Guba

The U. S. has been spanned by land-planes flown by men, women, and once by a pilot flying blind. It has been spanned by a glider towed by a plane. Last week it was spanned for the first time by a flying boat--a twin-motored Consolidated PBY-1 of the "type used by the Navy on its various mass junkets to Hawaii (TIME, Feb. 8).

Bought new for some $200,000 by .Richard Archbold, research associate of Manhattan's American Museum of Natural History, the 27,500-lb. plane was flown from San Diego to New York as a test hop for an expedition Explorer Archbold plans to New Guinea this year. With Pilot Russell Rogers, Explorer Archbold and four others aboard, the big ship covered the 2,600-miles overnight in 17 hr. 3 1/2-min. So perfect was the weather that the Sperry gyro-pilot handled the controls most of the way.

After a series of load tests, Explorer Archbold, who holds a private license, plans to fly his ship to Yellowstone Lake, Wyoming, to see if the two Wasp motors can take it off the water at that 7,740-ft. altitude. Heretofore no plane has ever taken off from water higher than 6,225-ft. Lake Tahoe in California. In New Guinea, where rich, 30-year-old Explorer Archbold plans to fly via Pan American's bases across the Pacific, he hopes to be able to land on and take off from a lake 11,000 ft. high. Last year in New Guinea a smaller plane upset in a squall at Port Moresboy. In memory of the episode, the new plane has been named Cuba--a native word for sudden squall.

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