Broken Dolly

Miss Eloysa Levine, nine-year-old daughter of New York-Paris Flight-Backer Charles Levine, patriotically christened the Wright-Bellanca monoplane Columbia, (TIME, May 2) with a tepid bottle of ginger ale. Afterwards, laughing, she climbed into the Columbia with her friend Grace Jonas, Superintendent John Carisi and Pilot Clarence D. Chamberlin for a ride. As the plane took off, a bolt was sheared in the shock absorbers, crippling the landing dolly, meaning disaster 99 out of a 100 cases.

Five thousand terror-gripped onlookers watched airmen rush into the air with seven planes to warn Chamberlin. Flying beside him, they held out wheels to signal his trouble. For 50 minutes the Levines, horrified, watched the plane circle hopelessly about, followed by an ambulance ready to pick up the bodies. They saw Carisi climb over the edge, struggle vainly, hanging head down, to fix the buckled wheel. Pilot Chamberlin. wrapped the children in blankets to save the shock of a crash. Then he slowly swooped down, ten feet from the ground flattened into a pancake stall, 'tail downwards. A wing dragged along the ground, slewed the ship around but not over. Incredibly, Pilot Chamberlin, hero with Pilot Bert Acosta of the world-record endurance flight (TIME, April 25) had eluded disaster. Eloysa Levine laughed, "Mr. Chamberlin wrapped me in blankets. He thought I was cold."

Good Will

Last week four far-traveled planes, the New York 2nd, the San Francisco, the San Antonio and the St. Louis landed at Miami, Fla. Out of them eight U. S. Army "Good Will" flyers clambered, took their first steps on home soil in more than four months.

Since Dec. 21, when these flyers started from San Antonio, Tex., they had visited Mexico and Central America, skirted the long western coast of South America, soared over the towering Andes at a height of 12,000 feet, followed South America's east coast to the West Indies. They had covered some 17,000 miles, personally carried the "good will" of the U. S. to every Central and South American nation, arrived at the end of their long trip on scheduled time. Through tropic storms, landing in places where no plane had been before, four of these amphibian planes had made their way back home to prove that airplane travel is practicable in any place through every kind of weather. Over Buenos Aires two of the original six planes had crashed, two flyers were killed (TIME, Mar. 7). The rest continued their triumphant way. This week the "Good Will" aviators were to fly leisurely to Washington to be there in time to take part in the "All-American Aircraft Display."

Wilkins Safe

Last week the bandy legs of James Takpuc, Eskimo runner, trit-trotted over the 100 miles of trail from Beechy Point, Alaska, to Point Barrow. Tired but articulate, he grunted out good news, delivered a written despatch.

The despatch was from Capt. George Hubert Wilkins, black-bearded Australian soldier of fortune, and his sky pilot, Carl Ben Eielson, saying they had crawled safely off the Polar Sea after 17 days and nights of discomfort.

The day they left Point Barrow in their Stinson plane, in search of undiscovered land northwest of nowhere (TIME, April 11), they had flown for five hours to a point some 900 miles due north of Wrangel Island. They had seen no land. Their carburetor and ignition had gone bad. Pilot Eielson froze his fingers tinkering at the engine at three stops on the ice. The third stop was final. Their fuel was gone an hour's flight from shore. They left the plane and trudged home, the pack drift carrying them east past Point Barrow. By night they slept in snow bivouacs; by day they trudged, crawled on hands and knees, tiptoed across young ice in the shifting leads. Once Captain Wilkins fell in. For food they had dry biscuits, Norwegian chocolate. Had that given out they could have shot seals.

At Beechy Point the polar pilgrims awaited the return of their comrade, Pilot Alger Graham, who, obeying orders, left the Barrow base camp last fortnight for Fairbanks, Alaska, in a reserve plane.