chief Pilot Eielson for an indefatigable flyer (singlehanded he overcame a hundred vicissitudes of the North, flew 60,000 unaccompanied miles in the Alaskan air mail service), U. S. airmen had no doubt that the expedition would be pushed ahead notwithstanding...
...wooden buildings, two Fokker monoplanes were finally assembled last week. Captain George H. Wilkins, leader of the U. S. aero expedition which is to fly over the Polar blindspot to Spitsbergen (TIME, March 15, SCIENCE), called to his aides. They were Major Thomas G. Lanphier and Lieutenant Carl B. Eielson, the pilots, and A. M. ("Sandy") Smith. All was set for the first tests. But Captain Wilkins would not commence until the crowd of spectators-newspapermen, townsmen and women of Fairbanks-dispersed. He was afraid of killing someone. So they scattered and the propellers were turned over for the first...