AIR: Forced Landing

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Aviation Cadet Vinson Wieser was lost on a cross-country night flight. He had only a half-hour of gasoline in his tanks. He headed his plane for the brightest spot he could see.

The bright spot was the stadium of the College of the Pacific, where a football game was going full blast. For nearly half an hour, Cadet Wieser crisscrossed the gridiron, waggled his wings like a light-drunken moth, hoping that somebody would understand, clear the field so that he could land. The spectators were fascinated but the players paid no attention. Then things happened fast. He 1) knocked the chimney off a house, 2) tore down a high-tension line and put the stadium lights out, 3) ran out of gas. Landing willy-nilly, he headed for a crowded parking lot, plunked his ship down in a driveway, rolled to a stop ten feet short of the nearest automobile. Said an astounded superior: "That used up all the luck he's entitled to."