Monday, Nov. 10, 1924
Miracle
Army aviators using a process invented by Prof. Wilder D. Bancroft of Cornell, and Dr. L. Francis Warren of Harvard, "shot down" a series of clouds which overshadowed Boiling Field, Washington.
Captain L. I. Eagle and Lieut. W. E. Melville, piloting two De Haviland airplanes, climbed to 13,000 feet, made a heavy strata of cumulus clouds their objective. Spectators saw them disappear. Then they suddenly broke through, as the cloud disintegrated under the shower of electrified sand discharged through nozzles set in the under portion of the fuselage. The aviators described a circle above the cloud bank and their maneuver was duplicated by a clean-cut pathway through the mist. "A miracle!" cried some of the watchers.