On Top

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TWA set aside a Northrop Gamma for experiments, last year made a big splash of headlines by coining the word "over-weather." Theory was that at 35,000 ft. it was always clear, always calm, all winds were steady. That this was not entirely the case was presently proved by TWA's crack Test-Pilot Daniel W. ("Tommy") Tomlinson. Burly and devil-may-care, he learned his flying in the Navy's celebrated acrobatic-team of Sea Hawks, of whom he is the sole survivor. Known as "Indian Joe" to the fleet, Tomlinson would stunt at night with lights out so officers could not see him. Eventually his gallivanting got him cashiered from the service and he joined TWA as assistant to President Jack Frye, himself a top-notch flyer. Today Tomlinson holds several world records, has spent more time above 35,000 ft. than any other man, is regarded so highly as a flyer that insurance companies have been known to cut their premiums 50% on a new plane if he is to test-fly it. Last winter Tomlinson made constant trips to the substratosphere in the single-motored Gamma. Devil-may-care as ever, he spurned any such oxygen suit as Wiley Post wore, merely bundled up warmly, stuck an oxygen tube in his mouth. Says he: "I don't know what it may do to me eventually. Doctors say it may kill me, but I reckon not. I have to build up to each flight by drinking lots of milk and sleeping long hours and when I get down I have bloody noses and bad attacks of boils for a week or so. But they go 'way."

Pilot Tomlinson's most risky and most important substratosphere flight took place last January. Ordered to bring his Gamma to Manhattan for the Aviation Show, he and his assistant, Engineer James Heistand, deliberately took off from Kansas City in the worst possible weather, climbed to 36,000 ft. where they were still not on top of the bad weather. Nor could Tommy reach the top, thus exploding the "overweather" theory for that level at any rate. Flying in sleet without sighting land for seven hours, he finally reached the coast, began to "mush" down through for a landing. His aerial was iced and he could not get a fix on the beam at Newark where the ceiling was very low and where TWA officials were biting their nails. So he nonchalantly flew 200 miles out to sea in his land plane to make a second approach. Back over Newark, he still could not get down and gas was nearly gone. Heading toward Princeton, he spotted the first hole in the clouds since Kansas City, dropped through it just as his engine conked out. The plane nosed over in the forced landing, but damage was negligible and the research gains were tremendous. After the Aviation Show the "overweather" plane retired for an overhaul. Last week, with a radical new fuel injection system made by Eclipse Corp. that eliminates the carburetor, it was given its first tests by President Frye in person preparatory to more visits to the substratosphere.