“Oh, boy,” said Bert. “Wait until I get to New York and sink my teeth in a big, juicy steak. Honestly, I’m almost starved. Those sandwiches were just teasers.”
“How long before we’ll be in?” asked Harry, who likewise confessed that the lunch had not satisfied his hunger.
“Another hour,” replied Andy, who was back at the controls. “Next time we’ll bring a restaurant along. From the way you fellows complain someone might get the idea you’d been working this morning.”
Fifty-five minutes later they dipped over the National Airways field on the Jersey side and Andy nosed down to land. Blatz touched his arm.
“If Bert and Harry won’t starve for five more minutes,” he said, “I’d like to see New York from the air.”
“We’ll manage to hold out another few minutes,” conceded the hungry pair, and Andy headed the monoplane east across the Jersey flats.
They dipped a wing in salute as the Statue of Liberty was passed and climbed steeply as they approached the Battery. On up town they sped over the canyons between the skyscrapers where hurrying crowds of shoppers were thronging the streets. The Empire State’s gleaming tower was ahead, then beside, and then behind them. The Chrysler spire glittered in the sun and they looked down on the crowds in Times Square. Central Park was a fleeting panorama. Then they were over the Hudson, back to Jersey and sliding down out of the skyway with motor idling. They touched gently and rolled to a landing in front of the main control station where the number of their plane was taken and they were assigned to a hangar. Andy taxied the monoplane down the line to the No. 5 hangar where mechanics were ready to take it in charge.
“How did you like your aerial view of New York?” Andy asked Blatz.
“It was marvelous, breath-taking,” laughed the other. “In Europe we have no city to compare with it. Your buildings; they go into the clouds.”
“I’ll say,” replied Harry. “I’ve been on the Empire State tower when the clouds were so thick you couldn’t see the street.”