Photographs by Nat L. Dewell ADJUSTING ONE OF THE 36-INCH ROTATING BEACONS When set on 50-foot steel towers these lights rotate six times a minute at an angle of a degree or two above the horizon, and in clear weather can be seen 70 miles or more. ADJUSTING LANDING LIGHTS ON THE WINGS OF A PLANE ONE OF THE POWERFUL FLOODLIGHTS AT AN AIR MAIL AVIATION FIELD, WITH A LIGHT INTENSITY OF 500,000,000 CANDLEPOWER Through the open doors of the hangar a group of mechanics emerged, wheeling out a reserve plane onto the wide cement mat, their shouts and laughter floating upward. Beyond the friendly circle of the floodlights, the level, grassy surface of the landing field gleamed vaguely beneath its starlit blanket, blending into the night, its distant border sharply outlined by a long, low row of boundary lights. Above my head the ponderous arc-light mechanism ground round and round in its unhurried course. The penetrating beam, like a thin saber of fire, flashed far out across the neighboring fields, gilding the high windows of Fort Crook barracks and the farmhouses on Bellevue Hill; while close behind hurried the cringing shadows. A mile to the east, under a thin rising mist, lay the broad Missouri, whose muddy waters, "too thin for a beverage, too thick for a drink," find their source in the faraway Rockies. From a grassy meadow out in the dark river bottom a tiny automatic beacon winked cheerfully, like a lost gleam at the bottom of a well, marking the air trail that leads eastward more than a thousand miles, to New York. THE SENIOR MAIL PILOT HAS FLOWN "Who's due in tonight?" I asked the beacon attendant, who had climbed up beside me on the narrow platform. REPAIRING A CASE CONTAINING A PARACHUTE AND FLARE Two flares are carried for possible use in forced landings at night. They have proved indispensable and have been the means of saving several pilots' lives, as well as often preventing much damage to equipment when landing on strange fields. PARACHUTE FLARES INSTALLED BENEATH THE FUSELAGE OF A NIGHT PLANE When the pilot is forced to make a landing, he pulls a lever in the cockpit which releases one of these flares. As it drops from the plane a trip opens the case, which releases the parachute (see page 14) and also ignites the slow-burning flare which illuminates the ground. ONE OF THE ROTATING BEACONS ALONG THE AIR MAIL ROUTE IN PENNSYLVANIA Such lights are placed on the summits of the razorback Allegheny Mountains as well as at the emergency fields in the intervening valleys. "E. Hamilton Lee," he replied, "senior pilot in the mail. I guess Lee has done more flying and had less crack-ups than any other pilot in the service. Flown over 300,000 miles with the mail, and not all of it, by any means, on starlit nights like this. "I remember one midnight last March when Lee brought the mail in from Chicago. The weather was off on a late winter spree and as dark as the inside of a cow. "Lee picked up the storm near the Mississippi, but kept poking along, hoping for better weather. A 'buckaroo' wind was blowing, as full of holes as a Swiss cheese, and Lee was up against the safety belt 'pulling leather' much of the time. When he'd turn on his landing lights, all he could see was snow and sleet streaming between his wings. "After a while he guessed he'd better 'sit down.' He kicked off a flare; but the can was slow dropping out and the parachute caught on his tail skid, under the fuselage. Still, it lit up a pasture enough, so he got down all right. "The longer he waited, the colder and wetter he got. Back he'd go 'upstairs' under a 200-foot ceiling, and hedge-hop along 20 miles or so, to the next emergency field. If we could have put through a telephone message, we would have ordered one of the field caretakers to flag. him down with a couple of red fusees; but the wires were all down with the sleet. "When still about 60 miles out, pitch dark and still storming, his motor quitand he had already dropped both parachute flares! Reaching down instinctively, he switched on the emergency tank of gas, and the engine picked up again. The air-pressure check valve had frozen, so he had to pump gasoline by hand the rest of the way in! A RECORD BOARD KEEPS TRACK OF PILOT "We'd given him up, when suddenly we heard his motor spitting and barking overhead and barely got the floodlight on before he was rolling up to the hangar, through slush a foot thick. A wetter, more disgusted pilot I never saw. You When a new pilot is being trained for a run, he trails the regular Mail plane on several trips, in order to become acquainted with the course, before he is entrusted with the mails. noticed that record board in Colyer's office, did you?" I recalled having seen in the Superintendent's office, at the foot of the beacon tower, a list of the main fields in the Central Division - Chicago, Iowa City, Omaha, North Platte-with the names of the pilots and numbers of the ships at each place, suspended from hooks, on cardboard plaques (see page 25). "Well, Lee plunked down, wet flying suit, parachute, and all, in a chair facing that board, and just stared at the wall, too tired and mad to talk. We hung around, scared to speak to him. "All at once he caught sight of the plaque with his name, still hanging in the Chicago list. By gosh, I'm in Omaha,' he cried, and darting up, snatched the card off the hook, moved it over two rows, and dropped back in the chair. "Then something about another plaque in the Chicago column caught his attention: '335,' it read, the number of the plane in which he had just fought for five hours through 430 miles of snow and sleet and darkness. This was the crowning indignity. 'What's more, I didn't walk, either!' he shouted, and, stalking back to the board, flipped off the offending card and hung it in its proper place under his name. "There comes Lee now," the attendant added. Straining my eyes in the direction indicated by his outstretched arm, I made out two tiny lights, like truant stars, slipping through the dark night along the shadowy bluffs, across the "Great Muddy." Below us, on the cement mat, the waiting group of mechanics sprang into sudden activity. Three formed a human chain before the relay plane, which stood by the hangar door, and at the sharp cry of "Contact!" lunged forward to drag the propeller through its arc, leaping aside as the metal blades caught up the light in a whirling disk and the 400-horsepower motor barked out its deep-toned assent. With a sputter and splash of flame, the great three-foot French floodlight at the base of the beacon tower flung its brilliant level blanket of light across the field, sparkling in the dew-laden grass and roll |