APOLOGYI was sitting alone in a movie not long ago. The newsreel came on. Jimmie Doolittle’s capable but impish face flashed upon the screen. Behind him was the fast, low-wing, all-metal Vultee plane in which he had just failed to better by more than a few minutes the Los Angeles—New York record for transport planes.“I’m sorry I didn’t make faster time,” his picture spoke. “I didn’t do justice to the ship I flew. I wandered off my course during the night and hit the coast 200 miles south of where I should have hit it. It was just another piece of bum piloting.”I saw Jimmie in Buffalo not long after that.“What was the matter, Jimmie?” I asked him, referring to the flight he had spoken about in the newsreel. “Were you on top of the stuff for a long time?” I continued, generously implying that of course he had had enough bad weather to force him to fly on top of the clouds and out of sight of land for so much of the trip that naturally he got off his course.“No,” he explained, “I wasn’t on top. I was in it for ten and a half hours. I couldn’t get on top because I picked up ice above sixteen thousand feet. I couldn’t go under for several reasons. I had high mountains to clear. I would have made even slower time and run out of gas before I got to New York if I had flown low, because my supercharged engine required 15,000 feet to develop its full power and its most efficient gas consumption. So I had to fly in it. Also I got mixed up on some radio beams. Some of them are stronger than others. I figured the strongest ones the closest, which wasn’t always true. I learned a lot on that trip. I think I could hit it on the nose the next time.”He was talking shop to a fellow professional. I could immediately see that 200 miles off under the conditions he had had to contend with had not been bad at all. I wouldn’t have blamed him if he had explained to the public a little more than he did. But when he said to them, without the shadow of an alibi, “It was just another piece of bum piloting,” I thought it was pretty swell.
APOLOGYI was sitting alone in a movie not long ago. The newsreel came on. Jimmie Doolittle’s capable but impish face flashed upon the screen. Behind him was the fast, low-wing, all-metal Vultee plane in which he had just failed to better by more than a few minutes the Los Angeles—New York record for transport planes.“I’m sorry I didn’t make faster time,” his picture spoke. “I didn’t do justice to the ship I flew. I wandered off my course during the night and hit the coast 200 miles south of where I should have hit it. It was just another piece of bum piloting.”I saw Jimmie in Buffalo not long after that.“What was the matter, Jimmie?” I asked him, referring to the flight he had spoken about in the newsreel. “Were you on top of the stuff for a long time?” I continued, generously implying that of course he had had enough bad weather to force him to fly on top of the clouds and out of sight of land for so much of the trip that naturally he got off his course.“No,” he explained, “I wasn’t on top. I was in it for ten and a half hours. I couldn’t get on top because I picked up ice above sixteen thousand feet. I couldn’t go under for several reasons. I had high mountains to clear. I would have made even slower time and run out of gas before I got to New York if I had flown low, because my supercharged engine required 15,000 feet to develop its full power and its most efficient gas consumption. So I had to fly in it. Also I got mixed up on some radio beams. Some of them are stronger than others. I figured the strongest ones the closest, which wasn’t always true. I learned a lot on that trip. I think I could hit it on the nose the next time.”He was talking shop to a fellow professional. I could immediately see that 200 miles off under the conditions he had had to contend with had not been bad at all. I wouldn’t have blamed him if he had explained to the public a little more than he did. But when he said to them, without the shadow of an alibi, “It was just another piece of bum piloting,” I thought it was pretty swell.
I was sitting alone in a movie not long ago. The newsreel came on. Jimmie Doolittle’s capable but impish face flashed upon the screen. Behind him was the fast, low-wing, all-metal Vultee plane in which he had just failed to better by more than a few minutes the Los Angeles—New York record for transport planes.
“I’m sorry I didn’t make faster time,” his picture spoke. “I didn’t do justice to the ship I flew. I wandered off my course during the night and hit the coast 200 miles south of where I should have hit it. It was just another piece of bum piloting.”
I saw Jimmie in Buffalo not long after that.
“What was the matter, Jimmie?” I asked him, referring to the flight he had spoken about in the newsreel. “Were you on top of the stuff for a long time?” I continued, generously implying that of course he had had enough bad weather to force him to fly on top of the clouds and out of sight of land for so much of the trip that naturally he got off his course.
“No,” he explained, “I wasn’t on top. I was in it for ten and a half hours. I couldn’t get on top because I picked up ice above sixteen thousand feet. I couldn’t go under for several reasons. I had high mountains to clear. I would have made even slower time and run out of gas before I got to New York if I had flown low, because my supercharged engine required 15,000 feet to develop its full power and its most efficient gas consumption. So I had to fly in it. Also I got mixed up on some radio beams. Some of them are stronger than others. I figured the strongest ones the closest, which wasn’t always true. I learned a lot on that trip. I think I could hit it on the nose the next time.”
He was talking shop to a fellow professional. I could immediately see that 200 miles off under the conditions he had had to contend with had not been bad at all. I wouldn’t have blamed him if he had explained to the public a little more than he did. But when he said to them, without the shadow of an alibi, “It was just another piece of bum piloting,” I thought it was pretty swell.