Evening Star Newspaper, July 24, 1937, Page 5

& have frozen suddenly. . . Polar Flyers’ Drinking W ater Kept Engine from Exploding Fears When Pipe A ppeared Frozen as Plane Swept Over Canada Described by Soviet Pilot. One of the pilots of the first Boviet plane to fly over the North Pole from Moscow to America has written a vivid narrative of the erperiences of himself and his two companions. In this instalment, the sizth of a series, Pilot Baidukov tells of the plane’s fight through ice-laden clouds which froze the motor. BY GEORGE BAIDUKOV. Again the familiar picture of a sea of clouds! The masses of clouds give the illusion of breaking waves that We creep up- ward, leaving them just below the plane. The altimeter shows 5,000 meters. We travel with a tail wind and our #peed reaches 200 kilometers an hour. Chkalov's left leg begins to pain him again from the heights and from 1atigue, and he asks to be replaced. At 9:40 am. I slide almost un- willingly into the pilot's seat. And as #oon as I sit down I feel the need of oxygen. My pulse accelerates sharply and I breathe with difficulty, my lungs taking in the air spasmodically. | good it is at a height of 3,000 meters! It is easy to breathe. In the cabin the temperature is 9 degrees above, and outside only 1 degree below. I am terribly hungry. And no won- der. In 40 hours we have only once tried the coffee and the chicken, and that was 30 hours ago. I ask Sasha to hand me the rub- ber bags with our food supplies. Here | is chicken, meat, ham, oranges, ap- ples, chocolate. I select a rosy apple. It is frozen, but very juicy. I give some of the apple ice cream to Valery and Sasha and begin to put some away myself, Then we each take an orange. These are entirely frozen and we can only thaw them out a bit on the pipe that warms the cabin. Valka rejects this dish. In general he eats nothing at all on the trip. Sasha eats another orange and I finish al- most all the rest. How the juice peps you up! After breakfast I ask Chklaw for his pipe, and pull at it with great satisfaction while looking down at the Amundsen straits, cov- ered completely with ice, and the northern part of Banks Island. Beliakov is completely exhausted. I pull on the oxygen mask and set it | He has been working hard and now for the intake of oxygen required for 3,000 meters. This is enough to pour a fresh stream of courage into my body. Everything goes dark before Valery's eyes, and he also grabs for the oxygen. At the same time the sea of clouds rises higher and higher begs for some sleep. I make room for him. He flops down on the floor of the cabin, sticking his feet under our reserve controls. In exceptionally fine weather we leave behind us the southern end of Banks Island and fly over clear water. The clear w and, in order to keep above it, I am | oo, Cicar Water looks incongruous to forced to climb to 5,500 meters by 10:40. . At 11 o'clock the plane reaches its maximum height with the given load, 5,300 meters, and the slightest vacilla- tion sends it downward. At times we manage to break through the crests easily, while again we are flying so low that the plane is caught in a trap of clouds. Wall of Clouds Appears. At one point I notice that on the| left the clouds are lower than usual. | ‘Taking a course of about 10 degrees | less, I have the advantage of from | 100 to 150 meters over the top layer of clouds, and am terribly pleased. But my satisfaction is destroyed in 20 minutes. I find myself before a wall of clouds reaching up to 6,500 meters altitude, an impossible hurdle + for our plane at that moment. I do not want to go into the clouds, in spite of the very low temperature— 30 degree below. Experience has taught us that, even at 30 below, we | cannot always avoid the formation of | fce. I turn back, and in another 20 | minutes approach the mountain of clouds on the left, but that does not | help either Willy-nilly, I have to swim into that | hell and, fixing the course at 180 | degrees, I begin to fly blind. I head into the clouds, and after every bump | the Ant-25 loses several meters in | altitude. After an hour’s flying in these elouds, a layer of ice a centimeter thick is forming and I drop down- ward, counting on either the swift rise | in temperature or a break in the| clouds near the ground to thaw out the ice. For the first time in 36 hours the engine receives an unexpected rest. Apparently because it is not u.sed _W it, it begins to spatter small quantities of partly used fuel into the muffler. At 3,000 meters I find myself beneath the upper layer of the mass of flaky clouds. The temperature is close to rero. Below is still another layer of clouds, through a break in which we | seem to see an island. But what island and whether it is really an island at all it is impossible to tell. Just then something suddenly spouts up from the forward part of the en- gine. The windshield in front of me | becomes even more frosted, There is an odor of alcohol. Trouble and | trouble of the worst kind. Apparent- | 1y, the steam-letting pipe has frozen | during a sharp turn in piloting the | plane and now, after an abrupt move, the cylinder caps are without water. Cold shivers run down my spine, Chops Ice From Window. I shout with all my might for a| knife. Valery, somewhat pale, hands | me a sharp one. I quickly begin to| chop the ice away, thrusting my hand | through the side window of the cabin and the front headlight and that way make s little opening through which I can see that there is no more water in the expansion chamber. The red us after the endless ice of the Pole of inaccessibility. And even now it looks out of place, since both to the right and the left there is pure ice instead of straits and the shore is still locked in a solld band of ice, Chief Task Carried Out. At 4:15 pm. Cape Pierce Point, of which we have spoken %0 much in Moscow, swims under us. And s0 the chief task assigned to us by Comrade Stalin has been car- ried out—the territory of Canada is beneath us. We have flown 6200 kilometers. And how many kilo- meters were eaten up by the greedy winds of the Arctic? How much extra gasoline did we use in those dif- ficult climbs into the clouds, and in avoiding cyclones? Probably not less than 1,500 kilometers, that is, 25 per cent of the entire flight. But will any one blame us if it is understood that we were the ex- plorers of this difficult route, that we were the first to follow it and that we followed it surely? Now, on the basis of our fight, others may take this route with greater speed and With a great saving in the expendi- ture of energy and fuel. 4:37. Marvelous anti-cyclone con- ditions. Hardly any clouds. Heavy mists up to 3,000 meters and very warm-—not more than zero. At 6 o'clock the Big Bear Lakes begin, Noting on the map the cor- rectness of our course, I take over the radio. Like Beliakov, I notice only a slight reaction in the antennae. The rest of the apparatus works splen- didly. Just the same, I decide to transmit a radio message, hoping that it will be received by.the nearest ra- dio station in Canada. “To all from RT No. 35: “Stalin, Voroshilov, Rukhimovich, Kaganovich, Flight Headquarters. I understand your anxiety. But you, too, understand us that the flight has gone well, but not so simply. There were many difficult hours. Now the hardest fiying is over, since at the early stage in Canada it is still clear and quiet and in 24 hours we shall arrive. Now I send you best wishes in your affairs from the crew. ‘Thank you for everything and do not worry, The difficulties have been overcome and we are glad that in the main we have already carried out the assign- ment of our government and our people. “Greetings. BAIDUKOV.” (Copyright, 1937, by the North Americaa Newspaper Alliance. Inc.) Bishop to Preach. WARRENTON, Va., July 3¢ (Bpe- cial) —Right Rev. H. 8t Tucker, Bishop of Virginia, will preach Sunday morning at Grace Ohurch, Casanova, and administer confirma- tion to & class of 11, Brain Twizzlers float has disappeared. I begin to work the pump madly, but take in no| water., Could our pipe line really be | frozen, could all the alcohol mixture | be gome? I push the plane to the| limit of its speed. If only it drops no lower! | “Water, water—let me have water, or the engine will burn up—" I| shout to Valery. | Chkalov throws himself on the re- ' serve tank and, with the help of the excited Beliakov, begins to examine it. There are plenty of pieces of ice, | but not a bit of water. Where to get water? *There is drinking water in the rub- ber sack, but that also is frozen. | Beliakov cuts the bag. and, breaking through the icy surface, joyously dis- | covers there is still water inside. They | pour the water into the tank and shout | Jubilantly to me. | My pump actually draws up water, BY PROF. HE fellow that invented numbers certainly contributed something to the world. Think of how often num- bers take a part in everyday life. and 1 began to feed it into the expan- | Sometimes 7 and 11 are lucky, while #£lon chamber. Soon the float appears. | 2 3 and 12 are bad news. The math- Carefully warming up the engine ith | ematician says there is poetry in num- increased revolutions, I gradually heat | pers while those expecting trouble say the pipe and begin again to make | there is safety in numbers, and yet, at Bltity in order to get away from|times three is a crowd. It goes on the dangerous zero temperature. But. | ang on. buy can you find three differ- after climbing to 5000 meters. ice|eni numbers between (not including) begins to form, and I have to drop |} and 10 whose product equals three down again | times their sum? But now I decrease the speed only (Copyright, 1937.) slightly so that the exhaust collector may warm up the steam-letting pipe well. At 3.000 meters the clouds clear and we see some islands below us. | Ahead, as far as the eye can see, are | large islands. In the straits is solid | —_ - C CTTT = e fce, reflecting many colors, in a bright | The Amhbassador mosaic pattern 1 TR A good time to think of poetry. But | ~ ATCANTIC Ty, three hours of stubborn struggle witn |______ OCEAN CITY, N. J. the last Arctic cyclone are not con- | ROOSEVELT INN mami.l. & ducive to thoughts of beauty. Rooms. running Tater: 3 meals, ‘exeationt Islands Are Sighted. | Bathing ' priviicess Tor eai: 340 pm. Ahead a lot of sun, below | 4ren._Phone 1 S 0 e 8 lot of brown earth, cut through by COLONIAL BEACH, VA. R many ravines and rivers. In the |Mrs. J. D. Allen, C Vi ravines layers of snow, and, instead | SRICHICSS, that, after instaliation of mo of rivers, ice. The shores of the islands | provements to" the old are high and steep, and they are very | (he water front at H like the northern part of our Kola | the day week “or Fin s zfllmulfll Pu! Gwha§ s these | Wde Tawns. bathing. “woating. Arning o lands? s this reenland? - — Sasha computes the height of the | BHADXSIDESMD, sun. Comparing our present location | with the map, it becomes fully clear we ghall so0n see the shores of Banks Island through the clouds and that its land already stretches below us. ¢ I yield my place to Chkhov. How (See ANSWER, Page B-7. " RESORTS. ATLANTIC CITY, N. J. Cool Bay Breexe—15 degroes 33 Miles Frem D. C. athing l'.la ‘.‘C'P‘.ri“’l-l‘- o ¥ or a7 Fo Vot iver "5 45 A W. 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