I knew I couldn’t sit there and circle all night. The snow was not abating. I had to do something. Finally I pulled off the beacon in a climbing spiral, headed off blind in what I thought was the direction of the next beacon—what I hoped it was!—and hoped to see it under me through the snow if I flew over it, and if not, to keep on going, blind, until I flew out of the mountains, the snow, or both.
I was lucky, flew right over it, saw dimly down beneath me through the driving snow the Bellefonte Airport boundary lights, spiraled down and landed.
Not five minutes later an air-mail ship came in from the same direction and landed. I asked the pilot how close he had come to the beacon I had been circling. He said he had flown right over it. Can you imagine what would have happened if I had still been sitting there circling that beacon when he came barging along through the snow right over it? He said he was flying on his instruments for the most part. He undoubtedly wouldn’t have seen me. I wouldn’t have seen him. Our meeting probably wouldn’t have been so pleasant!
[HE HAD WHAT IT TOOK]
Eddie Stinson, that colorful and beloved figure of American aviation, has gone West. But the many stories that cluster around his almost legendary name, live on.
Dick Blythe, the man who handled Lindbergh’s publicity just after Lindbergh’s return from Paris, tells me this one about Eddie. Eddie told it to him.
Eddie was working with a crowd that was representing the German Junkers plane in America. One of the things they were trying to do was sell it to the Post Office Department for use on the air-mail lines.
To attract attention to the superior performance of the ship Eddie decided to make a non-stop flight from Chicago to New York. He decided to fly straight over the Alleghanies.
Flying the Alleghanies is common nowadays, what with modern equipment, lighted airways, blind flying instruments and radio. But in those days it was a feat.