Aeronautics: Flights & Flyers, Feb. 29, 1932

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A, W. O. L. Fairly creaking under a heavy load of fuel, a four-year-old Fairchild monoplane named Miss U. S. S. Louisville lurched clumsily down the concrete runway of New York's Floyd Bennett Field, wobbled from side to side, finally skidded into the soft grass and wrecked its landing gear. Out of the cabin crawled two rueful young men with 80¢ in their pockets and a strange story to tell. They had just attempted a take-off "to Portugal." Both men—Frank Gushing and Andrew Soos Jr.—were sailors absent without leave from the U. S. S. Louisville which fortnight earlier had sailed for Guantanamo Bay. Neither was a licensed flyer, although Gushing claimed to have soloed. To bring fame to themselves and their ship, they had planned the flight. They funded their savings of $1,200, somehow raised $800 more from shipmates and bought the old monoplane, on which they still owed $10 when it cracked up last week. Locked in the Brooklyn Navy Yard brig for "jumping ship" the sailors explained: "We're just a little goofy about flying."

Treasure Hunt. Few weeks ago Pilot William H. Graham and Mrs. Edna Christofferson, widow of the early barnstormer Silas Christofferson, took off from Seattle to seek the Baychimo, icebound, abandoned, somewhere in the Arctic Ocean. Aboard it, they believed, was "a million dollars worth of furs." Last week airplanes were sent out from Vancouver to hunt for the treasure-hunters, missing somewhere in British Columbia. Meanwhile Captain Sydney A. Cornwall, master of the Baychimo, arrived in Fairbanks and revealed that the fur cargo had already been salvaged by crew and natives, that he was sure his ship had since sunk.

Treasure Hunt. Few years ago the party game of "treasure hunt" (pursuit of a prize by discovery and correct interpretation of successive cryptic clues concealed throughout a house or over the countryside) was made more elaborate by using automobiles. Last week the Pylon Club of Philadelphia, organization of sportsman pilots, applied the game to the air. Sample clue: "Fly 5° south of east for approximately 8 min. where you will pick up a Catholic Church located between two golf courses. From this church, lay a course 25° east of north. . . . You will come to an airport where you are to land and pick up your next clue."

Akron's Luck. Six members of a Congressional committee investigating charges of faulty construction in the U. S. S. Akron were about to board her for an inspection flight at Lakehurst when a terrific gust of wind whipped her tail free of the ground crew, bounced it against the ground. After a five-minute tussle the Akron was made fast again. The lower stabilizing fin, containing the after-control car, was smashed; a large expanse of fabric torn from the belly.