Aeronautics: Sentimental Journey

To frail, spindly, gentle Auguste Piccard, the stratosphere is not merely a remote layer of the atmosphere. It is an environment, a kingdom, a marvelous sea in which to swim; an Olympus from which to survey Earth’s glories. Last week for the second time Professor Piccard penetrated the stratosphere in a balloon. His purpose, as last year, was to study the cosmic rays. But his Shelleyesque spirit was that of a voyager revisiting a world which only he had explored.

The bushy-haired professor, who looks precisely like a cartoonist’s idea of a scientist, seems ready to pop with excitement as the balloon is being readied at Dubendorf Airdrome, Zurich. He has his long-awaited assurance of at least 18 hours of good weather. Not only must he be sure of fair skies to receive him. but also that no layer of clouds shall blind his descent. Now the great yellow cotton bag, of 14,000 cu. ft. capacity, is laid carer fully out on the field by 100 workmen, sweating under a blazing sun. The shroud lines which support the spherical aluminum gondola are straightened out with meticulous care. In the cool of night hydrogen is fed from cylinders into the envelope. In less than an hour the inflation is finished. The bag is one-fourth inflated, bulges at the top like a mushroom.

Now with his own hands Professor Piccard installs the escape valve rope which leads from the bag through a mercury chamber into the gondola. It was failure of that valve to function on last year’s flight that nearly cost the lives of the professor and Charles Kipfer, his assistant. Kipfer is there today helping, casting envious glances at youthful Max Cosyns, the new assistant. Kipfer’s parents forbade him to make the second flight. . . .

About 5 a. m. all is ready. Professor Piccard speaks briefly into a radio microphone. He salutes the crowd of 15.000. in which stands famed Dr. Hugo Eckener. He embraces his wife, his four eldest children. He follows Assistant Cosyns through the round manhole into the 7-ft. sphere. Cosyns immediately busies himself with his instruments, is not again seen by the crowd. But Professor Piccard thrusts his hairy head out the port, beckons to Mme Piccard. With a flourish he kisses her hand. He signals the ground-crew of 100 to cast off. Silently, easily the balloon rises. Professor Piccard laughs merrily, waves, cries: “Au revoir, Marianne! Au revoir, mes enfants! An ‘voir!” He swings the port to, is gone. . . . Within the aluminum globule Professor Piccard was almost grudging about the occasional attention he must give to his instruments. He wanted to be at one of the nine window ports, watching the earth drop away, watching the heavens em brace him. … He found time to jot eloquent notes of what he saw. Excerpts:*”5:34 a. m. Brilliant daylight floods all about us. My young friend Cosyns begins his experiments in connection with the cosmic rays. What are we to discover? We wonder.

“5:43 a. m. We have soared to a height of 5,248 ft. Lucerne and Rigi stretch magically beneath us, remote and beautiful in the radiance of this perfect day. . . . We are perspiring profusely. . . .

“6:15 a. m. The view is grandiose. It is almost beyond our conception. There is Glarnisch. And also below us are the Silberhorn and Eastern Alps which I, as a young mountaineer, climbed 15 years ago. Never, then, did I dream of this.

“6:17 a. m. The temperature has dropped to … about 39°. The gas in the balloon is expanding [decreased pressure]. . . . The balloon is now completely spherical. . . .

“8:42 a. m. And now we come in sight of the Obergurgl Glacier. What memories this brings back to me of last year’s ascent! . . . We came down then on that very sheet of ice which at this moment glistens before us. …

“11:10 a. m. We are sailing over the Engadine.

“11:50 a. m. We have only 20 sacks of ballast left. We decide the time has come … to descend. We shall make our landing in Italy.

” 12 Noon. At this instant we open a valve releasing hydrogen. . . .

“12:12 p. m. We have attained an altitude of 54,120 ft., or more than 10⅓ mi. All human records broken! Try to imagine our elation! It is very cold . . . 5° below zero. We are suffering intensely. . . .”

For the next four hours the balloon drifted slowly downward, at the same time describing a curve around the extreme north of Italy. Familiar with Italy’s surface, Professor Piccard discerned from 15,000 ft. the gleaming surface of finger-shaped Lake Garda, site of Italy’sseaplane school. For nearly two hours he hovered over the vicinity. Near Edolo, north of the lake, the balloon drifted so low it was prematurely reported down. Airplanes, fast motors, sped toward the spot. Colonel Mario Bernasconi, commander of the flying school, circled his seaplane around & around the balloon. Professor Piccard thrust open a port, joyfully waved his handkerchief. For a moment it looked as if the balloon would land in the water but it cleared the southern shore. Then it plunked down into a field near Desenzano, jolting its occupants and instruments into a tumbled heap. No damage beyond a dent in the gondola. Villagers and soldiers helped make the craft fast. . . .

Professor Piccard and Cosyns stepped out. Dizzied by the sudden change from freezing to blistering temperature, they staggered. Then they sat down, opened a can of peaches, munched bananas proffered by villagers.

With earliest interviewers Professor Piccard, weary and hungry, was brusque. “Too tired. Too tired. See me tomorrow.” But after eleven hours of sleep he was again the wispy, high-collared Marco Polo, bubbling over with tales of wonders. Said he:

“A visit to the stratosphere, which is a world apart, is delightful beyond description. . . . No storms, no ice, no snow. The temperature is always between 50° and 60° below zero Centigrade. The winds always blow horizontally when they blow at all. Consequently they will not affect future travelers, who, I believe, will be crossing from Paris to New York in six hours in the near future. . . . My emotional reactions make me feel sure of pleasures which are ahead for strato-tourists of the future.”

Even as Marco Polo would have boasted of the jewels he saw growing on trees, Professor Piccard told of the cosmic rays which bombarded his balloon “like rain on a tin roof” (see p. 22).

Motherly Mme Piccard soon arrived at Desenzano to join her husband. Plump-cheeked, spade-bearded General Italo Balbo, commander of Italy’s air force, himself flew the Piccards to Venice, offered a plane to whisk them back to Zurich.

Uphill

On the north-pointing finger of New-foundland, across from Harbor Grace, are two towns on the Trinity Bay shore: Heart’s Delight and Heart’s Content. Studying a map of the North Atlantic, Pilot James Allan (“Jim”) Mollison, 27-year-old Scot, reckoned that a flyer westbound from Europe on a certain course might first sight land at Heart’s Content. So he named his silver Puss Moth monoplane after that town—not, as some supposed, after his bride of three weeks, famed English Aviatrix Amy Johnson. One day last week Heart’s Content was droning over Heart’s Content, N. F. but brawny Pilot Mollison did not see the town. It was pitch dark. Moreover, he had other things to think about. He had been in the air some 20 hours since pulling his sturdy, overloaded little craft up from the beach at Portmarnock—the same beach on the east coast of Ireland whence Kingsford-Smith flew the Southern Cross to Harbor Grace two years ago. Captain Mollison had planned to land at Harbor Grace, refuel as quickly as possible, fly on to New York, snatch a minimum amount of rest, streak back via Harbor Grace to London, all within two and one-half days. Now he was precisely on his course, after some unpleasant groping in fog at sea. Heart’s Content’s four-cylinder engine was working like a jewelled watch. There seemed to be enough fuel. He would fly nonstop to New York. On he pressed, across St. John, past Halifax. . . . Then fog again swirled in, shrouding the rocky, coast. The fuel supply, now about 25 gal., ceased to look so large. Fatigue bore down upon Pilot Mollison, fatigue such as he had rarely known, even on his record flights from Australia to London and London to Cape Town (TIME, May 9). Back to New Brunswick turned Heart’s Content to land easily in a meadow 35 mi. from St. John, 30 mi. from Maine. Pilot Mollison offered no excuse for giving up except, “I was jolly well all in.” Already Capt. Mollison was twice distinguished by his 30 hr. flight. It was the first westward solo across the Atlantic (“uphill,” against prevailing winds) ; the first North Atlantic crossing in a light plane. He abandoned all thought of a hasty return flight, flew leisurely to Roosevelt Field, L. I., there to rest for a few days before heading back to England via Harbor Grace. A native of Glasgow, Pilot Mollison has been flying since he entered the Royal Air Force nine years ago at the age of 18. He attracted the attention of genial Charles Cheers Wakefield, Lord Wakefield, British oil tycoon, patron of aviation and speedboat racing, who backed his first two record flights. The African flight made Pilot Mollison definitely a national hero. Last week the London Press went wild with excitement. Raved the Daily Express: “Captain Mollison stands in the company of the great pioneers—Columbus, Yasco da Gama and Sir Francis Drake.”

Heroes

While a new transatlantic flyer flashed across the sky last week (see above) oldtime transatlantic flyers made less conspicuous news: Brock & Schlee— In Detroit friends of round-faced William S. Brock and lean Edward Frederick Schlee took steps to restore for exhibition the monoplane Pride of Detroit in which the team flew from Detroit to Tokyo exactly five years ago. Purpose: to raise funds for Pilot Brock who lies ill of cancer in Chicago. Pilot Schlee revealed that he had paid $2.700 for the “public banquet” tendered himself and Brock upon their return from Tokyo. Post & Gatty. At the White House President Hoover pinned Distinguished Flying Crosses to the lapels of Pilot Wiley Post and Navigator Harold Gatty.

Nonstop

In Kansas City Charles Hirsch, 16, matched his model airplane, on which he had worked 200 hours, against a model built by his friend David Dunleavy, 18. David’s plane circled prettily, made a three-point landing. Charles’s zoomed up, continued to climb, climb, climb. For an hour and a half Charles chased it across town until, a tiny speck in the sky, it vanished heavenward.

*Published exclusively by North American Newspaper Alliance.