AVIATION: North to Europe

From Los Angeles' fog-shrouded airport, a white and silver DC-6B of the Scandinavian Airlines System last week took off on the first scheduled commercial flight to Europe by way of the Arctic. By flying a great circle route, instead of across the continent to New York, SAS cuts the Los Angeles-Copenhagen route by 459 miles and the flying time by 2 hrs. 25 min. (The regular one-way fare of $574 saves the passenger $40; $970 round trip is $70 less.) Cruising at 300 m.p.h. at about 17,000 ft. altitude, SAS made only two stops on the 5,800-mile flight to...