Aeronautics: 5F to Coco Solo

Six big twin-motored Navy flying boats skittered across the blue waters of Norfolk Harbor one afternoon last week, took off in perfect formation and bored south. Each was manned by two officers, four enlisted men. Each was completely equipped with machine guns and bomb racks. Around the airdrome there was much well-mannered excitement, but all that officials would admit was that Squadron 5F under Lieut.-Commander Donald M. Carpenter was flying to Panama— purely routine. Few hours later the Press, already excited by the naval mobilization in Cuban waters headlined: SIX NAVY PLANES ON MYSTERY HOP. Into the Naval Bureau of Aeronautics crackled their progress—over Pamlico Sound, passing the western tip of Cuba, over Grand Cayman. Not until Panama was the nearest land would the Bureau admit that Squadron 5F was out for the world’s record for a non-stop flight-in-formation. After 25 hr. of methodical flight, five of the 5F sextet swooped down on the naval base at Coco Solo, Canal Zone, 1,788 nautical miles from Norfolk—160 nautical miles better than Italo Balbo’s record hop with ten planes across the South Atlantic in 1931. One plane with engine trouble lagged 40 mi. behind. Around the Bureau of Aeronautics in Washington last week it was jubilantly hinted that Squadron 5F might be sent on a 3,000-mi. jaunt up the west coast to San Diego, Calif., might even go to Italy next year to return Italo Balbo’s recent call.