Evening Star Newspaper, April 15, 1926, Page 12

WILKINS’ DASH DUE ' TOBEMADESOON Three-motor Plane Repaired, But Leader Will Wait Until Hand Heals. By tho Associated Press. FAIRBANKS, Alaska, April 15 tion was given here today that the final flight north from here and dash into the polar reglons of an Aretic air expedition of Capt. George Hubert Wilkins will be made soon. Engines of the Detroiter, the expe- s three-motor plame, were tested and pronounced in good Metal propellers have been replaced with wooden ons to make damage to the plane less probable in y in flying | kan, a one-engine machine, is fueled, tuned up and ready 10 take the air. Graders have been smoothing rough spots on a landing fleld used by the undertaking and soft places filled. Capt. Wilkins announced yvesterday that he will not take the air again un- il his right hand, hurt Saturday, has healed. The hand remained swollen. It was caught in the running gear under the Alaskan when Wilkins was gulding the machine after it had descended on a lagoon at Pulnt Barrow, 550 miles northwest of here. While returning to Fairbanks Sunday m Barrow after the second of two trips carrying supplies, Wilkins navigated with his left hand. Lieut. Carl Benjamin Elel- son, aviator of the expedition, was with him. With fog closing in over the ice of the Arctic Ocean, and with young ice beginning to recede from the shore, they suggested an early dash may be- come ifmperative for the main flight from Point Barrow in which they are expected, if they do not sight land, to pass near the North Pole and over to the Spitzbergen Islands, north of the Norwegian mainland. o STORE VETERANS TO DINE Twenty-year Club of Woodward & Lothrop to Celebrate April 24. The Twenty-Year Club, composed o employes of Woodward & Lothrop who have been in the ce of the store for 20 years or more, will hold fts annual good fellowship dinner at the Raleigh Hotel April 24. One hun- dred and six employes of the company will attend the banquet, which the entertainment committee, of which “H. V. Ostermayer is chalrman, prom- ARCTIC FLYING IS MYSTERIOUS . AND DEPRESSING, WILKINS SAYS Absence of Earth, Sky and Horizon Brings on Semi- Consciousness Calling for Continual Fight by Plane Occupants ‘BY CAPT. GEORGE HUBERT WILKINS, Commander Detralt Arctic Expedition. Spectal Dispatch to The Star. FAIRBANKS, Alaskg, April 15— Navigation over the Arétic mountains and the wilderness of snow-covered tundra is not only depressing but mysterious. Driving steadily into the bewildering whiteness where there is no earth, no sky and mno horizon brings on a semi-consclousness that one must continually fight off. With- out the hood of the plane before one for the rollef of the tired eyes, hours of such traveling is almost maddening. I have been flylng in alrplanes many years in every portion of the globe and under almost every condi- lon imaginable, but 1 do not hesitate to say that there is no more trying ex- perience for the airman than cross- ing the Endicott Mountains th? sepa- rate arctic Alaska from the fnhabit- able portions of this great American territory. . There are heights that are beaut!- ful and terrifying in that 100-mile wing across a range of jagged peaks that rival the Alps, the Rockies, the Andes, the Sierra Nevadas and even portions of the Himalayas. . Could Not Clear Fog. On my last trip out to Barrow, with Ben Elelson as pllot and myself as navigator, we were heavily laden in the single-motored Fokker Alaskan with gasoline, dog feed and other sup- plies, 80 that when we encountered fog in the mountains and tried to rise we could not get to an eleva- tion that meant assured safety in crossing. The celling of the fog was 9,100 feet, and that was the best the monoplane would do. Traveling light on the return, we got up to 12,000 feet without diffi- culty. Now the mountains where we were crossing are more than 10,000 feet in some places and it is a tic- Kklish problem flying through. At times on the top of that billowing, molisty mass the wheels of the land- ing gear were in the clouds while the fusilage was out in the clear. It was llke saillng through breast- high mist. Ben would do his best to lift the Alaskan’s nose a few feet | higher, but it was no use. Ahead would Toll up a higher mass of mist| and we would butt through it to| clear sailing on the other side. | Occasionally glimpses showed us| the deadly jagged rocks below, but | we kept straight on to the north- | ward. Once a rift in the fog dis- | closed a_high wall directly ahead.| tmes will be a_gala “becasion. The committees arranging the | banquet are under the general direc- tion of John Davies. L. H. B. Rob | Inette s chalrman of the committes | on printing and souvenirs and George | R. Porter is chairman of the commit- | tee on reception and seating. Eleven | members of the club have served the | firm more than 40 years. STUDENTS RAP ATHEISTS. | Alleged University of Tennessee | Soclety Called Publicity Stunt. KNOXVILLE, Tenn., April 15 (). —Students at the University of Ten- ee who are opposing the “Soclety the Preventlon of Religion,” recent- the! a The paper declares that it is “our belief that the student body of the institution is fundamenally Chris and opposed to any so-called atheistic 1‘uo\' ement” by “publicity-seeking stu- dents.” Wanted To Buy Vacant Lots Building Sites Small Investment Properties B.HOUSTON M<CENEY | e RIALTOR ==y 1653 Pennsyivania Ave, N. W. Phone Main 6152 A Special —it makes friends. tion of patterns. alterations. e e P T T P 000000 00000000000 0000ttt ttttiteteseseitostorsrttorsststtssorsssose seeseceee ---that’s the price Allows Us To Offer.. On These 540 and $45 New Spring Suits And Topcoats We like to offer real savings like this the latest models and good looking selec- The pilot banked sharply and we skimmed along the face of the| | RABBI JACOB KOHN | of New York City Speaks Friday Night, 8 P.M. Sixth St. Synagogue “United Synagogue Convention’ Special Best White Oak Leather HALF SOLES RUBBER HEELS Manufactured b{ Hood Rubber Co. The finest of white oak soles and guraranteed rubber heels. For Friday and Saturday only. Attached for NATIONAL Shoe Repair Factory 403 11th St. N.W. Near Pa. Ave. Friday and Saturday Purchase Your size is here— 0000000000000 0000000000000000004000000000000044 No charge for @r@@smem@ 1325 F STREET House of Kuppenheimer Good Clothes 0000000000000 000000000000008990000000000000003 B e THE EVENING STAR, WASHINGTON, 15, 1926. baked tanny plain. But with the white Arctic desert, not even the courses of the frozen river beds are distinguishable. I never saw a bird or any other Hv- ing wild creature while flying through the mountains or over the tundra, with the exception of some caribou. Of course, as we neared Barrow I saw a couple of dog teams and the people of the settlement, who hurried out when we landed; but for the hundreds of miles going and coming, through and beyond the mountains, there is nothing in the sky or on the earth ex- cept the great droning bird that car- D. C, travelers; I was reminded of Kipling's mountain battery verse: “A drop into nothing below you “As straight as a begger can spit."” If we had been dangling there we would have had “a wheel on the rim of the morning, a wheel on the edge of the pit.” Traveling out over the Arctic ice, one knows he is above a sea level surface and can judge his distance in the air with less difficulty than in navigating the rolling tundra, where blending sky and earth give beth pilot | mittens, but outside the plane's gear and observer false ideas of height and| may be covered with hoar frost. It position. With smooth ice, one also| is only when I go back in the cabin ried us and its flitting shadow on the | misses the horizon line, but where the | of the ship for photographic work or snow waste or darting along dim [ice is rough and hummocky and|to handle the radlo that I notice the canyon walls, pressure ridges rise one has land-|cold. The warm blast from the A forced landing on the Endicotts |marks. engine keeps the cockpit warm. should have but one ending—a dis- ‘When it is cloudy and the flyer is Flylng over hot desert lands 'is abled or thoroughly wrecked plane— |over clear ice the shadows below are|more trying on the physical senses and there would be no possibility of | confusing, the dark masses of shndflwlthun flying over the Arctic with the taking off again, for there {en't a spot [ resembling anything from open leals | ‘hermometer below zero. Looking out for 100 miles wide enough or long|to land and moving floes, when s aover side for observation purposes ex- enough to land on. | matter of fact everything baiow rmy | poses the nose and face to the sun | Looking down Into those canyon|be smooth, and breezes, and we have picked up | depths never yet plumbed by human Above the clouds over the frozen'severe sun and wind burns. The Polais Ro LS Plwt & Co Kresge Department Stores Newark THURSDAY, APRIL ping cargo from the while in the air is a_ticklish opera- tion. If I open a sliding window or the main door of the cabin the pilot |qj at once notices the pull on his con-|head, trols and the stability of the hip iS|ly or hy a fiip of the hand. disturbed. But tnere are many things to keep both navigator and pilot occupied while flving, as we have been doing {and with the Alaskan in ferrving fuel to| paw our Barrow base, 560 miles e, | the ground for all the from whence the Detroit A 1 i whe pedition will explore the 1 e i barn When not checking the using the radio there was the g hand pump to operate to keep the upper tank filled from the reservoir. We found time to eat a sandwich and Ben sea or in the tundra country, the world takes on a dark blue tone. We experfenced the phenomenon of seeing a complete rainbow—the entire circle —with the sun a darker blue splotch in the center and four distinct rings in all their prismatic beauty. Temperature No Hardship. Flying in the Arctic temperature is not uncomfortable. It has been so warm in the inclosed cockpit of the Alaskan that we seldom resort to we passed low ovi mountains, headed west, until we followed the pass out into lower al- titudes and were safe once more. The sameness of the tundra, with its snow covering that will become deeper at this season of the year, has nothing to relleve it. Flying over the Australlan desert the navi- gator has the pleasant contrast of browns, yellows and occasional greens to break the monotony and has friendly guides on the sun- when we thought about it 11t is. and I would change cont sionally to allow him to str arms or to snap a picture with the camera of Fred the corre- spondent of _the American Newspaper Alliance. | The roar of the ergine drowns all other sounds in the plane, and con al The Fair Chicago as they c A ca bicyeles ¢ ign Men’s Shop Opens 8 A.M. G Street Door, Near 10th Sizes Arranged on Separate Tables to Facilitate Quick Extra Salespeople ok The Shirt Sale That Comes But Once a Year! ANNUAL SPRING SALE en’s Fine New Shirts Starts Friday 8 A.M. $1.79 = ° | 78 Variety and Values Better Than Ever Sale Price . 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