Word: piloting
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1930-1939
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...bleak night last December eight men flying north from Charleston, S. C. were strapped in their seats in an Eastern Air Lines transport, undisturbed by the rough air because their pilot was famed Henry Tindall ("Dick") Merrill, whose exploits, besides flying U. S. mail in a bathing suit (see cut, p. 74), have included twice hopping the Atlantic (TIME, Sept. 14, 1936). Suddenly a thudding shiver ran through the plane as a wingtip sliced a treetop. Recalled Passenger W. T. Critchfield: "It sounded at first like a heavy truck running on gravel very fast. I looked at Saggio [a passenger...
...this point Mr. Critchfield's observations halted because he was knocked out. When he revived, the Douglas transport was wedged between two trees, minus its wings and considerably messed up. But only Pilot Merrill was badly hurt, with a broken jaw, a broken ankle. Overconfident, as he readily admitted, he had been led astray by bad weather-reporting and rain static on the radio, had come down through the overcast thinking he was at Newark, had found a hillside instead. By extraordinary luck and skill he managed to make a forced landing...
...that point he was spotted by another TWA pilot, Capt. A. M. Wilkins, flying in from the west at 700 ft. ready to land as soon as Bohnet was down. Wilkins saw the silvery monoplane about three miles ahead and 200 ft. lower in level flight. To his surprise he overtook it fast. When only a mile behind, Wilkins cut his speed in order not to pass Bohnet. Simultaneously he noticed that Bohnet was having trouble. Though the air was clear, with no turbulence whatever, the plane ahead was wallowing. A wing would go down five degrees, then wobble back...
...from San Francisco climbed a brand new Sikorsky S-42B flying boat named the Pan American Clipper after the sister ship which made the tests on the central Pacific service. In command as always when Pan American starts a new project was its taciturn senior pilot, Captain Edwin C. Musick. With a six-man crew he buzzed uneventfully to Honolulu, slowing down to let Amelia Earhart pass undisturbed. From Honolulu, few days after Miss Earhart crashed (TIME. March 29), Capt. Musick again soared into the sky. this time turned southwest and faced the world's most ticklish navigation problem...
...Capricornus took off from Southampton with five men, one woman and 65 mailsacks to fly non-stop to Alexandria on a final experimental trip. Over Lyons a few hours later the British pilot ran into a severe snowstorm. Inept like most European airmen at blind flying, he got lost, circled through the murk while the radioman sent out an SOS. Before he could get his bearings, the pilot scraped his wing on a fir tree, smacked full tilt into the side of Mont du Beaujolais, killed everyone but the radioman, who crawled two miles through the snow for help...